« Go back a post || Return to G-A-Y homepage || Haul tail to next post »
12/27/2007
Man up, Concerned Woman!
Oh, Matt Barber. Throughout 2007, the male Concerned Women For America spokesman seemed more desperate to thwart LGBT equality than Jerry Seinfeld was to turn Bee Movie into a national phenomenon.
Latest case in point? Well, Matt is rounding out his year year of bias by lashing out against the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act of 2007, a proposed bill that would extend domestic partner benefits to gay federal employees. Of said legislative endeavor, Matt says to One News Now:
"For the government to take a moral stance here [regarding] people who engage in homosexual conduct is essentially equating that conduct to natural sexual relations between married, heterosexual couples," states Barber. "This really introduces us to the whole idea of gay 'marriage' at the national level to federal ENDA."
Barber believes most people do not realize that all of the major benefits being sought by homosexual "couples" are already available through relatively simple means, such as power of attorney and rights of inheritance.
"It's just a matter of filling out the paperwork," he explains. "But I think the big issue here again, the big problem, is that this lends official government recognition to unhealthy and immoral behavior."
Okay, right off the bat -- Don't ever try to appease an equality-seeking gay by suggesting that they can jump through extra legal hoops to achieve some semblance of parity with their hetero pals. That's like saying, "Well, the seats in the back of the bus are still pretty comfortable!" We are never going to accept the idea that we should have to go along different paths and through different mazes just to obtain the basic liberties that our hetero counterparts take for granted. So please, 'mo foes: Stop trying to make that happen!
That out of the way, let us now discuss how offensive it is when people like Matt try and make it sound as if things like domestic partnerships are simply marriage under a different name. Because you see, the whole crux of their anti-gay marriage campaigns is the idea that the full nuptial equality would destroy their precious institution, and their protestations are always that they are not "against gays" but rather "for marriage." So if this really is true and they really are only concerned with that concept, then they should be fully supportive of proposals that would confer some of the same benefits to gay couples without "trampling" all over their hetero unions. They should consider it a victory that they've fostered a world wherein a federal marriage equality bill is about as likely to make it to the Hill as an MTF transgender person who's running for Congress in rural Alabama. Since they are not at all against people or their freedoms, they should be elated that there are ways being suggested in which gay employees can be afforded civil benefits without it affecting anyone's religion.
But what do they do? Well, simple: Since folks like Matt are so unscrupulous is propagating their "protect marriage" illusion, they reframe these domestic partnership proposals as it they are still nothing more than stealth marriage "attacks." There's never even one teensy little shred of consideration given to the bill's merits, and there is never an ounce of "give" from their "take-take" camp. Instead, there is a duplicitous and tenuous connection made between whatever is being proposed and fully-recognized, federal marriage, and a fear-mongery attack made against those damn gays and their militant attempts to redefine knot-tying for everyone.
Look, we all know that with someone as zealously against LGBT rights as Matt, the only real reason why he opposes any degree of progress is simply because he does not like gay people. He has made his mind up that his Bible is a queer-antipathetic weapon, and he has dedicated his life to using against any person who has the "radical" idea that gays are people. So while we are always going to be at odds with someone like Barber vis a vis our right to exist, we could at least respect him on a "having a spine" level if he would at least stop hiding his rage against these veils. If he wants to further his case for why LGBT people and their partners do not deserve equal and fair compensation or benefits, then he has every right to explain that on a civil, governmental level. However, these abstract, morality-based attacks wherein gays are presented as the "I do"-targeting aggressors are getting f***ing old!
Smith, Lieberman introduce domestic partners bill in Senate [Washington Blade]
Your thoughts
I'm very thankful to my employer for extending benefits to domestic partners. Of course, I consider the person they call my domestic partner to be my husband. I don't know how we could have afforded to get medical, dental, and vision insurance for him otherwise. However, tax time will soon be rolling around, and I will once more have about a twenty four hour period of freaking out when I have to pay taxes on my employer's contributions to my husband's benefits. While the guy in the next office down will not have to pay taxes on the employer contributions to his wife's benefits.
::end rant here::
Posted by: Mike in the Tndra | Dec 27, 2007 5:14:43 PM
comments powered by Disqus
