Wis. same-sex couples sign up as domestic partners
(Madison, Wis.) Same-sex couples in Wisconsin have started signing up for the state’s new domestic partnership registry.
Monday was their first chance to sign up and obtain dozens of the same legal protections as spouses.
Fifty-six-year-old Janice Czyscon (SIZE’-kon) and her partner of 29 years, 57-year-old Crystal Hyslop, arrived at the Dane …
Tags: Domestic Partners, Domestic Partnership, Dozens, First Chance, Janice, Legal Protections, Madison Wis, Madison Wisconsin, Same Sex Couples, Sex PartnersHouse subcommittee approves benefits for same-sex partners
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A political fight over the rights of same-sex…
A political fight over the rights of same-sex couples is drawing nearer in Washington State.
Backers of Referendum 71, who want to overturn a new state same-sex partnership law, have made an appointment to file signatures with state elections officials Saturday afternoon.
Saturday is the deadline to collect 120,577 valid voter signatures and qualify for the Nov. 3 state ballot.
Protect Marriage Washington is the primary backer of R-71. Gary Randall of the allied Faith and Freedom Network said by e-mail: “We are gathering and counting signatures. I think we are making good progress.”
Protect Marriage has raised just more than $20,000 for a campaign that so far has been waged mostly through churches. Randall said the group is not anti-gay but pro-marriage. The group wants voters to reject Senate Bill 5688, the “everything but marriage” legislation that passed this year and adds about 250 rights of marriage for registered same-sex partners in Washington.
Defenders of the new state law, who call themselves Washington Families Standing Together, say they are ready to defend the third round of rights lawmakers added since creating the partners registry in 2007.
See Washington State braces for battle over same-sex rights
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Gays and aging: Halsted center serves surging population of gay … Chicago Tribune
Windows on the second floor of the Center on Halsted frame an ever-changing portrait of gay life in 2009: Same-sex couples walk hand in hand; cross-dressing young men strut with confidence; rainbow banners herald a neighborhood that embraces gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of any age.
Behind those windows every Tuesday sit Chicagoans in their 60s, 70s and 80s, many on the tailing arcs of lives spent denying their true sexual identity. Women and men who married opposite-sex partners, had children and only late in life felt comfortable telling the world that they’re lesbian or gay. Men and women who chose solitary lives over the possibility of being outed.
They’re a population celebrating still relatively newfound openness, while also confronting issues that rarely appear on the radar of a youthful gay-rights movement focused on the right to marry.
Some have only recently come out and are trying to find their way in a new community. Some have been out for years but are now in nursing homes where their sexuality has again become a stigma. See Gays and aging: Halsted center serves surging population of gay …
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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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Gay activists shrug at Obama benefits move
President Obama’s first official overture to the gay and lesbian community, granting a handful of benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees Wednesday, did little to quiet gay rights activists who want him to push for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Obama reiterated at a White House ceremony his “long-standing commitment” to try to overturn the law, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages.
But the memorandum he signed Wednesday was a far cry from the frontal assault on the 1996 marriage law, which denies federal benefits to same-sex partners, or the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays in the military that Obama the candidate talked about.
The memorandum aims at the fringes of anti-gay discrimination by the federal government, leaving open the question of if or when the White House will move against the underlying federal laws.
Under the new rule, domestic partners of civil servants will be eligible for long-term care insurance, and employees may use their sick leave to take care of ailing partners or non-biological, non-adopted children.
See Gay activists shrug at Obama benefits move
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White House Defends Anti-Gay Marriage Brief Amid Furor
A week after the Justice Department filed a motion in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, White House Press Secretary reiterated the president’s commitment to changing that law.
In a press conference Wednesday afternoon — just hours before the President was set to sign a presidential memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees — Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fielded a question from ABC News’ Jake Tapper about the administration’s position on the Defense of Marriage Act.
See White House Defends Anti-Gay Marriage Brief Amid Furor
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Obama to extend some benefits to gay partners of federal employees
John Berry, director of the White House Office of Personnel Management and the highest-ranking gay member of the administration, called the move “long overdue progress in our nation’s journey to equality.”
The setting will cast an especially bright light on the president’s action, but many expressed disappointment that the president was not taking bolder steps, particularly in the area of healthcare benefits.
“This is not enough. I want to be able to add my wife to my policy in the same way that every other federal employee can add their spouse to their policy,” said Kate Kuykendall , a federal worker Los Angeles. She noted that the federal government is the only employer exempt from a California law that requires companies to extend benefits to same-sex partners.
Berry said Obama’s move would allow employees’ domestic partners to be added to the government’s long-term insurance program, which covers such illnesses as Alzheimer’s disease. The memorandum also would allow employees to use sick leave to take care of domestic partners and children, and would let the same-sex partners of diplomats use medical facilities at foreign posts.
See
Obama to extend some benefits to gay partners of federal employees
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Source: Benefits for govt workers’ gay partners
(Washington) President Barack Obama, whose gay and lesbian supporters have grown frustrated with his slow movement on their priorities, is extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, a White House official said.
Obama planned to announce his decision Wednesday in the Oval Office, the official said. The official spoke on …
Tags: barack obama, Federal Employees, Gay And Lesbian, Gay Lesbian, Gay Partners, Oval Office, Priorities, Same Sex, Sex Partners, Washington President, White HouseSpanish clinic and travel agency offer gay marriage and fertility deal
As niche package tours go it is one of the most original and precisely targeted. As of this week, British lesbians are being invited to dig into their pockets, catch a flight to the Spanish costas and come back either pregnant, married or both.
The offer comes from a fertility clinic and a gay and lesbian travel agency, which have launched joint package tours to what has now become one of the most socially tolerant countries in Europe.
Together they have spotted a growing trend among British lesbians, who increasingly travel to clinics in liberal Spain for insemination treatment, which has become more difficult in Britain since sperm donors lost the right to remain anonymous in 2005.
“We noticed the increase in British women coming to us as soon as the law was changed,” said Dr Rafael Bernabeu, founder of the Instituto Bernabeu clinic in Alicante, eastern Spain. “Here we can still offer that anonymity, so people are coming to us.”
Bernabeu said his clinic saw 30 British women a month. About 40% of British women seeking donor insemination were single and many were lesbians. “We don’t ask questions about people’s sexuality, so I can’t give exact figures,” he said. “But often they come with same-sex partners or simply tell us that they are lesbians.”
See Spanish clinic and travel agency offer gay marriage and fertility deal
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