Posted on 02/22/2005 6:14:15 AM PST by Gopher Broke
The House of Delegates is expected to vote on the "Gay Insurance" bill on Tuesday. If you haven't contacted your Delegate about this critical bill, you've got one more chance.
Use the ACTION ITEM near the end of this email BEFORE noon Tuesday.
Homosexuals gaining marriage benefits despite Marriage Amendment success?
(Richmond) - The same Virginia legislature that voted to preserve the definition of one-man, one-woman marriage has rejected a ban on gay adoptions and is now poised to give insurance benefits previously reserved for married spouses and dependants to homosexual "couples” and anyone else who wants them.
On February 16, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee killed legislation that would ban gay adoptions. Senator Dick Saslaw (D-Fairfax) called the failed ban, "awful close to being pretty bigoted." In response to expert testimony about studies proving the deadly health consequences resulting from homosexuality, Saslaw commented, "I have never heard of any of these studies. If homosexuals were dying at the same rate as prostitutes it would be on the front page of every newspaper. I am hearing this for the first time, and it's coming from somebody who I suspect goes all over the country to stop gay adoptions."
This [Tuesday], the full House of Delegates will vote to give homosexual "couples" insurance rights that have previously been reserved for married spouses and their dependant children. A similar "gay insurance bill" passed the House of Delegates last year by a vote of 51-49 before eventually failing in the Senate. Only an immediate outpouring of pro-family concern via phone calls and email to members of the House of Delegates can stop it.
Senate Bill 1338, which already sailed through the Virginia Senate and subsequently the House committee on Commerce and Labor this month, will permit homosexual "couples" to receive insurance benefits if it passes in the full House of Delegates as early as [Tuesday].
Current Virginia law allows insurance coverage to be extended to spouses and children under age 19 and/or children under age 25 who are full-time students. The proposed change would add, "any other class of persons;" thereby giving homosexual "couples" the ability to receive insurance benefits through their sexual partners' policies.
The health consequences associated with homosexual conduct cannot be overstated. For example, an Oxford University study of homosexual men in Canada just a decade ago estimated that "nearly half of gay and bisexual men" that were 20 years old at the time of the study would "not reach their 65th birthday." Virginia citizens who work hard and lead healthy lives should not be forced to subsidize the obvious health consequences of a deadly, dangerous, and illegal lifestyle.
This bill’s passage could have unexpected consequences, since homosexuals consume a disproportionate amount of health care services. Although an employer would not be forced to offer health insurance to a homosexual partner, there certainly will be pressure brought to do so. In fact, some companies that do business both in Virginia and California are forced by a San Francisco ordinance to offer employees’ same-sex “partners” health care benefits everywhere those companies have an office, EXCEPT where it is otherwise prohibited by law - - like in Virginia! While the supporters of this bill claim it merely gives businesses the “freedom” to offer these benefits to their employees, the fact is the current wording of the law gives some companies the freedom NOT to offer them.
Homosexual activists were the chief proponents of SB1338's look-a-like bill last year, unsuccessfully arguing the language was an attempt to insure a variety of non-familial relationships; rather than an attempt to endorse homosexual behavior. This year, homosexual lobbyists have taken a "behind-the-scenes" role, in an attempt to hide the obvious intent of this legislation to be used later to legitimize homosexual "couples."
Sadly, several Delegates that voted to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman are planning to vote for this bill on Monday. In other words, some politicians are enjoying the accolades of conservatives for preserving marriage, while they simultaneously erode marriage's preeminent place in society by taking away its benefits.
----------------------------------------------------------------
ACTION ITEM:
Contact your Delegate ASAP and urge them to defeat SB1338.
- Call toll-free: 1-800-889-0229 throughout Virginia - OR:
Find your Delegate's contact information here:
http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/main?openform
----------------------------------------------------------------
RELATED INFORMATION:
For more on the health consequences of homosexuality, see:
http://www.familypolicy.net/features/PPR-sodomy.php
To see a summary of Senate Bill 1338, visit this link:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?051+sum+SB1338
Review SB1338's look-a-like bill from last year:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?041+sum+HB1016
A classic case of salami-slicing (gaah! Sorry!) But it is.
This is stupid. You pay for insurance. You ought to be able to make anyone you want your beneficiary.
This is stupid.
I don't support gay marriage either, but this seems like just hateful and vindictive.
Bones
Agreed. One should be able to purchase insurance for a perfect stranger, if one so desires. Their money, their decision.
Oh yeah, gotta stop this! Society will disintegrate if we let private insurers and their private company clients make their own decisions about who they want to insure! < /sarcasm>
I think the nitwits at the "Family Policy Network" ought to change their name to "Socialist Policy Network".
"Gay" couples don't and can't have sex. It's physiologically impossible.
A nice distinction. Clintonian, even.
Seems like this post brings out the pro-gay lurkers and DU crowd......
So you think government should be dictating to private insurers and private employers what kind of policies they should be allowed offer? THAT position is welcome over at DU.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.