Culhane: Pawlenty throws gays under the bus
OK, maybe it’s just because I’ve taught Torts for so long, but an apparently minor development out of Minnesota really has me irked.
First, consider these two stories:
(1) A California woman is mauled to death by vicious dogs, under circumstances so horrific that the owner is convicted of second-degree murder. Her surviving same-sex partner sues under the state’s wrongful death law. Under a strict reading of the statute, she would lose because she doesn’t have “standing” to sue – unlike the deceased woman’s mother, who does have such standing, even though her actual financial and emotional losses are much less. Yet the court allows the claim to proceed anyway, and she collects a large settlement.
(2) A New York couple enters into a civil union in Vermont. Later, one of the men dies because of alleged medical malpractice. Instead of contesting the merits of the suit, the hospital moves to dismiss the claim because the surviving “spouse” isn’t a spouse at all – the civil union doesn’t count. A trial judge allows the case to proceed, but the appellate court holds that the case should have been dismissed.
Since those cases were decided, the laws in both New York and California have been changed to allow “registered” same-sex couples to bring their claims – not necessarily to recover, simply to have the right to try to establish their losses.
These developments had no effect on Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has just vetoed a bill that would have given surviving members of same-sex couples the right to make decisions about the remains of their partners and the right to sue in wrongful death for negligent acts that resulted in their partners’ demise.
When Pawlenty gave as the reason for his veto that the law was unnecessary because same-sex couples can protect themselves by executing living wills, he was flat wrong – at least as to the wrongful death part of the law.
Some quick background on wrongful death law (more than you’d probably ever want to know): These state laws are designed to provide the survivor with what he or she would have been expected to receive from the deceased: In most states, including Minnesota, damages can include some of the income that the deceased would have been expected to earn (whatever the survivor could have been expected to receive), as well as the loss of emotional support and companionship.
So what’s the problem for same-sex couples? Unlike most of tort law, suits for wrongful death are based not on judge-made (common) law, but on statutes that clearly define who’s eligible to recover. And most of the statutes continue to restrict recovery to certain named classes of survivors: In Minnesota, which is fairly typical in this regard, that’s limited to spouses and “next of kin.”
So why and how did judges in California and New York hold to the contrary? By looking to the purpose of the law, which is to compensate based on real loss, and to make sure that bad conduct is deterred. Since the strict categorical requirements of wrongful death laws frustrate those purposes, judges are tempted to “get creative.”
Given the purposes of the law and what the California judge called the “insurmountable obstacle” that gay and lesbian couples face in these cases – you can’t contract around a statute – why the veto?
Here’s a thought: Pawlenty wants to be President, and has to burnish his social conservative credentials first. So everything becomes a threat, suddenly, to “traditional marriage” – however tangential the message on marriage, and however real the costs to actual people.
Here are a few questions I’d like to ask Gov. Pawlenty.. I’m going to send them to his office (unless a reader living in Minnesota would like to!), but I don’t expect an answer.
“Governor, under the law as it now stands, a murderer would owe nothing to the surviving member of a same-sex couple, even if the deceased provided most of the support for that survivor. Can you explain and justify the policy that permits this result?”
“The result of these statutes is so unfair that judges in other states have ignored their language and looked to the purpose of the law in allowing these claims. Why not simply amend the law to better reflect the compensatory and deterrent purposes of wrongful death law?
“What advice would you give to same-sex couples to protect themselves against this result?
“If the same-sex couple had adopted a child, that child’s future prospects could be negatively and even dramatically affected by her surviving parent’s inability to recover for wrongful death. Why should that child be differently affected than the child of an otherwise identical opposite-sex couple?
“You described the law as “divisive.” Can you explain why this law is any more divisive than the one you signed last year, that prevented jointly owned homes from being sold to pay medical bills when one partner dies?”
Politicians in the Pawlenty mode continue to throw us under both the express and the local bus: Marriage and the puny but necessary baby steps that are necessitated by intransigence on full equality. We must hold him accountable, now and if he seeks the Presidency.
John Culhane is Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law Institute at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. He blogs about the role of law in everyday life, and about a bunch of other things (LGBT rights, public health, sports, pop culture, music philosophy and lots of personal stuff) at: http://wordinedgewise.org. A fuller bio can be found here. He can be reached via email at: johnculhane@comcast.net.
President Obama to Bestow Presidential Medal of Freedom on Harvey Milk
San Francisco – Today President Obama announced that he will honor assassinated civil rights leader Harvey Milk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor recognizing significant contributions to the nation and the world. The President will also honor Senator Edward Kennedy and tennis legend Billie Jean King, an open lesbian and longtime champion for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, with the Medal of Freedom on August 12.
Last year, EQCA sponsored the first bill in the country to officially honor Milk, the nation’s first openly gay man elected to major political office, but the Governor vetoed it. Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced the Harvey Milk Day bill, sponsored by EQCA, again this year. The legislation would require the governor to annually proclaim May 22 as Harvey Milk Day, designating it as a “day of special significance,” to recognize Milk’s work to secure equal protections.
Equality California (EQCA) is the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender-rights advocacy organization in California. In the past decade, EQCA has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited legal protections for LGBT individuals to a state with some of the most comprehensive civil-rights protections in the nation. EQCA has passed over 50 pieces of legislation and continues to advance equality through legislative advocacy, public education and community empowerment. www.eqca.org
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/president-oba…
Our Genders, Our Rights
NEW YORK, NY - – - The Issues Magazine launched “Our Genders, Our Rights,” its Summer 2009 edition. A unique combination of articles, poetry, art and videos focus on a topic that is both utterly fundamental and wildly revolutionary: gender norms and gender identity.
Top writers discuss sex-selection abortion, gender expression, “Intersex” self-identification and a first-hand account of forced sex roles inside a polygamist compound in Texas.
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Merle Hoffman’s editorial, “Selecting The Same Sex,” provides philosophical and personal insights into the issue of sex-selection abortion.
“There is one place where the definition of gender remains binary — in the womb. When it comes to sonograms, amniocentesis and standard pre-natal testing, there are no nuances. Here, the pronouncement, ‘It’s a girl,’ can translate into fierce and instant parental rejection. The fact is that when the issue is ‘sex selection abortion,’ the same sex is always being selected — female.” For Hoffman, this issue highlights questions of ethics, human rights and the moral autonomy of women.
“It’s about separating the chooser from the choice,” writes Hoffman.
In “Busting Bogus Biology and Beliefs” Mahin Hassibi notes: “For centuries, social constructs held that women owed allegiance and obedience to their husbands; children were the property of their fathers, who owned the children’s mothers.” Today, Hassibi says, discoveries in biology and reproductive technology may soon trump historical and cultural restrictions that wrongly limited women’s lives.
“My children would have undoubtedly been among the 439 seized in the raid,” writes Carolyn Jessop of the sweep through the polygamist compound. In, “American Taliban: Sect Controls Women’s Destinies,” Jessop gives an inside view of the abuse, misogyny and control of women’s bodies that continues today.
Writers also plunge into transgender concerns. “Asylum Pitfalls May Await the Transgender Applicant” by Victoria Neilson discusses the difficult process for trans applicants in the U.S. Eleanor Bader’s “Trans Health Care Is a Life and Death Matter” describes a pioneering feminist health program for trans patients in the South.
Photographic performer Tammy Rae Carland visualizes gender fluidity as the featured artist, and art editor Linda Stein conducts an interview with Elizabeth Sackler, whose passion for feminist art resulted in a new center at the Brooklyn Museum.
ABOUT US
On The Issues Magazine (www.ontheissuesmagazine.com) is a progressive, feminist, quarterly online magazine. Read more at the site — free and with archives from 1983. Merle Hoffman is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/our-genders-o…
Homosexual Haitian Migrants Focus of UA Doctoral Student’s Research
Erin Durban spent time in Haiti last year initiating her field research about individuals who immigrate to the United States. While there, she worked to immerse herself in the culture, which included learning about vévé, religious symbols used during rituals, from a Haitian vodou priest, Edouard Glissant.
Erin Durban, center, is making her second trip to Haiti to learn about the decisions homosexual Haitians make in immigrating to the United States, but then opting to return to their home country.
Erin Durban, a doctoral degree candidate in the UA’s gender and women’s studies department, will travel to Haiti to study the decisions homosexual Haitians migrants make when they leave for the U.S. but then return home.
As an undergraduate in Denver, Erin Durban began to study the conditions of Haitian immigrants and ways the United States has been embroiled in the history of the country.
Now a University of Arizona doctoral degree candidate in gender and women’s studies, Durban is studying the immigration of “queer-identified” Haitians who choose to leave for the United States, but then opt to return home.
Perplexing to Durban is the idea that the United States has a reputation for offering “more liberated spaces” to people around the world seeking asylum – whether for political, economic, religious reasons or because of sexual orientation – and yet certain populations of Haitians decide to return to a county that has offers little protection against sex-based discrimination.
Durban, whose research interests are in sexuality, migration and cultural studies as well as social and economic justice, said she is interested in studying way Haitians interpret the relationship between the United States and Haiti within the context of what is defined as “home.”
She recently received a Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute grant for her project, “Desire to Return, Desire to Leave: Investigating Queer Haitian Migration.” The institute, which operates out of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, promotes research in the college.
The project will take her later this month to the country of more than 9 million inhabitants, where she will spend several weeks conducting research in Jacmel and Port-au-Prince to better understand the complexities association with the migration of Haitians who are homosexual.
Her investigation, she said, may also help to shed more light on the ways in which economic, political and social interactions and pressures influence certain people.
One challenge she’ll face is the limited amount of information about homosexuals in Haitians, said Durban, who intends to publish an article about her research and incorporate her findings into her dissertation.
“Surprisingly, there is not a lot of research about queer migration in Haiti,” Durban said, noting that of existing literature and documentaries, most tend to focus on gay men or the vodou, or voodoo, religion, which tends to be more accepting of homosexuals.
The focus, too, tends to be on the turmoil in Haiti, considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Durban’s interest in these issues was heighted about five years ago with the announcement of the United Nations’ Stabilization Mission in Haiti, a mandate established in response to armed opposition in the country. The United States is among the countries offering military and police personnel in the effort.
“Everywhere I went it seemed I was hearing about Haiti and I found it very strange that here is this place that is really close that no one ever really talks about,” she said. “But when they do, all we ever hear about is corruption, violence and disease.”
Durban said it is important to understand – outside of the typical contexts of violence and poverty – how gender and sexuality are shaping the experience of migrants.
She was encouraged to begin studying what she described as “the coexistence” of two seemingly conflicting beliefs about migration after visiting Haiti last year.
One belief describes the desire by gays and lesbians to leave Haiti for the more “progressive” United States, whereas another describes a strong desire to return to Haiti once in the United States because of a preference to live in their home countries.
Her research, she said, may help explain the role that family obligations, work-related struggles, the pursuit of citizenship, homophobia, the stigma associated with being an immigrant, “the heightened anti-immigrant fervor post-Sept. 11″ and other factors play in migrants choosing to leave the United States.
In her grant proposal, Durban noted that her research could potentially “rethink the idea of the United States as a site of ‘liberation’ for queer people of the world from a new vantage point.” Of particular concern are ways in which racism, xenophobia and homophobia affect and influence the decisions of Haitian migrants.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Gay Couples Express Hope Over Benefits Extension
As Candy Holmes eyes retirement after 33 years of work for the Government Accountability Office, a major worry clouds her outlook.
Her partner, a clergywoman with limited health insurance, is not covered by the health or retirement benefits that Holmes receives from the federal government.
“I’ve been without benefits for my partner the entire time,” said Holmes, an information technology manager at the GAO. “Thank God we have not had any major illness. If we had, I’m not sure how we could manage.” See Gay Couples Express Hope Over Benefits Extension
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Here Networks LLC and Its Publishing Affiliate Complete Merger Deal With PlanetOut Inc.
Here Networks LLC announced today the completion of the business combination of Here Networks LLC and its publishing affiliate, which includes the LGBT publications The Advocate and Out, with PlanetOut Inc. (formerly-traded under the ticker symbol, LGBT). The new public company resulting from this business combination will be named Here Media Inc. with Stephen P. Jarchow serving as Chairman and Paul Colichman serving as CEO.
On Wednesday, June 10, 2009 , the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of PlanetOut Inc. common stock voted to approve the proposed business combination.
“The close of this deal represents an exciting moment for LGBT consumers across the globe,” said Stephen P. Jarchow and Paul Colichman . “We look forward to bringing new features that will enhance the user experience and keep our customers engaged.”
Here Media now becomes the premier global company for providing news and entertainment to the LGBT community. The company is also uniquely positioned to provide advertisers opportunities to reach its niche audience across platforms including television, online, print publishing, and filmed entertainment. Here Media‘s unmatched reach positions the company as a leader in creating an interactive relationship with consumers across all its iconic brands.
Jarchow and Colichman, along with current PlanetOut Inc. Chairman Phil Kleweno , will serve as the initial board of directors of Here Media.
About Here Media
Here Media, Inc. produces and distributes niche content across all platforms worldwide. Here Media’s iconic brands distribute gay media and world cinema programming with universal, humanistic appeal. Its distribution platforms include theaters, television, VOD, broadband, online, print and mobile. It earns subscription, advertising and licensing revenue from its award-winning content.
Here Media owns and operates a variety of media assets including:
- Here Studios, a full service motion picture studio.
- Here Films, a motion picture distribution company.
- here! Networks, a premium television network featuring programming that appeals to a gay and lesbian audience airing in 96 of the top 100 US markets, including every top 10 market.
- Iconic print brands including Out, Advocate and HIV Plus, as well as Alyson Books .
- Online properties including Gay.com, Planetout.com, Advocate.com, Out.com and SheWired.com which provide broadband video and social networking.
Paul Colichman is Chief Executive Officer of Here Media and Stephen P. Jarchow is Chairman. Together, they have produced and/or distributed over 200 motion pictures including Academy Award(R) winners “Gods and Monsters” and “Departures”.
Forward-Looking Statements
In addition to the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding Here Media’s plans to launch new technologies and user experiences., .These statements include those containing the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “expects,” and similar words. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the limited operating history and variability of operating results of Here Media and its subsidiaries; ability to achieve its operating plan; competition; timing and success of product launches; success of marketing efforts; and dependence on technology infrastructure, cable and satellite operators and the Internet. Additional information concerning factors that could affect Here Media’s future business and financial results is included in Here Media’s public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.
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Vanasco: Gay benefits press call clarifies…nothing
In advance of President Obama’s 5:45 remarks on extending limited benefits to gay federal workers, Director of Personnel Management John Berry spoke to the press and said….very little.
He seemed to be reading from a brief, prepared statement that recapped what we already know: OPM investigated which benefits could be extended …
