Chafee is so steadfast. Via.
Archive for rhode island
WaPo:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island’s governor on Monday declared that the state will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones when it comes to health insurance and a slew of other benefits.
The order signed by Gov. Lincoln Chafee in a Statehouse ceremony directs state agencies to recognize marriages performed out of state as legal and treat same-sex married couples the same as heterosexual ones.
Civil unions, not gay marriages, are legal in Rhode Island, but some gay couples married outside the state haven’t been allowed some of the same basic rights as hetero couples. Now spouses of state employees and anyone covered by an insurance company regulated in Rhode Island will get health and life insurance benefits.
And both parents will get their names on their child’s birth certificate.
And more.
Pretty basic, huh?
So thank you, Gov. Chafee, for treating people as people, not as second class citizens.
But then there are those who think like Reince Priebus, who believes that gay Americans who want marriage equality don’t deserve civil rights, dignity, or respect. Teh Gays are not as good as other people, apparently.
Actually, when you think about it, it’s those who think like Priebus that aren’t as good as other people.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Wait, what? A Republican is being less than honest about [Insert lie here]? This time it’s a Rhode Island State Representative named Daniel Gordon, and it seems he told a few little fibs about his military record.
Danny Boy’s been blaming his legal woes on “combat stress” that he claims he suffered back in Bush 41′s Gulf War. But oops:
(AP) PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Military service records… indicate he never served in the Middle East.
State Rep. Daniel Gordon’s Marine Corps records, obtained by The Associated Press, list him as an aircraft technician who served from 1987 to 1991 in the U.S. and Japan. Gordon has said his leg was injured by shrapnel outside Baghdad.
Gordon’s records also list no Purple Heart award for an injury.
Okay, okay, so he stretched the truth a little. I’m sure these little white lies were for the most wholesome of GOP, family values reasons:
The Portsmouth Republican is fighting calls for his resignation following his arrest on charges stemming from a 2008 police chase in Massachusetts. The arrest exposed past legal problems, including a four-month sentence in 1999 for assault, an attempted murder charge dismissed in 2004 and a long list of traffic offenses in Massachusetts.
Gordon has said his problems sprang from alcohol abuse relating to post-traumatic stress from his service.
Oh my.
Of course, he swearstogod that the Defense Department didn’t provide “a full and accurate record.” Psst, Daniel! Neither did you.
House Speaker Gordon Fox (D) and House Minority Leader Brian Newberry (R), as well as the state Republican and Democratic parties are asking him to resign.
For more of rationales, excuses, and gyrations directly from Planet Gordon, go here.
Of course, the assault and battery was on his girlfriend. Sure know how to pick ‘em Republicans. Via Wonkette.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island State Rep. Daniel Gordon has been in and out of Massachusetts jail cells since 1999 and has been charged more than a dozen times over the past 18 years, according to records obtained by the Target 12 Investigators.
Gordon served nearly six months over a five-year period at the Bristol County House of Correction in North Dartmouth, Mass., according to records from the Bristol County Sheriff’s office.
Gordon, 42, of Portsmouth, served four months in jail after being convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in 1999, records reveal. He was back in 2003 for a one-month stay on another assault and battery charge and again in 2004 after being charged with attempted murder, the sheriff’s office said. That year he was also held on an outstanding warrant for a “larceny of a motor vehicle” charge issued by police in Falmouth, Mass.
Gordon has been charg 18 times since 1993, according to criminal records from the Mass. Office of Public Safety and Security. He was charged six times with assault and battery, twice with a gun and once with a pool cue. Gordon was charged with possession of marijuana in 1996 and convicted of operating under the influence in 1993.
Via a New York Times email alert:
Less than a week after same-sex marriage was legalized in New York, the Rhode Island State Senate approved on Wednesday evening a bill allowing not marriage, but civil unions for gay couples, despite fierce opposition from gay-rights advocates who called the legislation discriminatory.
The bill, which already passed in the state’s House of Representatives and which the governor said he will likely sign, would grant gay and lesbian couples most of the rights and benefits that Rhode Island provides married couples. It was offered as a compromise this spring after Gordon D. Fox, the openly gay speaker of the Democratic-controlled House, said he could not muster enough votes to pass a same-sex marriage bill.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30unions.html?emc=na
This is mind-boggling. Every teacher in Providence got a letter from the School Department letting them know they could very well be “terminated” at the end of the school year. This came as a complete shock to them, and one called it a “power grab”.
I know the feeling, by the way. I worked at a high school for well over ten years, and got the same treatment (I am not a union member, nor do I have a teaching credential. I was hired as a “specialist” and worked anywhere from 4-12 hours a day, including weekends, so I can, at the very least, relate.):
PROVIDENCE — After two hours of contentious discussion, the School Board voted 4 to 3 Thursday night to send out termination notices to each of the city’s 1,926 public school teachers.
Some reactions:
–“How do we feel? Disrespected.”
–“I’m feeling disrespected, devalued and marginalized. Termination is a career-ender. You are putting a scarlet letter on every one of us.”
–“This is a back-door Wisconsin. We don’t know why we’re being fired. The mayor says he needs flexibility. Can you buy that? I don’t know of any other district that has done this.”
The superintendent said he expects most of them to be rehired.
What in the heck is going on in this country?
H/t: steelhoof
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