Kills Marriage Equality Bill But Approves Domestic Partnerships
On January 28, 2013, Wyoming lawmakers approved, 7-2, a measure to institute domestic partnerships. The House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee advanced the bill. This move sends pro-gay legislation onto a full floor debate in the state Legislature for the first time. The bill will now move on to a general vote.
The Benefits of Domestic Partnerships
The bill, sponsored by Representative Cathy Connolly, a Laramie Democrat and a lesbian, would give same-sex couples the same property and hospital-visitation rights as heterosexual couples. It carries most of the legal rights of heterosexual marriage. Connolly is also the sponsor of the Marriage Equality Bill which was shot down, 5 to 4. Co-sponsors are Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) and Rep. James Byrd (D-Cheyenne).
Representative Connolly said that within this session, she expects the domestic partnership bill to pass the full Legislature along with a bill pending in the Wyoming Senate that would outlaw discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation. The raison d’etre for the vote to advance the domestic partnership bill, according to Connolly, is “societal changes. It’s the reality that everyone now is touched by someone who is gay or lesbian in their lives, their friends, their neighbors, their churches.”
Others, such as Jason Marsden of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, concur. Marsden testified on January 28th that he and his partner, former Mayor of Casper, Guy Padgett, have no rights as a couple even though they have been together for fifteen years. He argued that Wyoming legislators are becoming more aware that there are same-sex couples in every county in the state. “With the turnover in the Legislature, there are more legislators in the majority party who actually know gay couples. Some of them have children, and I think the actual lack of legal protection for those families has come to legislators’ attention: medical decision-making, parenting issues, inheritance issues….”
“Please Stop Carpetbagging on our Civil Rights Movement”
Not everyone is in favor of the LGBT bills. Take Republican Representative Lynn Hutchings from Cheyenne. A black woman serving her first term in the House, Hutchings was quick to comment on the remarks she heard from gays and lesbians who equated their struggle for civil rights to the efforts of mixed-race couples to secure the legal right to marry in the late 1960s: “Please stop Carpetbagging on our Civil Rights Movement.”
Hutchings believe, as many do, that homosexuality is a choice. She even volunteered that an ex-fiance had once been gay but decided to turn straight. “Being black is a result of genetics, it is inborn. Homosexuals may choose who they want to be” said Hutchings. Zwonitzer and Byrd remarked that they found Hutchings’s comments distasteful.
Future of The Bills
Republicans outnumber Democrats 78-12 in the Wyoming Legislature. Consequently, the bills face steep challenge in a state, that in 1998, witnessed the horrific murder of a gay college student left to die on a fence.
This is no mixed message. It is quite clear: LGBT people have inferior relationships and families.
Thank you for commenting. If you look in the news today, there are several same-sex marriages resulting from long-term relationships. Studies show that same-sex parenting is as good, and, in some cases, better than heterosexuals who have unplanned pregnancies and lack maturity. What’s inferior?