MY LIFE

At least not if you are gay and in a committed relationship with your partner.  In Rhode Island, your partner might not be allowed to make your funeral arrangements!

An opponent of same-sex marriage, Governor Carcieri has vetoed bill that would have added “domestic partners” to the list of people authorized by law to make funeral arrangements for each other.

This is supremely insane and hateful, and even more so when applied to same-sex partners who cannot legally get married in Rhode Island.

Carcieri cited at least two other reasons for his veto.  As written, he said the bill would allow the decisions of a “partner” of a year to take precedence over “traditional family members,” and he believes a “one year time period is not a sufficient duration to establish a serious bond between two individuals…”

Are you kidding me?   One year is not long enough to establish a serious bond between domestic partners, but the day after a traditional wedding, legally married spouses automatically have rights to make decisions.

Throughout the GLBT community there is a LARGE percentage who have been cut off from their family of origin.  Yet, under Rhode Island law, those same estranged relatives somehow have precedence and priority over the people with whom their dead gay relative actually spent the last days of life.  This makes NO SENSE.

And our history is full of those estranged families swooping in and seizing property shared between GLBT partners, and the surviving partner had no recourse.

At a time when people need and deserve compassion on the loss of their partner, the state of Rhode island (and many other states) double the tragedy by refusing to acknowledge their relationship.   it doesn’t matter if it was a day, a year, a decade or whatever.   Hetero married couples are instantly bestowed over 1000 rights and privileges simply by virtue of holding a marriage license.   Idiotic laws like this one in Rhode Island make it increasingly difficult for same-sex couples to have their relationships treated equally.

The Constitution requires equal treatment under the law, and this disgusting double standard of who can make funeral plans is just one example of why the Constitution needs to be honored and implemented.