1. Washington, DC: It's beginning to look like the Washington DC City Council will pass the bill allowing same-sex couples to wed by the end of the week, in essence ignoring the threats of the Catholic Church to stop social services for one third of the city's homeless. It's looking good, but I'm still not convinced that the anti-equality folks don't have something up their sleeve.
2. Health Care Bill: Not many people know that when companies offer same-sex couples health benefits, that unlike heterosexual couples, that benefit is taxed. For example, here in Massachusetts, my husband provides our insurance through his work, but my portion is taxed by the federal government, even though married straight couples from the same state aren't. The present health care bill will actually put and end to this discriminatory federal policy, resulting in hundreds and even thousands of dollars in savings for some couples.3. Marriage Equality in Australia: The country down under is about to offer civil marriage to gay couples. The national government had twice thwarted the law, but this time decided to allow the law to pass and to let same-sex couples get married. As Timothy Beauchamp of Americablog wrote Sunday morning:
One more of our longtime allies embarrasses the United States in providing equality and civil rights to ALL of their citizens, while our government continues to prop up institutionalized discrimination to deny equality and justice for all here in America.
Everyone "hates us for our freedoms" over here in the United States, right? /snark
Everyone "hates us for our freedoms" over here in the United States, right? /snark
4. Next Year's Census: For the first time ever, the United States census will count same-sex couples as spouses. (Before thus same-sex couples were called unmarried partners. This is one of those pieces of good news that is also a little disheartening. On the one hand, it's vitally important to be counted as part of the citizenry. On the other, isn't it pretty sad to feel grateful just because the government decided to acknowledge you exist?
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