R000075
Monday, March 11, 2002 10:03 AM
unbelievable
Unbelievable:
On this six-month anniversary of the attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, Kenneth Feinberg and the
September 11th Fund are telling the American people that
regardless of whether a gay man was one of the four heroes on
United Flight 93 who saved the US Congress and the White
House from utter annihilation, the 911 Fund plans to
discriminate against an American hero because most of the
country sanctioned such discrimination prior to September 11.
In an appearance on the Sunday, March 10 broadcast of NBC's
"Meet the Press," Kenneth Feinberg, the head of the September
11th Victim Compensation Fund (a fund created by Congress and
run by the Department of Justice), said that gay partners of
the heroes of September 11th will not necessarily be eligible
for the same compensation as heterosexual family members who
lost their loved ones.
"[Gays and lesbians are] left out of my program to the extent
that their own state doesn't include them. I cannot get into
a position in this program, which has a one-and-a-half or
two-year life start second-guessing what the state of New
York or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the state of
Virginia or New Jersey, how they treat same-sex partners,
domestic live-ins, etc. I simply say this: What does your
state law say about who is eligible? If your state law makes
you eligible, I will honor state law. If it doesn't, I go
with the state. Otherwise, Tim, I would find myself getting
sued in every state by people claiming that I'm not following
how the state distributes money. I can't get into that local
battle. I've got to rely on state law." - Kenneth Feinberg on
NBC's "Meet the Press," March 10, 2002.
That's a long-winded way of saying that if state law
discriminates against gay people, then so will Feinberg and
the 911 Fund. The problem for gay Americans who lost loved
ones on September 11 is that most states do not legally
recognize gay relationships, and the very few that do tend to
do so only for state employees, not for citizens at large.
And while a handful of cities do in fact recognize such
relationships, under Feinberg's formula, it's the state's law
that counts, not the city's.
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