News
2007-06-30
House wards off
veto threat with gay slap
Bush bullies
House into punishing pro-gay D.C.
By a surprisingly
bipartisan vote of 224–200, the Ho
By a surprisingly
bipartisan vote of 224–200, the U.S. House of
Representatives on Thursday passed an amendment banning the
use of federal funds to support Washington, D.C.'s
local domestic-partner registry.
The White House
warned Wednesday that President Bush would veto this
year's routine appropriations bill for the District of
Columbia if it did not include such an amendment, a
response to the district's strengthening of its
same-sex partner benefits last year.
Officials said
the vote will have little practical effect because the
city uses local funds for the partner registry, The
Washington Post reported.
But gay activists
deplored the move, with Human Rights Campaign president
Joe Solmonese calling the veto threat "a new low" in
"antigay zeal."
The district,
though it gets most of its revenue from local taxes, also
receives federal funding through Congress, making it more
vulnerable than other cities to shifts in the national
political winds.
The antigay
amendment was sponsored by right-wing Republican
representative Virgil Goode of Virginia. Forty Democrats
supported it; 12 Republicans were opposed.
"The U.S. House
of Representatives should be on record supporting
traditional marriage between a man and a woman, and oppose
alternative definitions of marriage," Goode told the Post.
"The GOP tried to
make this a debate about gay marriage, which it
wasn't," wrote D.C.-based political consultant John Aravosis
on his Americablog.com.
The District of
Columbia first recognized domestic partnerships in 1992
and greatly strengthened them last year. The registry is
open to same- and opposite-sex unmarried couples and
confers rights to hospital visitation, medical
decision-making, joint tax filing, and inheritance,
among others, according to the local Gay and Lesbian
Activists Alliance. D.C. public employees also can get
health and other benefits for their partners. About
80% of the registered partners are gay.
"Then again,"
Aravosis wrote, "if we follow the GOP logic, that
this was a vote on gay marriage, then the
pro-marriage-equality forces got 200 votes today, including
a number of Republicans. And that's more than any
federal gay marriage vote to date." (Barbara Wilcox,
The Advocate)
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