QSALTLAKE.COM
ISSUE 206
MAY 10, 2012
NEWS
Biden getting comfortable with gay marriage Vice President Joe Biden touted, on Meet the Press, the Obama administration’s support of queer rights, and voiced his own support and comfort with gay couples marrying. However, he fell short of saying that if elected to a second term President Barack Obama would endorse a marriageequality platform. “The good news is that as more and more Americans become to understand what this is all about is a simple proposition. Who do you love? Who do you love? And will you be loyal to the person you love? And that’s what people are finding out is what all marriages, at their root, are about. Whether they’re marriages of lesbians or gay men or heterosexuals,” Biden said in the interview. Obama’s position on gay marriage has cycled over the years. He endorsed gay marriage during a 1996 run for the Illinois Senate, but then opposed it when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004 and for president in 2008. Last summer Obama said his views on gay marriage were “evolving” but has avoided the subject since. Biden pointed out Obama’s work on overturning the discriminatory military policy banning openly gay and lesbian soldiers from serving in the armed forces and his implemented policy requiring hospitals that receive federal funding to allow same-sex partner visitations. In the 2008 race during a debate with Sarah Palin, Biden said that neither “Barack Obama nor I support redefining, from a civil side, what constitutes marriage. We do not support that.” Biden softened that stance with a heartfelt, apparently unrehearsed comment.
5
Colorado House committee approves civil-unions bill
“Look, I am vice president of the United States of America. The president sets the policy,’’ Biden said. “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying [one] another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And, quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.” After the remarks, some gay rights activists felt the vice president’s remarks amounted to unequivocal support of samesex marriage. But Biden’s office said his remarks should be seen only as an assertion that gay couples deserve the same rights as heterosexual couples.
A Colorado House committee dominated by Republicans approved a civil-unions bill just a year after the same committee rejected the measure. The bill, which cleared the committee with a 6-5 vote, would offer legal protections similar to those of marriage to gay Colorado couples. The bill faces two more committee votes before landing on the House floor for approval. But bill sponsors remain optimistic that they have enough support and momentum to have the bill clear the House and land on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk by the end of the month. The measure has already passed the Senate and Hickenlooper has promised to sign the bill. Colorado would join more than a dozen other states with similar bills and protections. “My hope just shot through the roof. I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of an amazing place in history,” Cristina Aguilar, a gay-rights activist from Denver, told The Associated Press. Rep. Mark Ferrandino, the openly gay Democrat and sponsor of the bill, said before the vote that he wanted equal rights and protections for himself and other gay and lesbian couples. He asked that the Republican chairman overseeing the House Judiciary Committee grant gays and lesbi-
sanctity of marriage
child, and she was detained for two days in an immigration jail in Eloy, Ariz., hours away from her young daughter on her birthday. She is the latest victim of profiling under a new law that Wife of U.S. solider held in immigration prison would allow police to question the citizenship A visit to the local grocery store to pick up status of anyone stopped for any violation. plastic plates for her 3-year-old daughter’s ‘Bachelor’ host may need to take some advice birthday party turned into a 48-hour nightmare Host of the hit TV series The Bachelor, Chris for a deployed U.S. Army soldier’s wife. Araceli Harrison, is joining the ranks of the men as seen Mercado Sanchez, 22, was stopped for a on the reality series and is going be a bachelor, minor traffic violation and was threatened with again. The 40-year-old television personality deportation. She admitted that she has been in said he and his wife are ending their 18-year the country illegally since she was a very young marriage, and that the choice is mutual. He has
ans equal protection in the law. Republican Rep. B.J. Nikkel was the deciding swing vote and she voted against the bill last year. She said her change of heart came after hearing the crowd of gay couples who shared painful stories of the impact that the inequality in the law had on them and their families. “I was looking over the crowd and thinking, ‘These are all folks that deserve to be treated equally,’” Nikkel said. Opponents contended that civil unions harm traditional marriage and that voters expressed their position when they banned same-sex marriage in 2006 with a ballot initiative. Byron Babione, a representative from the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative group, said civil unions are “marriage without the name.” However, gay couples asked for the committee to vote in favor of the bill to support families who may not fit the traditional mold. “I ask you to vote tonight in favor of all of your constituents,” said Jason Cobb, a Denver attorney who is raising a son with another man. “We’re more than a political issue. We’re your family, we’re your neighbors, your sons, your daughters, your grandchildren. I ask you to vote for family tonight.” hosted the ABC dating series since 2002.
Polish rage A Polish man is under investigation for allegedly purchasing grenades, automatic rifles and pistols for friends when he asked to have six people burned alive who he thought caused his marriage to dissolve. Zenon Gregorczyk, 49, allegedly said that the six unidentified targets poisoned his wife’s opinion of him, leading to divorce. An informant turned him in to authorities after he tried to buy an AK-47 and other weapons, according to the federal complaint. Because nothing says, “I miss you,” quite like an AK-47.
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