Thanks to a bill passed by the Republican House of Delegates, Democratic state Senate and signed into law by the Republican Governor, life just improved for gay people in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And all without spending one dime of taxpayer money or limiting the freedom of private enterprise. Indeed, this law expands their freedom, allowing companies to offer a greater range of benefits:
Previously, state law permitted Virginia residents to take out group life insurance coverage only for a legal spouse or a child under age 25. But the new statute, which takes effect July 1, broadens that group of people to include anyone with whom a Virginia resident has a substantial and economic interest, including a same-sex partner.
A Republican Delegate Tom Rust of Fairfax served as this bill’s “patron”. Strikingly,
Previous versions of the bill allowed Virginia residents to designate someone from “any other class of persons” they wanted as a life insurance beneficiary, while the enacted version changes this language to “any other person” with whom the insured group member has an insurable interest.
The legislation notably failed in the two previous sessions when there were a greater number of Democratic lawmakers in the General Assembly and a Democratic governor. It passed during the administration of a Republican governor who’s not considered gay friendly.
Emphasis added.
Whether or not Governor Bob McDonnell is gay friendly or not, he does appear to be “freedom friendly”. This elimination of a regulation benefits a lot of people, gays in particular. Gay men and lesbians in the Old Dominion can now take out policies benefiting their partner.
We don’t need gay friendly Governors to improve life for gay people. We just need Governors who are opposed to laws which limit our freedom. So, let’s hope legislators in other states follow the lead of the Virginia counterparts and eliminate those laws which limit the freedom of people to enter into contracts. “Gay rights” then would not be gay rights per se, but just rights — getting the government out of our way so we can live our lives as we choose.
RELATED: On Equal Rights & “Equality”: One Means Eliminating Bad Laws, the other Enacts New Ones.
If the gay rights movement only pushed for laws like this that expanded benefits to both gays and straights, with much less controversy, they’d have accomplished a lot more.
Instead, they seem to have to single out laws that affect them and only them. Yet more proof that identity politics killed the movement.
yup…nothing demonstrates an embrace of freedom like yearning for the slavery-based economy of the confederacy.
Chad, what does your comment have to do with anything? Guess when you can’t argue with your adversaries, you resort to twisting a Republican’s record.
dan…you called mcdonnell “freedom friendly.” i guess when you’re confronted with facts that contradict your precious ideology, you forget your own words.
Um, Chad, with what facts did you confront me?
dan, you know full well that mcdonnell signed a proclamation in support of confederate history month, and that his statement contained no reference to slavery, and when asked to explain his omission, mcdonnell essentially said that slavery was not a important issue to most virginians during the civil war. this is your model of a freedom-loving republican? wow.
excuse me for not being explicit. i’ll work on that if you stop being so obstinate.
Striking the story Dan links seems to consider the only tableau under which someone might make this move is his or her gay friendliness.
This fits into the narrative of victimization that the only way someone might do something that would benefit any gay people is if he were one who was considered “gay friendly”.
No mention in the piece that the governor (and the now-more-Republican) legislature took this move (as opposed to their predecessors) because they’re more “freedom friendly”.
As if liberty were a zero-sum game (which, naturally, for the victim-mentality, is a necessary perspective).
Yes, Chad, I do know that. And agree it was a bone-headed move. But, please tell me how that short-sighted decision limits the freedom of anyone?
And no, he did not say what you claim he said about slavery. That’s just liberals projecting thing onto an ill-considered action.
Given that the majority did not own slaves, that’s a true statement. Furthermore, there’s no “yearning for the slavery-based economy of the confederacy.”.
Jeez, Dan. The douchebags you attract are getting stupider and stupider.
projection? interesting that you’re accusing me of that, when you’re still carrying water for this guy. after his election, you lauded his campaign for emphasizing economic and fiscal issues and minimizing social issues. but as soon as he took office, he (and his bat-shit crazy AG) immediately started repealing lgbt legal protections and demanding the state university system revoke all their domestic partner benefits that were supported by previous democratic administrations. actually maybe you’re right about his “freedom friendly” status: he certainly seems interested in protecting the freedom to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
Yup.
Because we know gay-sex liberals like yourself endorse and support marriage bans, employment discrimination, and “hate speech” when carried out by your Obama Party members and supporters.
In short, you’re attacking Republicans for behavior that you support and endorse in Obama Party members.
That is projection. Also hypocrisy. But then again, we understand, Chad; when one sees how typical Obama Party gay and lesbian people behave, you understand why Chad is desperate for laws that prevent people from firing gay and lesbian people for any reason.
nd30, there is not a scintilla of truth to anything in your post. but it does show that you are quite the master of projection. you should bone up on irony, though.
Oh, you do amuse us, Chad; you come here and fling all sorts of wild accusations, then whine and scream about how posts that contain not one, not two, but FOUR links to clearly-demonstrated examples of Obama Party behavior that you support and endorse have “not a scintilla of truth”.
Perhaps in the Obama Party and gay-sex liberal community, where minority status, skin color, and sexual orientation are far more important than facts and character, you can make such statements. However, the real world is not so kind, and even your Obama’s black skin is starting to fail him. You would do better to simply admit your hypocrisy and perhaps mature as an individual; perhaps if you did that, you might realize that the reason you are continually fired from your jobs has more with your tendencies to demand sex from your coworkers than it does your sexual orientation, and that your insistence that your demanding sex is normal for your sexual orientation is actually harmful to gay and lesbian people.
more fiction from nd30. do you ever get sick of lying? since you’re so convinced of your righteousness, then prove it. prove that i ever supported harold ford, howard dean or louis farrakhan. until you do that, your accusatiions that i am projecting are hollow.
or, just stop lying.
ND30, where did Chad say that he personally endorsed those behaviors?
Anyway, McDonnell didn’t have any worse a record on gay rights than Creigh “No special rights for homosexuals” Deeds. And HRC still had workers stay on the failing campaign of a candidate who voted to ban gay marriage rather than move them north to defend gay marriage in Maine. Why? Could it be his party affiliation?
sweet f*$king jesus, a voice of reason on gaypatriot. i didn’t ever personally endorse any of those behaviors/views. but to nd30, since some liberal thought “X” and since i’m obviously a liberal (an assumption in itself), then i must also think “X”. which is pretty much a textbook definition of “projection.” the irony would be sweet, if nd30 was capable of seeing himself.
Gotcha!
You see, Chad, you decided to link GPW to all manner of activities that you screamed were “homophobic” without providing a bit of proof, all based on his party affiliation.
Now, when the tables are turned, you scream and whine and demand “proof” — even as you insist that you don’t need it for attacking GPW.
Hypocrite. Liar. And as we see from your support of the Obama Party and the examples I pointed out, “self-loathing homophobe”.
Whats a gay-sex liberal?
i just ran a quick scan of my comments on here, and didn’t see the word “homophobic” anywhere. wanna try again, nd30? (btw, you’re doing an excellent job at projecting!!)
seriously nd30, you’re obviously just making shit up right now. stop lying.
Oh fcuk you, Chad. You couldn’t address the post, so you went off on the tangent about Confederate History Month. Do you think if, say, NY had a Union History Month, they would mention the fact that they built the slave ships or that they built their city over the final resting place of many slaves?
While Il Douche bricks all over gays, you’re gonna whine, piss and moan about the governor of Virginia? Give us an f’ing break.
i just ran a quick scan of my comments on here, and didn’t see the word “homophobic” anywhere. wanna try again, nd30?
No need. You just got ashcanned with your little games, and now you’re trying to spin out of them. It’s hilarious to watch how dirtbag lefty gays like yourself melt down and start whining when your hypocrisy and obvious examples of how you attack conservatives for things you support and endorse in Obama Party members are thrown back in your face.
For some reason, you can’t cope with that, Chad. And the reason you hate conservative gays so much is because we prove every day that your problems are due to your attitude, ignorance, and laziness, rather than “discrimination”.
Whats a gay-sex liberal?
It is, Jack, an individual whose sexual orientation dominates every aspect of their lives and thoughts.
Like Chad, who is a dysfunctional wreck of a human being when judged by character — which is why he supports the Obama Party, where character is ignored and minority status is all-important.
Well yeah, TGC; after all, if Chad ever criticized the Obama Party, he would be a self-loathing homophobe, and if he ever criticized Obama, he would be a racist self-loathing homophobe.
Because we all know that all criticism of Obama is racist and that any gay and lesbian who doesn’t obey the Obama Party and hate all Republicans and conservatives is a “Jewish Nazi”, “Uncle Tom”, “self-loathing”, etc.
more projection from nd30, with tgc piling on. nd30, you seem to subscribe to the belief that if you repeat a lie repeatedly enough, and hysterically enough, eventually it will become true. sorry, it just makes you look like a hysterical liar. you have ZERO proof that i am liar or a hypocrite. any “evidence” that you offer is purely a figment of your imagination. do you ever tire of debating windmills?
and tgc, thanks for keeping it classy, fcukwad. apparently, you share dan’s views that mcdonnell is an archetypical “freedom-friendly” republican. i wouldn’t describe someone who attempted to whitewash slavery (i.e., the opposite of freedom) out of virginia’s history with such a superlative.
You are one funny character Dan. Trying to make this GOP governor look good in the eyes of the gays. Dream on, dreamer. I got familiarized with your little bag of tricks which include creating this smokescreen and facade that the GOP is somehow “gay friendly.”
On the issue, yes the state should allow people to pick and choose their own health care insurance blah blah. But come on, this is one new low for gay patriot, making the assumption that VA enacted this new law for gay couples, in fact lets be fair the to the readers here, they enacted this law in spite of gay couples. Okay?
Who did you vote for? Thank you.
And your mother who queeved you forth.
What was that about not being a liar? You can repeat that repeatedly enough, but it will never change the fact that you’re a lying sonofabitch.
Thanks Chad for all the links you’ve provided to back up your statements.
Oh wait, you didn’t. You decided to try to make spurious accusations w/o anything to back it up.
May I speculate? You’re upset that this legislation benefits everyone and not just your group. You’re further upset that it is the Republicans doing what Democrats won’t.
TGC, ND30, don’t sink to this troll’s level, with the insults, please. 🙂
I will say, in typical (cannot back up their liberal, short-sided, incorrect, “do as I say-not as I do” positions) fashion: it only took Chad 0.925 of a comment to abandon any attempt at insightful debate and 1.25 comments to resort to name-calling. Is this a record?
tgc, even assuming that i voted for obama, that doesn’t “prove” i’m a hypocrite or a liar, unless you can show, as nd30 has asserted ad nauseum and without a scintilla of proof, that i also supported harold ford or louis farrakhan or anyone else whose views he can project onto me. nd30 can’t prove this assertion, but you seem to think it’s true. so man up and prove it. or stop lying.
maybe livewire can help, since he likes to keep a running catalog of other people’s comments on here. and livewire, nd30 and tgc threw decorum out the window a long time ago. and you find them sympathetic. when you lie with dogs…
and as for links…the facts i offered are well known and even dan agreed with them. when i disagreed with the characterization of mcdonnell as “freedom friendly” i was offering my opinion. that doesn’t make the underlying facts spurious.
facts? What facts?
“yearning for the slavery-based economy of the confederacy” Source please?
“mcdonnell essentially said” How about What he actually said.
That’s my problem with your comments, Chad. You don’t address the post, nor do you elaborate on your concerns. However you do read the minds and hearts of others, as well as paraphrasing things that aren’t correct.
livewire, i think it’s too bad that you have bought into dan’s persistent dodging of criticism. whenever he’s confronted with facts that counter his argument, he claims that the criticism is unrelated to his post. seldom is he accurate; he’s just choosing not to acknowledge certain facts. here in this post, he made an argument that fit this form: mcdonnell is “freedom friendly” because X. i countered by saying: actually, he isn’t freedom friendly, in spite of X, because of A, B, and C. dan omits A, B, C because they contradict his argument, but that doesn’t mean they’re irrelevant facts. so going forward, maybe you should look at his attempts to dodge criticism with a little more scrutiny.
also, if you’re going to accuse me of paraphrasing or paraphrasing, you should hold yourself to the same standard. you link to mcdonnell’s apology; how gracious. obviously he apologized because he did something wrong. lauding the confederacy, which attempted to secede from the union in order to preserve the institution of slavery, is hardly “freedom-friendly.”
mcdonnell dug himself deeper. when the controversy erupted, he explained his omission of slavery from the proclamation like this: “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.”
link, you say? here’s your link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040604416.html
so the confederacy is worth lauding, for tourism purposes, but slavery can be whitewashed out, even though it was the primary reason for the civil war. again, i ask, this is your archetypical “freedom-friendly” republican?
Given the number of the founders from Virginia and surrounding areas, and given the strength of the Copperhead movements in free states, one can argue the importance of slavery as the ‘central issue’ in the south. Since there were black confederate units as well, it’s hard to put a percentage on how much was ‘slavery related’, especially for Virginia.
And one can apologize for statements being unclear, as well as incorrect.
And yes, his actions are those that promote freedom. Heck, for my part in the Civil War, I still idealize Sherman and Sheridan, two men who are reviled in parts of the country and raized chunks of the south. Were they saints? No. Did they do what they thought was right? Yes.
Same thing for the proclimation. it emphasized what was good, while not mentioning or celebrating, the bad. When people complained that he wasn’t stating the obivious (condemning the bad) he ammended his statement, pointing out that slavery wasn’t what the proclimation was about. “I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.”
To many Virginians the civil war wasn’t about slavery as much as it was about states rights. And for tourism, the battlefields, historical sites and other parts of Virgina are more significant than talking up the history of slavery.
And thank you for the link. It does help to cite your sources, as my teachers always said.
JS, why don’t you read the post before commenting, the title even. I never said the governor signed this bill for gays, but that it benefits gays. Understand the difference. And understand the case I’m making. Thanks.
I got familiarized with your little bag of tricks which include creating this smokescreen and facade that the GOP is somehow “gay friendly.”
Why not? After all, you support and endorse the Obama Party as “gay-friendly” even as it does all the things you accuse Republicans of doing.
Or is it because to gay-sex liberals like you and your friend Chad, party affiliation and minority status, not actions, fact, or character, are the determination of what is and what isn’t “gay-friendly”?
Sort of like your whining and screaming when confronted with the facts of what you and your Obama Party support and endorse — and how you attack Republicans for doing that which you support and endorse when Obama Party members do it.
Funny how you dodge and spin about that, isn’t it? Why can’t you confront the facts of what you and your Obama Party support and endorse, Chad? Is it because you’re a hypocrite who will do whatever Obama Party members tell him?
“JS, why don’t you read the post before commenting, the title even. I never said the governor signed this bill for gays, but that it benefits gays. Understand the difference. And understand the case I’m making. Thanks.”
Dan, I read it and like always you bolster republicans for the sake that they are not democrats. Yes I understand the superficial argument in your post that the law will benifit gay couples, but I point out why you bring it up in the first place, to defend your buddy McDonnell that’s all. A lot of things are good for gays, like traffic lights keep gays safe. LOL. But who ever boasts the legislator that came up with the idea? and saying that is beneficial. DUH.
I know what you want to do. You want to convince the world that the anti-gay GOP is becoming more “tolerant” of gay people (a laughable thought). And this is WHY you even bothered to write this pointless post.
I know what you want to do. You want to convince the world that the anti-gay GOP is becoming more “tolerant” of gay people (a laughable thought).
First, explain how the Democrats as a whole are truly more pro-gay and not just shedding crocodile tears to win the bucks of gay donors.
Second, Democrats are only tolerant of gay people who toe the party line and don’t rock the boat. Just look at Howard Dean firing a gay DNC staffer who complained of discrimination, the attempts to get gay congressional staffers who worked for Republicans sacked, and the reaction of nearly any gay liberal when the words “Mary” and “Cheney” are mentioned.
Third, Democrats know that gays will still vote for them no matter what actions they take, and they wave right-wing boogeymen in front of them to get their money and votes.
Wow, JS, your anti-Republican prejudice is nothing short of amusing. Why is it so “laughable” to suggest that the GOP is becoming more tolerant? Please detail how the GOP as a whole, and McDonnell in particular is “anti-gay.”
And please tell me why you refuse to even understand my argument. And please tell me why the argument is so superficial.
I believe the best way to improve the lot of gay people is to reduce government interference in our lives. Republicans do a better job of doing that than do Democrats–though they could do much better.
And why can’t you even acknowledge that this bill, pushed by a Republican legislator signed by a Republican executive benefits gay people?
And, if the post is indeed so pointless, why do you comment once and return to comment again? But, on a day when I’m busy working on my dissertation, your insistence on responding to my posts with your prejudices provides yet another amusing insight into the narrow-minded world of the left.
Please try to understand our arguments. We don’t need pro-gay politicians. But, then again, if you did respond to our arguments, your responses would not nearly be so amusing. Or betray such evidence of this liberal inability to understand conservative ideas.
I beg pardon. I didn’t come on here and unload an irrelevant, steaming pile of horse shit. I’m still a damn site “classier” than that chump. It’s a helluva lot further to go to sink to his level.
And there’s the REAL whitewash of the ignorant wretch. But he is only spewing the BS he was taught, so you kinda have to feel sorry for him in a way.
Oh, beleive me, the bile gets my BP up as well, I just know I’m less, passionate, when I post than you, TGC. (Better living through Pharmacology FTW!)
I just like to keep my head above the vulgarity, and appriciate it when we lead by example. If the trolls can’t argue points without lies and vulgarity, they’re not worth talking with. (lecturing to? Yes. Mocking? Oh gods yes. Swearing at? Waste of perfectly good anger.)
And no, I don’t always resist the temptation. “Christians aren’t perfect, we’re just Forgiven.” 🙂
In reading these tirades about what horrible people gay Democrats and liberals are, I’m chuckling at the semi-annual pity party gaypatriotwest has about how most gay men don’t want to date him when they discover he’s a Republican. Considering what gay conservatives think of us, why would they want to date liberals?