Outrageous!
I thought I’d heard it all when it comes to right wing hatred for gays and lesbians, but this one takes the cake.
According to the Huffington Post, GOP Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri has vetoed a law that would have allowed domestic partners burial rights to claim the body of a partner and plan their funeral arrangements. Showing his colors as a mean-spirited, small-minded bigot, the governor vetoed this bill. The bill stemmed from the troubles that a gay man had faced after dealing with the state in trying to get his partner’s body released following his death. Even with wills, powers of attorney and a CT marriage certificate the surviving partner found the state impeding the death wishes of his partner for weeks.
According to the Providence Journal this is what this bigoted Governor had to say:
“This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.”
Has this man no shame?
Does he want the state to assume this responsibility for those who were in a committed and loving relationship?
How does dealing with the death of a loved one have anything to do with marriage?
One of the bill’s sponsor’s Rep. Segal had this to say about the governor:
“‘I think the man is heartless and this has become a bad joke that has carried on for far too long. ”
Like much of this type of hateful belief, I suspect that the sanctimonious Catholic Church had a hand in this one too.
Stephen Colbert saw a great opportunity to take this one on and did so with this masterful look at the whole situation.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word – Skeletons in the Closet | ||||
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Things I don’t understand…
Why people have such a problem with gay rights.
Why Colbert doesn’t make me laugh. I get his stuff – intellectually it adds up and yet for some reason, the most I usually get is a chuckle.
Oh and how the heck a pointy needle moving over a piece of plastic can produce sound/music. I get CDs – audio data is digitally encoded and read back by a laser. But records? It’s just magic to me.
Seriously though, why not just live & let live? I really don’t care to see two guys kissing or whatever – so on a sort of visceral level, I’ll admit to understanding that part. But I just don’t understand taking the leap from, “I personally don’t care for it” to “I should tell others how to live.” I’ll even cut religions & churches some slack – within the practices of their faith I think they should have a right to determine what is & isn’t…kosher (misguided though they are). But beyond that, from a societal perspective – in terms of the rights of citizens they should have no say. It’s a matter of rights and fundamental fairness and those things are infinitely more important than personal preference. Like I said, live & let live.
Despicable.