Saturday, March 08, 2008

Another LGBT Unfriendly Legislative Sesson Comes to an End

Living in Virginia with its legal hostility to LGBT citizens can be down right depressing at times. Bills and legislation that one would consider no big deal in enlightened jurisdictions have a difficult time passing in the Virginia General Assembly. This year was sadly no exception and leave me feeling that Virginia could be a wonderful state but for the hate-filled bigots among the Christianists who believe that any legislation that might offer a shread of dignity or protection to LGBT citizens MUST be defeated. In my view, defeating these bills was just plain mean spirited. Unfortunately, we seem to have more than our share of demented wingnut organizations in this state, not least of which is the Christo-fascist Family Foundation, an affiliate of Daddy Dobson's Focus on the Family [or Anus if you quote Pam Spaulding]. Here is a summary of some bills that dies in this year's legislative session via Equality Virginia.

HB 36 (Jim Scott, D-Merrifield) -- would have prohibited discrimination in housing.
HB 675 (Ken Plum, D-Reston) -- would have allowed Fairfax County to add sexual orientation to its local human rights ordinance.
HB 865 (Adam Ebbin, D-Arlington) -- would have allowed coverage under private group life insurance policies to extended to cover additional people that could be mutually agreed upon by the insurer and the group policy owner.
HB 1493 (Adam Ebbin, D-Arlington) -- would have prohibited workplace discrimination for state employees based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or status as a special disabled veteran or other veteran covered by the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974.
SB 51/HB 1415 (Mary Margaret Whipple, D-Arlington/Jim Scott, D-Merrifield) -- would have allowed self-insured localities in Virginia to offer expanded health care benefits if they chose to do so.

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