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Harvey Milk (Photo by AP)
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California lawmakers have approved legislation and are now waiting for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature to declare each May 22 as a “day of significance” to honor the birthday of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk.
Milk was the first openly gay elected official in a major American city. He and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a fellow supervisor in 1978, only one year after Milk took office.
While Schwarzenegger has not yet said if he will sign the bill, we hope he will give due honor to a gay man who continues to be one of our most significant heroes.
FOE
Those conservative Christian lawyers at the Alliance Defense Fund can’t get enough of bullying gays, or even our allies.
The group is now taking New York Gov. David Paterson to court because, the Arizona-based group alleges, he went out-of-bounds when he ordered his state to recognize gay marriages from out-of-state.
The ADF filed the suit June 3 in New York state court; a hearing was scheduled for Aug. 7 at the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Bronx.
Why is the ADF suing? Because, well, “Paterson’s directive will undermine the democratic process and force taxpayer dollars to fund benefits for same-sex couples where same-sex ‘marriage’ is not legal,” the group states in a press release. That’s their quotes around the word marriage.
The group fails to mention that New York would likely reap a boon of tax dollars should the state eventually decide to recognize gay marriage itself - last year, the New York City comptroller’s office estimated that allowing gay marriage could bring $142 million to the local economy in the first three years. Another $8 million would be collected by the state in taxes and the city could get up to another $7 million.
Money talks, and our money is on Gov. Paterson.
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