Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A Bright Spot

I also wanted to point out Councilwoman Jenny Wilson, just not in the same post about Buttars :-). Her bill allowing partners of gay and lesbian county employees to get on their health insurance passed yesterday (see here).

We met with Jenny last week about this bill; I left very impressed with her sense of fairness, knowledge, and compassion, if not a bit worried about her plans to bring this up while the legislature was in session. This bill should even allow children of gay employees to get health insurance like any other child would, and it may cause a backlash. Anyway and regardless, I just want to say thank you! Thank you Jenny and thanks to all those on the council who voted for it, particularly Max Burdick, the only republican member who did the fair, right thing.

As of now, all the Common Ground bills have been killed. It seems common ground, at least today, is a sad illusion--I think even I forgot who we are dealing with and had too much hope than was reasonable--but there's this one new thing to hang hope on; there is a spark of the golden rule in Salt Lake County. That means a lot.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow. I never realized just how far apart we are. Canada and the USA. we have complete, equal benefits, no matter what as part of federal law. for years already. I work in the auto industry and we have had full same sex benefits for over 8 years up here.

Scot said...

Man, Anthony, you make me want to pack our bags, and head north, while singing Oh Canada :-).