Not Being Silent, and No Whispering Allowed: State of Kentucky's Unjust Act of Denying Benefits to "Domestic Partners"!

I was caught in a news avalanche this morning on the way to work at the School of the Pilgrim. On the radio/NPR/wunc.org, on the Diane Rehm show, the guest interviewer was talking with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), about his new book, Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It's Wrong. This would be the same Jim DeMint who does not want those of us who are of the LGBT community to teach, let alone is mad at us for receiving so much health-care because we are more promiscuous than your average heterosexual, and thus have more STDs, and therefore run-up higher medical bills. While he didn't say as much on air, it is clear that the people DeMint and his co-author were writing about speaking out were Nixon's "silent majority" and not those of us who make up the "silent minority" in the LGBT community. Go to wunc.org, "Diane Rehm Show" archives, Jan. 31st, 2008 for a re-broadcast. Clearly, the man is homophobic and heterosexist...not to simply throw-out labels, but really, to make the case that we who are LGBT are somehow in the majority denying others a right to speak and be heard is a hard argument to make, let alone support with facts.

And then I read, on www.towleroad.com, that the state of Kentucky's Senate has, once again, denied those of us who are in a "domestic partnered relationship" (what an oxymoronic phrase) and employed by the state of Kentucky, e.g., university personnel and other state employees, benefits, like health care and retirement (click here). While we have children, while we are in relationships with each other that mirror everyday heterosexual relationships and are, according to another study in the last few weeks healthier than heterosexual relationships, we are being denied, in yet one more state (and NC is no better on this matter), benefits that we would get were we heterosexuals and married.

Therefore, after being caught in this avalanche of news, and digging myself out of the snow, I'm doing what Jim DeMint wants me to do: I'm speaking up and out, and whispering no longer. His homophobic rhetoric are signs of a person who needs us to be in conversation with him, in order to demonstrate, in a loving way, that we are people too, who live within the parameters of the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, in which all people are created equal, and are to be treated as such by the government, which is composed of the people of the United States.

This is just wrong: we who are in long term committed relationships, a.k.a., marriage because that's what it really is, and are LGBTQ, are demanding equality in each and every state of the Union. We will no longer be silent.

Can you hear me now?

Peace out!

Brett