Month: April 2005

Planet Out

Two of the largest U.S. telecommunications companies, Sprint and SBC Communications, will continue to offer same-sex domestic partner benefits to employees in Kansas despite the overwhelming passage of a broadly worded anti-gay marriage amendment in the state this week.

On Tuesday, Kansas voters passed an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage by a 70-30 margin. The amendment defined marriage as between one man and one woman, and stated that, “No relationship, other than a marriage, shall be recognized by the state as entitling the parties to the rights or incidents of marriage.”

Legal experts have warned that the latter part of the amendment may jeopardize domestic partner benefits in Kansas, mirroring battles being waged in other states. Last month Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox argued that public employers in that state cannot provide domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples because of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage passed by Michigan voters last November.

Sprint and SBC are the first companies to make clear they will continue to offer the benefits not only to their employees in Kansas, but also nationwide.

Sometimes I’m not fully awake when C-Span’s “Washington Journal” comes on at 4AM Pacific, so this morning I thought I was dreaming when I heard that the Miami Herald was reporting that Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (photo, right) was co-sponsoring a bill to end the U.S. military’s ban on gays.

On the national scene, Ros-Lehtinen is as reliable a Gop talking head as can be found. In fact, I don’ t think there’s ever been a Republican policy that she didn’t like or wouldn’t defend. So call me cynical when I hear that now – when military recruitment is reaching dangerously low levels – this rightwing stalwart suddenly wants to let homos become cannon fodder for a disastrous war that her party has foisted on the world.

At odds with her party’s leadership, Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami is urging the Pentagon to allow gay men and lesbians to serve in the military — a direct challenge to “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

”We’ve tried the policy. I don’t think it works. And we’ve spent a lot of money enforcing it,” said Ros-Lehtinen, a member of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, who Tuesday co-sponsored a bill allowing gays to serve.

”We investigate people. Bring them up on charges. Basically wreck their lives,” she told The Herald. “People who’ve signed up to serve our country. We should be thanking them.”

Although her support won’t change the law overnight, it represents a dramatic break with GOP leadership over a hot-button issue that has split both parties and the nation.

Ros-Lehtinen (with House Republicans Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Jim Kolbe of Arizona) joins 70 Democrats in support of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, introduced last month by Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., to repeal the longtime gay ban.

I think it’s admirable that gay men and women want to serve in the military, and there’s no rational reason why they should be banned. And I suppose that if it takes an injust war for which the casus belli was a tissue of lies and fabrication to get these folks their due so be it.

Now let’s wait and see if any closeted gay Republicans – representatives Mark Foley (R-FL) and David Drier (R-CA) and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, among others – come out in favor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act.

Chris Shays (R-CN) demanded that Majority Leader Tom DeLay resign.

“Tom’s conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election,” Rep. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, told The Associated Press in an interview, calling for DeLay to step down as majority leader.

The Wall Street Journal chimed in saying DeLay should get out, and Sen. Santorum (R-PA) called on DeLay to explain his conduct to the public.

The sudden barrage from the Right comes as a group of DeLay supporters is gearing up for a campaign to convince the public that DeLay is a godly Christian hero and that charges against him are all trumped up by Democrats, liberals and the leftwing media.

Democrats like Shays, liberals like Santorum and leftwing media like the WSJ.

I’ve always thought Jennifer Lopez was a better actor than she gets credit for. She’s an accomplished pop singer from the Paula Abdul school – and I don’t care about her personal life – but she’s lost big points with her efforts to popularize fur in fashion. It isn’t retro-street glam, J-Lo – it’s disgusting. Not surprisingly, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has taken a similar position. They created a website – www.jlodown.com – about the issue, as well as a print ad that shows a gruesome photo of a skinned animal (which I have but will not post; let’s just say the photo above could be labeled “Before”) next to a letter to Lopez, attacking her for using fur in her Sweetface clothing line. Now PETA is accusing Lopez and her record company of bullying the NY-based record-industry trade magazine Billboard into removing the ad from a recent issue.

The music magazine had agreed to run PETA’s advert…[but] Billboard cancelled the $5,000 [ad], leading PETA Vice President Lisa Lange to conclude that the magazine “caved to pressure” from Lopez’s record label, Sony Corp’s Epic Records, and Lopez’ publicist Nanci Ryder of Baker-Winoukur-Ryder.

Ryder admits, “I’m doing my job, which is protecting my client. I don’t understand why PETA want[s] to meet with Jennifer. “In my opinion, there would be nothing worse than a meeting, unless in the meeting we could commit to not wearing fur and not using fur in fashion. Unless we could do that, I didn’t quite understand where the meeting would go.”

However, LA-based radio industry trade paper Radio & Records opted to run the PETA ad in its April 8, 2005, issue.

If Karl Rove dictated language discipline for the Left instead of the Right, Eric Rudolph would be referred to in all references as a rightwing domestic terrorist:

Accused 1996 Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph has agreed to plead guilty to all charges against him…

Rudolph is charged with the bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, that killed one person and injured more than 100. [He] also is charged in the 1997 bombings of an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in the Atlanta area.

The Schiavo memo was written by Sen. Mel Martinez’ staff attorney, one Brian Darling, who is a former staffer for none other than … Tom DeLay.

None of these dots are being connected for John & Jane Q Public by the media, of course. The cablers have been fixated on the Pope’s funeral, now its 15th year. Wait, no – that was the Schiavo coverage. Teed up for the weekend is the Royal Wedding. Next is coverage of the funeral for Prince Ranier. Then who knows – maybe another Very Famous Person could die. If DeLay is lucky – and God knows he is – his troubles will all blow over before the likes of Judy Woodruff and Tim Russert take notice.

Imagine if it were Hillary Clinton who’d been connected to four scandals in one week. The DC Kool Kids would have decamped from Rome on the first plane to Chappaqua. Buh-bye Pope! Have a nice eternity.

Meanwhile shoes are dropping in rapid succession around Tom DeLay, and the reaction by the Washington press corps barely rates negligible.

While Florida’s new senator, Mel Martinez, disgraces himself and the state, veteran Sen. Bill Nelson continues to do the right thing. The St. Petersburg Times covered his press conference yesterday with California Sen. Barbara Boxer, where he announced he is blocking Bush’s pick to lead the EPA. Nelson is leading a group of Democratic senators who oppose an EPA study in Northeast Florida of the effect of pesticides on babies.

“The government should not be asking families to turn their babies into guinea pigs,” Nelson said.

Despite its snappy name – CHEERS (Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study) and partial funding of $2.1-million from the American Chemistry Council, the chief lobbying group for chemical companies, Nelson thinks it might not be such a good idea to test pesticides on newborns.

According to an EPA brochure distributed in parts of Jacksonville, the two-year study was designed to help the government learn more about the effects of pesticides on children; it is open to any family with an infant up to three months old, or between the ages of nine and 12 months.

Participants must agree to use household pesticides and to allow periodic visits from EPA researchers. They must collect food and urine samples from their children and record their infants’ behavior with a videocamera.

In return, the families get $970, a T-shirt and a calendar. They also get to keep the videocamera.

Well, who could pass up a t-shirt and a camcorder? Especially when it could be years and years before the effects of those chemicals show up. By then, if history is any indication (remember the movie, A Civil Action?), it will be impossible to directly prove it was the pesticides that produced Johnny’s horrible disease.

Florida is stuck with Mel Martinez, but that makes it even more important to support a really true public servant like Sen. Bill Nelson next year.

LA Times:

State officials say $3.2 billion has come into California coffers through a tax amnesty program that is sparking a national debate over how aggressive governments should be in pressuring corporations to pay all they owe…

Lenny Goldberg of the California Tax Reform Assn., a group that advocates for low-income taxpayers and unions, said he has little sympathy for companies caught in state tax officials’ nets.

“In a lot of these cases, the disputes are dragging on because they are paying accounting firms to get in there, stonewall for them and make it as contentious as possible,” he said. “They make a living out of getting everything they do to get corporations not to pay taxes. They try to be as uncooperative as possible, and then they make complaints about audits and requests for information.”

The state is in dire need of revenue as lawmakers try to close a budget gap now estimated at $8.6 billion.