Brady at Some Guys Are Normal notes that Ohio’s antigay constitutional ban on nonmarital unions and any rights or services associated with such unions has resulted in court rulings that unmarried heterosexual partners enjoy no legal recourse under the state’s domestic-violence laws.
Meanwhile, Ohio antigay uber-activist Linda Harvey is using her “Mission America” nameplate to bury the state’s HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in litigation and red tape, presumably to force the financially strained organizations to close and to cut off medical help (except for abstinence-only lessons) to people at risk for HIV/AIDS.
Gay People’s Chronicle, March 24
The Advocate, March 27
Ohio health advocates suspect that Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America is pulling the strings behind Harvey’s campaign.
Check out Tony Perkins (that friend of David Duke’s) “Washington Update” for March 28. He is oblivious to the possibility that the laws he and so many others support could have unintended consequences:
“This is the latest, hare-brained attempt to stop states from adopting Marriage Amendments. This strained ruling is only one of 12 appellate courts in Ohio, so their absurd reading of the domestic violence law and the Marriage Amendment is not likely to stand. Judge Mary Donovan dissented from the opinion arguing that the majority’s notion of “quasi-marriage” has no more basis in Ohio law than “quasi-pregnancy” or “quasi-divorce”. Good for her!”
That’s right, Tony, the appeals court callously allowed a defendant to go free in an assault case (in this specific case, a woman who assaulted her boyfriend) as part of the global conspiracy to attack heterosexual marriage. Please.
Not to mention the elimination of state recognition of “quasi-marriage” is EXACTLY what these people wanted – although they only wanted it to apply to gays and lesbians. Oops.
link: https://www.frc.org/ (the update will be up most of the day March 29 on the home page of frc, then you will have to look in his update archives).
Do the same to them. Make FOIA requests. Doesn’t matter for what. Fight back. Focus has $$$ but they are greedy bastards and don’t want to lose a dime plus Dobson is hiding behind MA because he doesn’t want to get the stink on him and Focus. THEY ARE DESPARATE.
Unfortunately, FOIA requests can only be made to governments, not private or non-profit organizations or individuals.
But FOIA requests to state and federal governments for info on grants made as part of faith-based initiatives is certainly appropriate.
I noticed one judge remarked that changing the wording in the domestic violence law to read “any two people sharing the same residence” would eliminate any confusion as to whether the anti-gay marriage amendment applied to such cases and allow prosecutions to go forward. In other words, this unintended consequence can easily be corrected.
Note to fellow Tennesseans: Your response to state rep Debra Maggart’s remarks about gay adoptions would be appreciated. Thanks
Bill, but if they changed it like that, gays would still be protected under the law as would simple roommates. I’d expect them to say any two persons of the opposite sex or something more defined.
Even if this unintented consequence can be easily corrected, it’s a good point that people didn’t think through this bill enough before passing it.
Brady,
Domestic violence has to do with domicile or residence. I don’t see why anyone would object to protecting any two people living together whether gay, straight or roommates. Violence between any two people living together should be procecuted.
Bill,
I certainly see your point and agree with you, but I can see some on the right-wing claiming that protecting gays under domestic violence would be tantamount to the government giving a partial ok to gay relationships.
Plus, as they might see it, violence between two people living together is prosecuted just like any other violence already.
It seems to me quite reasonable, Bill and Brady, that anti-gay folk might indeed object to domestic violence protections for gay couples because it elevates gay relationships to the same status as straight relationships. That same logic has been used as a basis for objecting to other protections in the recent past.
Robis,
Good points, exactly so. Protecting any two people, though, they might say, only “happens” to include gays incidentally, not primarily. The fact that the two are gay is irrelevant, so they are not really supporting gay relationships at all.
Bill, etc.,
Don’t forget that the anti-gay folk are also anti-cohabitation. They would see equating cohabitation with marriage (regardless of the gender) as the destruction of marriage, society, and the universe.
If a few people get beat up along the way, well that’s just the price you pay for sin.
Of course, pragmatically, they may realize that this position makes them look like troglodytes (as does their mirror, incidentally) and decide they have to (grudgingly) protect couples who live together from some limited domestic violence before the citizens rise up and do something worse (like treat them fairly and equally).
If they do, expect it to be phrased in terms of “brothers who live together” or “old friends who share expenses”. That was the tactic Dobson used when he supported the decoy bill that would allow extremely limited “reciprocal beneficiary contracts” between people living together.
But of course, what is really sad about this is that when live-in Grandma gets beat up for her social security check, she has no recourse either.
And yes, this happens. I’ll never forget when I was in High School, an elderly lady came into the grocery store I was working at with her son and (I presume) daughter-in-law, and quietly asked us to call the police…