A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Mainicine Go Down?
Below I report on a few noticeable events from today, and you can review
events from yesterday (including a European surprise) here.
Speaking of legislation, the New York Senate succeeded once again in
failing to vote on equal marriage rights. Governor Patterson, however, is not giving up.
ALBANY, N.Y. New York's governor is pushing state lawmakers to
consider a bill to legalize same-sex marriage bill next week after his
effort to force a Senate vote appears all but lost.
Gov. David Paterson is placing the bill on agendas for special
sessions on Nov. 16 and 17. Senate Democrats said the bill wasn't
likely to be considered during Tuesday's special session.
Paterson is urging a vote even if the bill he strongly supports fails.
The Democrat says putting senators on the spot for their position is
better than inaction while forces try to muster the votes behind the
scenes.
New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which opposes the bill, says
the failure of a vote Tuesday is a crushing blow to the advocates.
Speaking of medicine, the AMA came out in favor of repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'today. I had no idea military personnel couldn't even tell military doctors that they were gay without fear of being dismissed. Pardon the pun, but that's sick.
The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to oppose the
military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, and declared that gay
marriage bans contribute to health disparities...
Doctors who pushed the group to oppose 'don't ask, don't tell' say the
policy forcing gay service members to keep their sexual orientation
secret has 'a chilling effect' on open communication between gays and
their doctors.
'A law which makes people lie to their physicians is a bad law,' said
Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor who
attended the meeting.
Speaking of sick, what else can one say?
Diaz is a staunch opponent of marriage rights for gay people, and as a
((NY State)) Democratic state senator in a party with a razor-thin majority, his
resistance gives him great power on this issue. He also has two gay
brothers, a gay granddaughter and a gay chief counsel, whom he insists
he loves and respects.
Huffington Post
Speaking of love AND respect, Washington DC legislators are actually
doing something about it. Legislators got DC's equal marriage rights bill out of committee with a few concessions giving churches the right to continue to be as bigoted as they want.
WASHINGTON - D.C. lawmakers have moved forward with a proposed same-sex marriage bill.
On Tuesday, city council members from the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary approved the bill 4-1, and it now goes to the full council.
The committee held two public hearings on the bill after it was introduced in early October and heard from more than 250 people who supported or opposed the bill.
The full, 13-member council is expected to vote on the bill in December.
And speaking of expectations, a new movement is getting underway in Oregon. The Left Coast may in the not-too-distant future live up to it's name and rival the East Coast in support of equal marriage rights.
In Oregon, the state's largest gay rights group, Basic Rights Oregon,
has initiated a campaign to convince Oregon voters to reverse their
2004 vote and instead support same-sex marriage. Gay couples in Oregon
say that marriage would provide them a level of social status and
viable benefits that Oregon's domestic partnership law does not
provide.