Wyoming’s latest opportunity to prove that it’s state motto is even partially true has dissolved.
The “Equality State” has rejected even domestic partnerships for same-sex partners after bringing it to the House floor yesterday. From the Casper Star-Tribune:
Seal of Wyoming (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Wyoming House has shot down a bill that would have allowed same-sex couples to create domestic partnerships carrying most of the legal rights of conventional marriage.
The House voted 35-to-24 against the bill. It marked the first time that pro-gay legislation reached a full floor debate in the state Legislature.
Proponents of the bill said that it would grant same-sex couples as well as other citizens a way to share their property and make health care decisions for each other.
Opponents warned that the bill threatened to open the state to legal action seeking to force it to approve same-sex marriage.
A separate bill cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. That bill now heads to the full Senate.
Wyoming, the state where Matthew Shepard was tragically murdered- now has an opportunity to outlaw discrimination. I will be delighted to see it happen- but it doesn’t seem very likely at this point.
Sad. If I were a Wyoming legislator, I’d introduce a bill to change the motto to “The Inequality State”.
If you are in a committed relationship with a same-sex partner and you have experienced difficulties (tax problems, pension issues, problems related to caring for children or making medical decisions for your family, or any other types of difficulties) because your relationship isn’t legally recognized, please e-mail me at niniab@aclumontana.org.From Joe My God:
English: Great Seal of the State of Colorado (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On Wednesday the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee will begin hearings on a proposed civil unions bill.
Senate Bill 11 would “authorize any 2 unmarried adults, regardless of gender, to enter into a civil union.” Last year, the Colorado House failed to vote on a civil union bill before the end of a special session of the legislature. This legislative session, democrats control the majority in the House and Senate. House Speaker Mark Ferrandino (D – Denver) says he would like to have a civil unions bill on Governor Hickenlooper’s desk by Valentine’s Day but has acknowledge it may take more time to get the bill through both chambers.
Hot on the heels of Washington marriage equality, and with Wyoming considering marriage equality (and a civil unions bill), looks like the west may be getting more savvy.
To put it lightly, Montana’s legislature has not been exactly progressive on LGBT issues. In fact, as far as I can tell, there has never been a pro-LGBT law that has EVER passed the legislature to be signed in to law.
With a bright shiny new legislature sworn in and a Democrat holding on to the governor’s office, is it possible that 2013 will be the first legislative victory for LGBT people in Montana?
As many folks know, here in Montana we still have a law on the books declaring that homosexual acts are a form of criminal behavior. While this law has been struck down by the courts, the law has remained on the books, despite the fact that it has been unenforceable for nearly 2 decades.
During the 2011 session, a bill to remove this language from the books actually passed the Senate, and received a majority of votes in the House, but because it had to be “blasted” out of the disastrous House Judiciary Committee it required 60 votes, which it didn’t receive.
With Democrats picking up 7 seats in the House, along with one or two clearly equality-minded Republicans being elected, it seems that if the bill can pass the House Judiciary committee it’ll almost certainly pass into law, and even if House Judiciary tables the bill, there is still a decent chance it would receive the 60 votes necessary to be blasted out of that committee.
While, I don’t want to count chickens before they’re hatched, but it appears that the bill is poised to pass the Senate again easily, so I’m going to focus on the House. Judging from past votes, sponsorships or statements, here is how I see the current vote break-down on the issue in the House:
“Yes” votes: 45
B. Bennett, Boland, Brockie, Calf Boss Ribs, Clark, Coffin, Court, Curtis, Dudik, Eck, Fitzpatrick, Gibson, Gursky, Hill, Hollenbaugh, Hoven, Hunter, Jacobson, Lieser, Lynch, McCarthy, Neill, Peppers, MacDonald, McChesney, McClafferty, McNally, Mehlhoff, Miller, Noonan, Pease-Lopez, Pierson, Pomnichowski, Price, Schreiner, Schwaderer, B. Smith, Squires, Steenberg, Swanson, Whitford, Williams, Wilmer, Wilson, Woods
Likely “Yes” votes: 8
Ankney, Connell, Cook, Cuffe, Greef, Knudsen, Lavin, Welborn
“No” votes: 27
Bangerter, G. Bennett, Berry, Blasdel, Blyton, Brodehl, Edmunds, Ehli, Flynn, Hansen, Harris, Hollandsworth, Howard, Ingraham, Kary, Kerns, McNiven, O’Hara, O’Neil, Osmundson, Randall, Regier, Reichner, C. Smith, Vance, Warburton, Washburn
Likely “No” votes: 5
Doane, Fiscus, Laszloffy, K. White, Wagoner
Unclear: 15
Ballance, Galt, Glimm, Hagan, Hagstrom, Halvorson, Hertz, D. Jones, Lang, Lenz, D. Moore, Redfield, Salomon, Shaw, Zolnikov
Organizations such as the Human Rights Network and the Montana ACLU will be working hard all session long to get as many votes as possible for this bill. You can help by contacting the legislators that are in the “Unclear” category, or in the “Likely Yes” category to urge them to remove the stain of this law from our books.
Removing this law from our books would be a small victory, but it is a victory nonetheless and it is a good way to get wavering legislators to get a pro-equality vote under their belt.
Leaders from two of the nation’s largest gay rights funders will help raise money for students and organizations in Montana at a fundraiser at Corby Skinner’s historic “Castle” on Friday, January 25 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Kris Hermanns, the Executive Director of the Pride Foundation, and Tim Sweeney, CEO and President of the Gill Foundation, will speak about the state of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality movement in Montana and the impact of recent marriage equality wins in the region.
Sweeney, a Billings native and graduate of the University of Montana, joined the Gill Foundation as executive director in October 2007, bringing three decades of leadership experience in the movement to advance equality for all Americans. Prior to joining Gill Foundation, Sweeney worked to build national efforts to support the rights of lesbian and gay couples to civil marriage and provided support for organizations implementing a California law that safeguards the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.
From 1986 to 1993, Sweeney led the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, helping to build the largest community-based HIV/AIDS service, prevention, and advocacy organization in the world. Under his leadership, the organization formed a national coalition to press Washington to pass antidiscrimination legislation. Working with allies, they secured passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Ryan White Care Act.
Hermanns is a self-described “country girl” from rural Wisconsin, with nearly two decades’ experience and expertise as a program manager, fundraiser, and nonprofit administrator. Before joining Pride Foundation last year, she was the deputy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Prior to that, she was a program officer with The Rhode Island Foundation, where she created Equity Action, a field-of-interest fund for LGBTQ concerns, and developed the grantmaking program for the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island. Hermanns earned a master’s degree from Harvard University and a B.A. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to her professional work, Kris served on the board of directors of Funders for LGBTQ Issues and is a partial owner of the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League.
Skinner, a Pride Foundation volunteer, will provide appetizers and beverages in the “Castle,” located at 622 N. 29th St. The event is free, but donations to support Pride Foundation’s grants and scholarships in Montana are encouraged.
Seattle-based Pride Foundation has made a big splash in Montana since hiring on-the-ground staff two years ago. There are now six times as many donors in the state, and an active statewide board that includes Shelley Hayes of the Billings Clinic and Aaron Browning, principal at Hilltop Public Solutions. Last month, Pride Foundation awarded $23,000 in grant funds to ten Montana organizations, including Billings-based Yellowstone AIDS Project and TAP 365.
According to Montana Regional Development Organizer Caitlin Copple, Montana is part of a larger national trend toward greater acceptance of people, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.
“From the inclusive non-discrimination ordinances in Missoula and Helena to the increase in the number of high school Gay-Straight Alliances around the state to the changes in both the Republican and Democratic Party platforms, Montana is rapidly becoming a friendlier place for gays and lesbians,” Copple said. “Most importantly, more of our heterosexual family, friends, and colleagues are also ‘coming out’ as supporters of full equality for all Montanans.”
Founded in 1985, Pride Foundation is dedicated to inspiring a culture of generosity to connect and strengthen organizations, leaders, and students who are creating LGBTQ equality across the Northwest states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. To learn more, visit www.pridefoundation.org or email Caitlin@pridefoundation.org.
Probably the sweetest thing I’ve read in a long time comes from yesterday’s Oregonian:
Eric Marcoux, right, and Eugene Woodworth have been a couple for almost 60 years.
Photo:Ross William Hamilton/The Oregonian
Eric Marcoux and Eugene Woodworth will celebrate 60 years together on June 13.
The couple met in Chicago in 1953. Woodworth was a ballet dancer, and Marcoux was just leaving a Trappist monastery.
Marcoux, 82, and Woodworth, 84, participate in Friendly House’s Gay and Grey program, and Marcoux has been a Buddhist teacher for 23 years.
The Oregonian caught up with the couple in their Northwest Portland home, which they share with their macaw, Big Bird, to learn their secrets to a healthy and happy partnership.
And if you know anybody at Starbucks- this couple deserves free lattes for life.
Today, the country bid a not-so-fond farewell to the 112th Congress (including Denny Rehberg), and swore in the new 113th Congress with Steve Daines.
What was the first thing this shiny new Congress did?
Well, Daines, who ran on a “more jobs, less government” platform, cast one of his first votes in favor of the House continuing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) which denies hundreds of benefits to legally married same-sex couples.
Apparently when Daines said “more jobs” he meant “more jobs for lawyers defending blatantly unconstitutional archaic laws.”
DOMA is the Clinton-era law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions. This law denies benefits to the same-sex partners of military members killed while fighting for our country. It also prohibits the federal government from recognizing bi-national same-sex couples in immigration cases, which has led to several high-profile deportations. It also refuses to acknowledge same-sex spouses in relation to Social Security survivor benefits.
This law is clearly unconstitutional, which is why in early 2011 the Obama administration’s Department of Justice announced they would no longer defend the law. Our illustrious House members though chose to pick up the torch of bigotry and continued to defend the law at the taxpayer’s expense. Thus far, Steve Daines, John Boehner and the Republicans in the House have spent more than $1.7 million defending this law.
The latest expenditure in support of DOMA was actually buried within the House of Representative rules that the new Congress approved today. Generally these rules simply lay out the process for how the House will run. To bury an appropriation inside this bill is an unprecedented abuse of the process.
This is just the latest example of the clear hypocrisy of Daines and his tea party colleagues advocating for smaller government except for when they don’t.
DOMA, ruled as unconstitutional ten different times in seven different cases, will face the US Supreme Court later this year.
peace love joy (Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews)
Back in March, I wrote a piece about the Pope speaking to American bishops about the need for a culture war about marriage equality- and we got one. The Catholic Church was the largest single contributor (through the Bishop’s Conference, the Knights of Columbus and the National Organization For Marriage) against marriage equality initiatives in four states.
They lost.
Kind of makes you wonder what kind of help those millions of dollars would have given the poor if they hadn’t been so horribly directed against love.
Anyway, I ended that essay with with an open letter to LGBTIQ persons who live every day in the face of moral attack, physical violence and angry, ignorant, powerful people. We may have come a long way this year, but we’re not there yet.
So- if I may be so bold- I’d like to reprint the letter as a reminder that we need to find inspiration in ourselves. We need to remember that in the face of ignorance, we must continually speak the quiet, powerful truth of purpose and experience.
And I need to be reminded just as much as anybody else.
To my LGBTIQ family,
Love toward yourself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is important and necessary to insist on respect for your own right to life. I believe you were created to fill a very important place in this world- a place often dramatically misunderstood and opposed by people out of ignorance and fear.
It is crucial that you understand that you are not alone- there are millions of people who want to understand you and accept you and who will love you. You have the right to be understood- and you have the right to love and be loved in the ways you feel are most faithful to your created nature.
You have the right to live free from fear of attack and violence. You have the right to defend yourself against ignorant attacks on your dignity, happiness and self-respect. You have the right to fulfill your potential and to follow your heart and mind and soul and dreams to the best of your ability. Despite ignorance, despite persecution, despite fear and power and hate.
I believe that we are all beloved by the God of our understanding. I believe that we are valuable in being beloved. And that value is not diminished, even in the face of anger, fear and ignorance. Even in the face of religious belief which would deny us that value.
We are a courageous, wonderful people, with visions of love and acceptance and equality and happiness that I believe are deeply important to the future of the world.
I beg you, don’t let go of these visions- no matter how strongly others try to pull them away from you. They are your birthright.
They are the key hope to a world filled with peace.
Amen.
Justices reverse dismissal of case by the district court and allow litigation to proceed
(Photo credit: vociferous.)
HELENA, MT — The ACLU and plaintiffs, six loving, committed same-sex couples, will move forward with efforts to secure domestic partnership protections in light of a Montana Supreme Court decision, which in part granted their appeal in Donaldson and Guggenheim v. State of Montana from a dismissal of the case by the district court.
Though the court denied the plaintiffs’ initial appeal as too broad, the justices said the ACLU could move forward with more narrowly tailored efforts to secure equal treatment for same-sex couples in the state.
“Three of the justices said they would have granted same-sex couples recognition as domestic partners now. The majority also made clear that the decision to remand the case for additional proceedings in the lower court was based on technical issues, not on the substance of our argument that the Montana Constitution mandates equal treatment of all people,” said ACLU of Montana Legal Director Jon Ellingson. “They said that while we could not challenge the omission of same-sex couples from all of the statutes involving the rights of married couples in one case, we can challenge those statutes individually. We plan to do just that.”
The opinion states: “It is this Court’s opinion that Plaintiffs should be given the opportunity, if they choose to take it, to amend the complaint and to refine and specify the general constitutional challenges they have proffered.”
“We’re encouraged by the decision because the justices said that we could pursue the protections we are seeking,” said Mary Leslie, who lives with her partner, Stacey Haugland in Bozeman. “Legal protection is essential, not just for our families, but for all same-sex couples. We won’t stop until every loving couple is treated fairly.” Leslie lost her home because she was ineligible for worker’s compensation death benefits when her partner was killed in an accident. Another plaintiff, Denise Boettcher of Laurel, was denied bereavement leave when her partner Kellie Gibson’s father died.
In his dissent from the majority, Justice James Nelson wrote that same-sex couples should be given full protection now, saying the case, “concerns the right of committed intimate same-sex couples to receive the same civil protections which the State makes available to committed intimate different-sex couples. Plaintiffs assert, and rightly so, that their government may not single out unpopular groups for disfavored treatment, as the State of Montana has done here… I have never disagreed more strongly with the Court as I do in this case. With due respect, I believe today’s decision… wrongly deprives an abused minority their civil rights.”
Nearly 1,500 Montanans and more than 100 Montana-owned businesses have signed on in support of domestic partnerships, and more are signing on each day. Sixty-six Montana religious leaders signed onto an amicus brief supporting the ACLU’s appeal. Even more clergy signed a statement supporting the rights of same-sex couples.
“Montanans believe all their neighbors deserve dignity and respect,” said Rev. Marc Stewart, a Montana/Northern Wyoming United Church of Christ Conference Minister. “We believe that loving, committed couples should be able to fully live their own lives and have the protection of the state.”
Plaintiffs in the case are Mary Anne Guggenheim and Jan Donaldson of Helena, Stacey Haugland and Mary Leslie of Bozeman, Mike Long and Rich Parker of Bozeman, MJ Williams and Nancy Owens of Basin, Rick Wagner and Gary Stallings of Butte and Denise Boettcher and Kellie Gibson of Laurel. All say they will continue working with the ACLU to pursue legal recognition of their lifelong commitments to each other.
In addition to Ellingson, the couples are represented by Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project; James Goetz and Ben Alke of Goetz, Gallik & Baldwin P.C.; Betsy Griffing; and Ruth Borenstein and Neil Perry of the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP.
Additional information about the case can be found at http://www.aclumontana.org and http://www.aclu.org/mtpartnerships.
From Eternity To Here 