Voices of Faith: Taking on bigotry

From Susan Russell at the HuffPo: 

 There is a critical difference between feeling discriminated against because you're disagreed with and being discriminated against because of who you are.  

 And there is a critical difference between people who feel that their marriage is being threatened if the lesbian couple next door can get married and the lesbian couple next door whose marriage is being threatened by ballot initiatives taking away their fundamental right to marriage, by a governor vetoing marriage equality passed by their elected representatives, and by a "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) that denies them 1,138 federally protected rights that their next door neighbors claimed the moment they said "I do." .... 

 As a priest and pastor I am very clear that the First Amendment protects my right to decide for myself whom God blesses or doesn't bless. I am equally clear that it does not protect my right to decide for myself whom the Constitution protects or doesn't protect. And so if we're going to be that nation "with liberty and justice for all" to which we teach our kids to pledge allegiance, we need to get religion-based bias out of the civil marriage debate once and for all. And then we need to work together to become the nation we were conceived in liberty to be -- by overcoming bigotry and by choosing equality.  

 And to overcome it, we have to name it. The defense rests.

Rhode Island Gov: GLBT have no rights to plan partner's funeral

From the Advocate:

Gov. Don Carcieri vetoed legislation Tuesday that would have given same-sex couples in Rhode Island the right to plan funerals for deceased partners.

The socially conservative Republican said the proposed protection represents a “disturbing trend” of the incremental erosion of heterosexual marriage, reports the Associated Press. Rhode Island does not recognize same-sex marriage.

The mind boggles, doesn't it? Because obviously, letting a grief-stricken partner take care of their loved one's arrangements is a chink in the door of HUMAN DECENCY and we can't have that, now, can we?

From the Boston Edge:

[RI] State Rep. David Segal (D-Providence) said the bill "would have let domestic partners claim the bodies of their deceased partners, and arrange funerals for them."

Segal noted the funeral planning bill was supported by the overwhelming majority of members of the Assembly who oppose marriage for gays and lesbians It passed by a vote of 63-1. And Segal expressed outrage over Carcieri’s veto.

"This bitter, cruel, pathetic man is grossly unworthy of the esteem the people of Rhode Island have bestowed upon him," Segal wrote in a blog post on Rhode Island’s Future.

Carcieri has a contentious history with Rhode Island’s LGBT activists. The Governor was widely condemned for his appearance at a Massachusetts Family Institute fundraiser last month. The governor told the 300 attendees he believed marriage was "not a civil right.".....

A statement on MFI’s Web site describes homosexuality as "an unhealthy practice and destructive to individuals, families and society." The organization also maintains gays and lesbians can be cured through prayer.

Update this veto was overridden in January 2010.