Bangor Daily News editorial slams anti-gay side's falsehoods. Slams them.

Excellent editorial appearing in the Bangor Daily News just blowing away the lies and distortions from the anti-gay campaign in Maine. The BDN was always viewed as the conservative paper in the state - - and is a powerful voice in the northern part of the state. I'm posting some excerpts, but read the whole thing:

The debate about the Nov. 3 ballot’s Question 1, the effort to repeal Maine’s newly minted same-sex marriage law, will heat up in the coming weeks. Heat is one thing. Falsehoods are another.

Opponents of the law are bringing children into the fray, suggesting their innocence would be sullied if the repeal fails. It’s a ploy that has been used effectively before; any candidate for elected office who supports sex education is said to favor handing out condoms to kindergarten children. This time, the claim by repeal proponents is that schools would be forced to teach “gay sex education.” It is baseless and betrays an ignorance about education....

...Whether Sally’s or Billy’s same-sex parents are married or living together does not change the discussion the teacher might facilitate. If same-sex marriage remains legal, the teacher would merely be using different terminology than he or she would have used last year or 10 years ago.

So, the question that remains about the repeal proponents is: Are they knowingly misleading people by claiming schools will be forced to teach the details of gay sex, or are they genuinely ignorant that same-sex couples are among us, and that their children are in our schools? Neither speaks well of their argument supporting a yes vote.

The Catholic Bishop of Maine should be ashamed. He's funding lies. Isn't there a commandment about bearing false witness?

One other thing that bears repeating: Maine is not California. Read More...

Insurance Company Must Pay $10 Million For Revoking Policy Of Teen With HIV

Absolutely despicable.

The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company "reprehensible."....

An investigation this summer by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and earlier ones by state regulators in California, New York and Connecticut, found that thousands of vulnerable and seriously ill policyholders have had their coverage canceled by many of the nation's largest insurance companies without any legal basis. The congressional committee found that three insurance companies alone made at least $300 million over five years from rescission. One of those three companies was Assurant.

In Febuary 2008, a private arbitration judge in Los Angeles ordered Health Net Inc. to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient whose health insurance it revoked shortly after her diagnosis and while she was undergoing chemotherapy. The plaintiff in that case, Patsy Bates, a then-52-year-old grandmother and hair-salon owner, was unable to continue her chemotherapy for several months.

Read More...

The Newlywed Game gets its first gay couple

Yeah it's stilly. But it's also American culture, and exposure. And that makes this a good thing. Read More...

Being gay and Mormon

Nice article, except that it mentions Evergreen, a Mormon "cure" center for gays, and other "troubled" youth. I interviewed a kid who was sent by his parents to Evergreen, years back. Well, "sent" is perhaps the wrong word. He says his parents had him kidnapped in his sleep. Because of September 11, I never finished the story. It was horrifying what he alleged. I wonder if anyone out there has anything more on Evergreen? Read More...