Gov. Carcieri speaking at the Massachusetts Family Institute banquet

Last Tuesday, Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri (R) vetoed a bill that would have added domestic partners to the list of people who are allowed to make funeral arrangements for each other. Now the Providence Journal reports that “a conciliatory” Governor Carcieri told a gay-rights group that he is willing to consider an “almost anything but marriage” domestic partnership law. Carcieri reportedly said this after meeting privately yesterday for more than an hour in his office with a representatives of Queer Action of Rhode Island. Carcieri reportedly cited the domestic partnerships law that won voter approval in Washington as a possible model:

“I don’t know enough, yet. All I am saying is I understand the circumstances. I understand the difficulties” that can arise for same-sex couples and others — such as widows living with widowers, and widows with other widows — outside the legal framework of a traditional marriage.

“Let’s see if we can find a way to solve that without discreet [pieces] of legislation every time something comes up. I just don’t think that is the right way to deal with it,” he said.

Following Carcieri’s veto, Queer Action issued a statement calling him a bigot and said that his repeated claims “that he does not discriminate against gay people” was proven to be a lie by his veto. Susan Heroux, spokesperson for Queer Action, said, “First, the governor raises money for an anti-gay hate group in another state, and now he proves that he is motivated more by bigotry than caring for his fellow citizens with this veto action.” Carcieri was the keynote speaker at a banquet for the Massachusetts Family Institute on October 15.

Heroux was pleased with the yesterday’s meeting with Gov. Carcieri. Also present at the meeting was Mark Goldberg, whose five-week battle with the Rhode Island Health Department to claim the body of his partner of 17 years from the state morgue, had sparked the legislation. The state refused to release the body despite all of the legal paperwork — wills, living wills, power of attorney and a marriage certificate from Massachusetts — that Goldberg had provided. Carcieri said he could not understand the Health Department’s handling of the case, and would ask his staff to look into it.

The bill to allow domestic partners to make funeral arrangements for each other passed the state house on a 63-1 vote, and passed the Senate unanimously. House and Senate leaders are considering an override of the governor’s veto.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

…Catholic Charities, the church’s social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington’s homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. City leaders said the church is not the dominant provider of any particular social service, but the church pointed out that it supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers.

Which means that the Catholic Church feels it is more important to discriminate against LGBT people than follow Jesus’ mandate to serve the poor. Go figure. City Council members appear unimpressed with that threat:

“If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes,” [City Council Member David] Catania said. He also said Catholic Charities was involved in only six of the 102 city-sponsored adoptions last year.

Ft. Worth City Council last night expanded the city’s non-discrimination ordinance to include transgender people by a 6-3 vote. City council also discussed a broader range of issues important to the LGBT community, including offering domestic-partner benefits and expanding the city health insurance plan to cover gender reassignment procedures, including sex changes. Discussions were contentious, both inside the packed hall and outside, where protesters from both sides had gathered. The Dallas Voice reports:

There were no arrests or major physical altercations, but there was plenty of taunting and some heated verbal exchanges. Participants from both sides later accused the other of elbowing and pushing, and one of the counterprotesters admitted to ripping a gay Pride flag.

Michael Otterson, managing director of the LDS Church's public affairs office, speaks during public debate supporting Salt Lake City's anti-discrimination ordinance.

Yes, you read that right:

Hours after the LDS Church announced its support Tuesday night of proposed Salt Lake City ordinances aimed at protecting gay and transgender residents from discrimination in housing and employment, the City Council unanimously approved the measures.

“The church supports these ordinances,” spokesman Michael Otterson told the council, “because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage.”

They also are consistent with Mormon teachings, he said. “I believe in a church that believes in human dignity, in treating people with respect even when we disagree — in fact, especially when we disagree.”

The Mormon church has come under withering criticism over its overwhelming support in passing California’s Proposition 8, which stripped LGBT couples in that state the right to marry. The LDS’s massive efforts have led some to dub Prop 8 “The Mormon Amendment.” In addition to overall criticism, that campaign also proved to be highly divisive within the church itself.

Last year in the wake of that criticism, LDS leaders said that they had no problem with non-marriage related protections for LGBT people. In August 2008, the church issued a statement titled “The Divine Institution of Marriage” in which church leaders claimed to support “rights regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.” That spawned the “Common Ground” initiative, which consisted of a set of LGBT protections based on the LDS statement. But the LDS church turned around and blocked every single proposal in the state legislature which they had earlier said they could support.

LGBT leaders in Salt Lake City hail last night’s vote as a historic step, and the result of several months of quiet, behind-the-scenes meetings with church leaders. But noting that four-fifths of Utah’s LGBT citizens live outside the city, they vow to reintroduce the Common Ground proposals in the state legislature again this year.

Why the sudden turnaround after the Common Ground initiative failed to even make it out of committee in the state legislature last year? There are a couple of possibilities. First, Salt Lake City is not a Mormon bastion as the rest of the state is. Many former LDS people who wrote in to BTB this morning believe that this ordinance would have passed without LDS support. After all, this is the same city that has already instituted a domestic partnership registry. So by coming out in support of this ordinance, the reasoning goes, the church is able to turn what would have been seen as a defeat into positive publicity.

Meanwhile, others speculate that Senate Majority Leader Harry Ried (D-NV) and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, both Mormons, may have played a hand. At any rate, the real test will be when the Common Ground initiative is brought back to the state legislature again next year.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the ordinances passed last night would:

• Forbid housing and employment discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity in Salt Lake City.
• Exempt religious organizations, businesses with fewer than 15 employees and some small landlords. (The exemptions mirror those in state and federal laws.)
• “Not create any special rights or privileges,” the ordinances state, because “every person has a sexual orientation and a gender identity.”
• Create a complaint and investigation process. The complaint could be resolved through mediation or a fine of up to $1,000.
• Not create a “private right of action” to sue over alleged discrimination.
• Require annual reports by the city’s Human Rights Commission on the effectiveness of the statutes.

Here is an abstract of the study, as published online by the journal Armed Forces and Society.

U.S. policy banning openly gay and lesbian personnel from serving in its military rests on the belief that heterosexual discomfort with lesbian and gay service members in an integrated environment would degrade unit cohesion and readiness. To inform this policy, data from a 2006 survey of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are analyzed in this study. Views of these war veterans are consistent with prior surveys of military personnel showing declining support for the policy: from about 75 percent in 1993 to 40 percent in this survey. Among the demographic and military experience variables analyzed, comfort level with lesbian and gay people was the strongest correlate of attitudes toward the ban. War veterans indicated that the strongest argument against the ban is that sexual orientation is unrelated to job performance and that the strongest argument in favor of the ban is a projected negative impact on unit cohesion. However, analyses of these war veterans’ ratings of unit cohesion and readiness revealed that knowing a gay or lesbian unit member is not uniquely associated with cohesion or readiness; instead, the quality of leaders, the quality of equipment, and the quality of training are the critical factors associated with unit cohesion and readiness.

As of 2006, attitudes were:

The study found that just 40 percent of the military members surveyed expressed support for the policy, while 28 percent opposed it and 33 percent were neutral—less support than seen in previous surveys.

About 20 percent of those polled said they were aware of a gay or lesbian member in their unit, and about half of those said their presence was well known. In addition, three-quarters of those surveyed said they felt comfortable or very comfortable in the presence of gays or lesbians, according to the study.

The survey sample included personnel from all service branches and from a mix of ranks and occupations. It was designed to reflect the views of soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of whom were still on active duty.

Which further supports my rhetorical question, if active service personnel don’t support this failed policy, than who (other than Elaine Donnelly and the Administration) does?

From the A/P

The nation’s largest doctors’ group has agreed to join efforts to repeal the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

The American Medical Association also voted to declare that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities for gay couples and their children.

They base their decision on the difficulties caused to both doctors and patients by these illogical policies and laws.

Already, I can hear anti-gay activists thinking:

Those wacky activist doctors trying to legislate from the, um, surgery room. What do they know about health, anyway? Vote, I say, let “the people” vote on what causes health disparities just like we vote on who gets civil rights.

When John Averosis at AmericaBlog contacted the DNC about the emails, he got the classic run-around. They first denied targeting Mainers to help with the New Jersey gubernatorial election, and then admitted that they lied about it.

This is just the latest in a long list of grievances and slights that have been building up since last November. That’s why several bloggers led by Avarosis and Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog are banding together for a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” campaign to urge doners to stop donating to the DNC:

It’s really more of a “pause,” than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends – President Obama and the Democratic party – who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.

So please sign the Petition and take a Pledge to no longer donate to the DNC, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends.

This was launched yesterday. I haven’t taken the pulse of the other contributors at BTB, so I can’t speak for them. But I support this wholeheartedly. One of the DNC’s most loyal constituencies — and among the most reliable sources for cash and sweat equity — has been taken for granted for far too long. The goals of the “pause” are pretty simple:

We are asking voters to pledge to withhold contributions to the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America, and the Obama campaign until the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is passed, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) is repealed, and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed -– all of which President Obama repeatedly promised to do if elected.

…Candidate Obama promised during the campaign to be the gay community’s “fierce advocate.” He and the Democratic party have not kept their promise.

Longtime LGBT activist David Mixner is on board with the boycott, along with Andy Towle, Michael Goff, Dan Savage, Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler, Paul Sousa, Bil Browning, Jane Hamsher and Michaelangelo Signorile. Interestingly, even the Human Rights Campaign appears to have tacitly endorsed the boycott, in an email response to David Dayen at Firedog Lake:

“Individual donors should always make their own careful assessments of how to spend limited political contributions. We all need to focus on the legislative priorities identified by AmericaBlog and with whatever tactic individuals decide to employ, the ultimate objective needs to be securing the votes we need to move our legislative agenda forward.”

You can sign the petition and take the pledge here, and you can spread the word to your friends and family here.

She listed some of her most rewarding accomplishments (CT Confidential):

She said she would remember efforts to bring increased health insurance coverage, ethics and campaign reform, expansion of higher education, investment in mass transit as well as improvements to the state police and the veterans home in Rocky Hill.

Rell said she will remember “the gay couple who hugged me at Stafford Motor Speedway after I signed the first in the nation voluntarily passed civil union bill. And all they said was thank you.”

Funerals of war veterans, her breast cancer, the people who saw her shopping at Marshall’s — this is what lingers, Gov. Rell said.

At the time of signing the civil unions bill she insisted that it include language defining a marriage as a man and a woman. However, when the Supreme Court found for marriage equality, she refused to fight the decision and signed the legislative bill that brought the law into compliance with the court’s decision.

Rell is a shining star of decency within the Republican Party and it will be diminished by her retirement.

Probably the most specifically significant to our community is the incorporation of the McDermott/Ros-Lehtinen bill to remove the special ‘gay couples tax’ on spousal benefits provided by an employer. Currently, heterosexual spousal benefits are provided tax free and employers may claim them as an operating expense, but same-sex spousal benefits are considered to be part of the employee’s taxable income. This can result in thousands of dollars of tax demanded from our government solely because the spouse of the taxpayer is the same sex. Removing this tax is a tremendous relief on gay taxpayers.

Also included are changes in treatment for HIV patients, heath data collection related to the LGBT community, new sex education rules, and non-discrimination language.

However, the bill, as passed by the House, also provides for a “public option”, or insurance provision by the federal government. This government run health care mechanism is by far the most controversial aspect of the bill. And, depending on where you fall on the right/left scale, you may well have strong arguments either for or against such a move.

But while I have opinions in general about the decision on the part of the government to compete in the world of service provision, that is not the point of this commentary. Rather, I wish to express specific concerns about how this effort may impact our community negatively.

First, I preface with an assumption that while the public option is being discussed almost as though it is a supplement to current insurance coverage, it is likely to be an immediately significant player in the healthcare world. Additionally, based on the current provisions in the law, I cannot see how it will not over time become more, rather than less, influential.

And, based on my understanding of government and its current track record, that gives me concern. Here are the specific reasons why:

Federal Privilege

The federal government does not apply to itself the rules that it readily applies to citizens or private industry. Although it may seem unfathomable that lawmakers would specifically exempt themselves from the burdens they place on you and me, this is quite often the case.

And the federal government does not fall subject to state laws in regards to employment and non-discrimination. So exceptions made for the federal competitor would be exempt from state law requirements.

Let me give you a real life example of how the federal government, even in the way it reacts with private industry, exempts its rules from state overview.

Currently, companies in states like California are required to offer to their gay employees the same benefits they offer to straight employees. However, due to federal ERISA rules, most big companies do so entirely at their own discretion.

Morrison and Foerster explains:

The May 15, 2008, California Supreme Court decision held that same-sex spouses must be treated the same as opposite-sex spouses for all purposes under California law. This applies to employers with California employees to the extent that California law applies generally to them. However, the majority of employee benefit programs maintained by non-governmental employers are governed by ERISA. ERISA broadly preempts state attempts to regulate the operation of employee benefits, and as a result, it does not appear that state law could require employers to modify their benefit plans to provide additional rights or benefits to married same-sex couples.

While Congress seems seldom reluctant to direct the actions of private business, it sees restrictions on the “people’s business” to be contrary to the best interest of the citizenry. That attitude is unlikely to change any time soon.

Federal Tax Dollars and Controversy

The healthcare reform bill passed with a very small margin. And essential to its passage was an amendment banning the use of federal dollars to pay for abortion services. Whether or not one approves of abortion, this vote tells us something important about the way in which the Public Option will be administered. The provision of controversial services will be subject to the political whims of whoever is in majority.

Issues such as abortion, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, sexual health information, HIV and AIDS care, HPV vaccination, and a host of other issues that are deemed “controversial” will be decided based not on medical need or even on what is best from a long-term health care perspective, but rather on political ideology.

More conservative lawmakers will, with conviction and determination, argue that it is unfair and un-American to tax the citizens in order to pay for things which they find abhorrent. Such as health services that reward sinners for their abominable behaviors.

Government Lag

When it comes to the provision of equality and decency to gay and lesbian employees, the private sector far outpaces the federal government. Currently, HRC has found that 99% of the employers they review provide employment protections on the basis of sexual orientation. The federal government does not.

The President has some leeway with which to assert protections for gay employees, but those change with each administration. And they do not apply broadly across all areas of the government.

In fact, in some areas of government – most particularly the military – private contractors, such as Halliburton, doing jobs identical to federal employees have orientation based protections against discrimination where their government counterparts may have official policies requiring discrimination. It is accurate to say that the only significant employer in the country with an anti-gay employment policy is the federal government.

And with poll after poll showing that large majorities of Americans support non-discrimination laws and open service in the Military, it is difficult to see the federal government on the forefront of protecting civil rights. When the voters in Kalamazoo, MI, have endorsed employment protections before the federal government, you know that there is a very significant lag.

Republican Antipathy and Democratic Apathy

There are segments within the Republican Party that, as a matter of policy, oppose any and all efforts to treat gay citizens equal to heterosexual citizens. And these segments have been so successful in their anti-gay efforts that they have made antipathy to our concerns a “Republican value”.

It is considered “pro-family” to actively seek out ways in which to discriminate against gay citizens and to make our lives difficult. These are not limited to “protecting the definition of marriage”, but often extend to bans on adoption, exclusion from public view such as public library offerings, and pretty much anything else they can think of.

Far too often, the unspoken answer that elected Republicans give to, “You are hurting my life”, seems to be, “Yes, that’s what I am intending to do.”

And while we can count on opposition from Republicans, we cannot count on the Democratic Party to come to our defense.

Recent actions taken by the party clearly illustrate to us that the Democratic Party leadership sees us as a secondary priority. Our equality will be considered only when it is convenient, incidental, and comes with no cost of political capital.

So we are a people at the mercy of the whims of political expediency. Within the federal government structure, our rights are frequently bargaining chips to be used in the negotiation of benefits for the real priorities of politicians and lobbyists.

So What Can We Expect?

Should the Senate go along with the establishment of a Public Option:

• A large segment of the healthcare industry will be moved outside of state and local protections. While Kaiser or Blue Cross may be subject to state law which disallows discrimination in employment, the Public Option likely will be exempt. Further, such spousal benefits as may be provided by private insurance companies will not be provided to the employees of the Public Option in accordance with DOMA.
• There is a good chance that the pro-gay provisions in the House bill will be removed during reconciliation with the Senate version of the bill.
• It is likely that Republicans may regain control of one of the houses of Congress in 2010. If not, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the House will have a majority of members, both Republican and Democrat, who are socially conservative and unlikely to support gay rights. If Republicans gain control, one item high on the agenda will be revision to this healthcare reform. It is reasonable to assume that anti-gay provisions will be proposed.
• Future exclusions from health care provisions are likely to include limitations if not and outright ban on “federal tax dollars” spent on (i.e. the Public Option providing healthcare for):

  HPV vaccination for boys
  Gay specific preventative health care
  Sexual health programs which include mention of same-sex health
  Health data collection for the LGBT community
  Policies which include same-sex spouses/partners in health decisions

• And I do not think it beyond possibility that an administration of someone like Mike Huckabee would be pro-active in “preventing the spread of HIV” or in denying services to someone they deem to have “taken deliberate risks”. And should some new “gay plague” come down the road, I am not confident that any administration would not respond with punishment before care.

I hope that my concerns are overblown. I hope that I am just being reactionary. I hope that the federal government will not seek under any administration to advance conservative social policy by means of meddling in the health provisions of a significant segment of the population.

But in the midst of the euphoria that much of our community is expressing over the Public Option provision of healthcare reform, I hope that we can consider the possibilities that can arise and recognize the risks that are inherent in a federal government run health company.

Approve: 573,698 — 51.82%
Reject: 533,488 — 48.18 %

According to the Seattle Times, about 600,000 ballots remain uncounted, with about half of them from King County (Seattle), where Referendum 71 is winning by a 2-1 margin.