Are Anti-Gay Policies Bad for Business?

Fourth, I appreciate the apology. I might be tone deaf....I didn't mean to convey any tone other than engaging in thoughtful discussion. I wasn't trying to give Gooz a hard time, just have a discussion.

I must apologize. You have really improved since we both started smacking one another around. In this instance, what bothered me, FanGuy, was your "tone."

As with basketball, soccer and football, etc.....there will always be those "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" busily commenting on what coulda and shouda been done.

I really wish you would come forward and write a BackPage for Style so we can all critique your work.

Fourth, except that I've done nothing but discuss the issue here, which Gooz responded to by attacking me.

Don't let the facts get in the way of your story though.

Peter,

FanGuy is most likely an unemployed lawyer who has plenty of time on his hands to pick fights with Style reporters and editors. His modus operandi is to denigrate everything that appears online and in print. He especially loves the ad hominem attack and delights when he can drag normally rational people into these debates and cause them to get angry and frustrated with him. As all lawyers know, if someone is angry, they are irrational. And, if they are irrational, they are at a decided disadvantage in a debate that hinges on logic.

Your reportage in Style has always been excellent. Do not give this fool the satisfaction of having you engage with him any further. He embarrasses himself.

LOL. Wow goozer, I guess I hit the nail on the head judging from your response. When you can't address the point, you attack the person making it. I see.

And FYI, I'm not from Richmond. Richmond is a small town to me.

Fan Guy,
The point is to show that homosexuals tend to make money and be creative. Period. If you don't buy that, ,thats your problem. I think there's penty of evidence enough evidence out there and why should one have to jump through your hoops? Have you ever been out of Richmond?

@ Saturday, March 06, 2010 3:06:57 PM by Anonymous
My earlier post was meant to support gay marriage. I do not think "unions" or whatever politically correct term the GA comes up with is fair. I do not believe the gays should accept anything less than what the rest of us are entitled to. I believe the section of the Code of Virginia I posted below needs to be changed, to include reference to sexual orientation, once this is done, all of the other pieces automatically become covered. What I am saying is do NOT accept anything less than equal rights - no compromises.

Kit, Exactly to what "evidence" are you referring? Your comment is even more ridiculous than Glen Allen's. Supporting the cause for gay marriage and equal rights for gay people is not fashionable or eliteit is the right thing to do.

Going by the evidence, acceptance of homosexuality is a leading indicator of social and financial decay. A lot of decent people raising families have moved here to escape the decadence and bankruptcy of states like New York, Massachussets and California. We don't want to drive them away by legislating the same destructive social gospel that has turned much of the Northeast into a sewer of political and moral corruption.

Homosexual "marriage" and other privileges have been decisively rejected everywhere they have appeared on a popular ballot, and you would think that by now it was a non-issue. But apparently as long as it remains a fashionable elite cause we will continue to be subjected to absurd suggestions like the above.

The point I was trying to make is that you should not need a specific law prohibiting discrimination in the workforce based on sexual orientation. What you need to do is lobby to change this law to include sexual orientation, etc. Once done, all of the other pieces are covered except marriage.

§ 2.2-3900. Short title declaration of policy.

A. This chapter shall be known and cited as the Virginia Human Rights Act.

B. It is the policy of the Commonwealth to:

1. Safeguard all individuals within the Commonwealth from unlawful discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, or disability, in places of public accommodation, including educational institutions and in real estate transactions in employment preserve the public safety, health and general welfare and further the interests, rights and privileges of individuals within the Commonwealth and

2. Protect citizens of the Commonwealth against unfounded charges of unlawful discrimination.

Goozer, that is still a misleading study, because I am sure it is much more difficult for a gay person who is poor to come out than it is for a person with money. The survey is self-ive in that regard.

Not to mention I think you will find it is not uncommon for gay people to move to urban areas, where they can find a more supportive peer group and community, and urban areas have much higher median incomes than rural areas anyway.

In other words, the survey results aren't worth much. What you really need to compare is median incomes w/in a specific city or location, not across the U.S.

Jack 23220:

I wrote for a national magazine for 15 years and we felt we dind't have to list every single source as in Journalism 101.

But since you are interested, here is the URL:
http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/36386/gays-lesbians-earn-far-more-than-media-us-household-income/

You might want to avoid the personnel comments when you don't know what you are talking about.

Peter Galuszka

Glenn,
Your logic is extrordinary in it's stupidity. "Get your equal rights first"? Get them? Where?

Bon McDonnell is very shrewd in the fact that he has had little comment on his homophobic move. Clearly his actions are no surprise as he wrote an extensive thesis on how working women and gays are destroying society.

Also, I find the claim by Peter Galuszka as dubious. What survey was this taken from? What are these "media buying surveys"? Why don't you site the specific survey? What you are doing is portraying gay people as some elite group with tons of money to throw around. You should continue to write for local free papers.

Since many people might want to know more about just how bad things are for gay people in the U.S. I am taking the liberty of posting additional information on the subject. Dismal isn't it?

Opponents of gay marriage have tried hard to paint things as if gay people are given all kinds of rights, and “moderates” try to say that since many states have civil unions, this should be good enough. Both things are completely untrue.

First of all, gays and lesbians have few even basic legal protections: According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which advocates for equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people, in 34 states, it is completely legal to fire someone from their job based on sexual orientation in 44 states, it is legal to fire a transgender person. And with regard to marriage, only one state, Massachusetts, has granted marriage licenses to same-sex couples. 45 of the 50 states have laws either explicitly defining marriage as between a man and a woman or refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. And, as many gay rights advocates have argued, civil unions are no substitute for the protections that straight couples get when they marry. A report from the federal government’s General Accounting Office lists more than 1,138 legal and financial protections granted to opposite-sex couples but denied to same-sex couples.

If you are a same-sex couple in the U.S., you face, at best, an endlessly confusing patchwork of different laws, rights, and protections, which you constantly have to navigate and which are vulnerable to attack, depending on where you live and where you work. At worst, your relationship is explicitly forbidden basic rights regarding the ability to raise children with your partner or make medical decisions for them.

Take what happens when someone in a same-sex couple gets sick or injured. The HRC reports that the Family Medical Leave Act, a federal law granting 12 weeks of unpaid leave to allow someone to care for a spouse, does not apply to same-sex partners, since they are not recognized according to that law’s definition of “family.” Depending on the state and even the city, hospitals either will or will not let someone visit their same-sex partner when visits are limited to “family” only, or to allow someone to make decisions for their partner’s medical treatment. If someone in a same-sex couple dies, their partner may or may not have a right to inherit their property if there was no will, and might not get bereavement leave from their job. The web site PlanetOut reported that in 2003, Bill Flanigan lost his lawsuit against the hospital that kept him away from the bedside of his partner, Robert Daniel, while Robert was dying. Bill and Robert were registered as domestic partners in San Francisco, and Bill had even obtained a power of attorney to make decisions for his partner, but he was kept away and denied the ability to carry out Robert’s wishes to not have a breathing tube ed. Lambda Legal’s David Buckel commented on this lawsuit: “When the government won’t let you marry, not even protecting yourself through legal documents will guarantee that the person closest to you will be allowed to be by your side during times of crisis… We are a nation divided by discrimination in marriage—and Bill and Robert paid a terrible price for that discrimination.” (EqualityMaryland.org has a long list of similar cases.)

When it comes to the right to have and raise children, same-sex couples have few, if any guarantees. Four states explicitly forbid lesbians and gay people from adopting children. If you are in a same-sex relationship and you and/or your partner have children from a previous relationship, or if you decide to become parents together, you enter another frightening patchwork of laws and regulations. Four states explicitly forbid the other half of a same-sex couple from adopting the child their partner has fathered or given birth to. And according to the HRC, in 27 states the right to do this is either “depending on the jurisdiction” or there is no clear precedent, which leaves couples in a frightening legal limbo. Even states that allow for gay or lesbian people to adopt their partner’s child have a myriad set of rules and prohibitions that make this very hard. Where these adoptions are not allowed, and one partner dies, children have been removed from what may be the only remaining parent they have ever known, and placed with their closest biological relatives, even if the child has never met these relatives before.

On the federal level, gays and lesbians are not allowed to sponsor their partner, or their partner’s children, for immigration purposes, and since they can’t get married, they have essentially no right to legally live with their partner in this country.

Dear Glen - As one of "the gays" I pay taxes. I pay taxes to a state that allows me to be fired purely due to my sexuality. I can also LEGALLY be denied housing (in a rental situation). Do you think you would stand for that if you paid $10,000 a year in taxes and had no children and used very few services? The idea of "continuously changing the name on an insurance policy" to pay an expensive insurance claim is preposterous as well. Do your research before commenting on something about which you obviously know little. States such as Iowa, Mass, CT, NY, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia already allow civil unions and the world has not stopped revolving. It wasn't too long ago that it was illegal to marry out of your race, remember that? It wasn't too long before that when people didn't share a water fountain, remember that? Thought so.

The comment by Glen Allen makes no sense at all. "They first need to gain gay rights in Virginia which they do not currently have." How exactly? Which rights? Isn't protection from job discrimination a right? Aren't gays trying to get that right?

A marriage is a legal contract between a man and a woman, until such time as Virginia allows a legal gay marriage, they should not extend benefits to a gay partner, it doesn't even make sense to think it should be allowed. I have nothing against the gays, but what would stop someone from continuously change the name on an insurance policy every-time a friend is need of an expensive insurance claim? It seems to me that the gays are starting somewhere in the middle here - piecemeal if you will. They first need to gain gay rights in Virginia which they do not currently have. It is my understanding that they can be denied housing, jobs, and probably everything else just because they are gay. Get your deserved equal rights first and the rest will come automatically.