R000412
Tuesday, March 12, 2002 11:49 AM
9/11 benefits
To whom it may concern:
please forward this message to Kenneth Feinberg
I have recently learned that the 9/11 fund will not compensate families of gay
and lesbian victims of the September 11 attacks. I am deeply outraged by this.
Horrified would perhaps be a better word. My partner and I are as married as we
can possibly be: we have been together for eight years and travelled to Vermont
for a civil union, the only legal union permitted to us in the U.S. We provide
each other with daily emotional, financial, and practical support. As a couple
we have outlasted the "legal" marriages of some of our straight friends. Why in
the world should the destruction of such a family through terrorism be viewed as
any less tragic? Please do not hide behind the excuse that state law may not
recognize our marriages. At one time interracial marriage was illegal in some
states but not others; if that were still the case, would you have ordered
compensation only to same-race spouses of the victims? Believe me, the decision
to exclude same-sex partners is exactly the moral equivalent of such hateful
discrimination. It is the sort of policy I would expect of Al-Qaida, not of my
own supposedly democratic and compassionate government.
PLEASE DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO ENSURE FAIRNESS IN THIS MATTER.
Very sincerely yours,
Individual Comment
Northampton, MA