N000056
Thursday, December 20, 2001 5:34 PM
Subject: Allow Non-Traditional Families Access to Victim Compensation
Fund
Thursday
12-20-01
Kenneth L. Zwick, Director
Office of Management Programs
U.S. Department of Justice
Dear Mr. Zwick,
I would like to voice my support for allowing survivors from non-traditional
and same-sex families to receive benefits from the "September 11 Victim
Compensation Fund". Although most of these persons do not currently
enjoy legal recognition of their relationships, their families are just as
tightly woven (in the majority of cases) and just as important to them as
are the family members of more traditional man/wife/children families to
each other.
We're talking about basic fairness here. While it may take decades to
gain legal recognition of these non-traditional families, and while many of
these families will continue to suffer from unfair discrimination in the
meantime, you and the U.S. Dept. of Justice have the opportunity to see
that ALL families affected by the September 11 tragedy have access to
the funds set aside specifically for their compensation. Paraphrasing the
words of the Rev. , the founder of the Metropolitan Community
Churches, "their pain is no less, their loss is no less".
I think there should be criteria in place for determining and assuring that
people claiming compensation under this Fund did have an established,
on-going interdependence of a familial nature with one or more of the
September 11th victims. It would obviously be up to you to determine
exactly what these criteria should be. I would suggest that while they
do need to clearly establish the existence of a significant relationship,
they should not be overly restrictive or burdensome.
Thank you for considering my opinion in this matter,
Individual Comment
Hutto, TX