R.I. governor vetoes 'domestic partners' burial bill

[ccharles000]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- 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.

In his veto message, Republican Carcieri said: "This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.

"If the General Assembly believes it would like to address the issue of domestic partnerships, it should place the issue on the ballot and let the people of the state of Rhode Island decide.''

The bill, also sponsored by state Sen. Rhoda Perry and state Rep. David Segal, would add "domestic partners'' to the list, in current law, of people who can legally make arrangements for a deceased person's funeral, cremation or burial to include domestic partners if the deceased person left no pre-arranged funeral contract.

The legislation defines a domestic partner as someone who was in an "exclusive, intimate and committed relationship" with the deceased and had lived with him or her for at least a year prior to the death; is at least 18, not married to anyone else, not related by blood and who was financially "interdependent'' with the deceased as evidenced, for example, by a joint mortgage, shared credit card or domestic partnership contract.

According to its sponsors, the legislation is designed to provide rights to domestic partners regardless of whether they are of the same or opposite sexes.

http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/11/ri-gov-carcieri-vetoes-domesti.html

[RKP5637]

1. Cruel veto - governor vetoes 'domestic partners' burial bill n/t

[paulsby]

3. that is just cruel

what's the argument. it threatens "traditional funerals"?

[RKP5637]

4. I do hope these people that do this stuff get their own. What goes

around comes around. Even when one is dead these jerks don't want to leave one alone. F'en creeps.

[Newsjock]

2. What a petty, hateful asshole

Fuck you, governor, sir.

[mnhtnbb]

5. I'll bet the Governor thinks Jesus is proud of him. Ya think?

What an a$$hole.

[t0dd]

6. Don't worry. Once Lincoln Chafee replaces this vile human being in 2010

Rhode Island will pass same-sex marriage

[gaspee]

7. I plan on volunteering

For Chafee's campaign - he is a decent human being - which is saying a lot more than a lot of pols. He's a bit on the fiscal conservative side for my tastes, but he's acceptable - and he's FOR FULL MARRIAGE RIGHTS (yes, I meant to shout) - no squirming away from the issue for him - in the debate with Whitehouse, he, when asked if he was for full marriage equality, his answer was a straight up - yes! No hedging, no blaming his religion - none of this bullshit about having to coddle bigots - and in the most catholic state in the country, that's saying a lot for him. In the same debate, he called the Iraq war an unjust war. He voted against the Iraq war - showed more courage than a lot of Dems in doing so.

He was loathed by republicans and in this day and age, he's actually a centrist democrat in most of his views. In the old political alignment of the parties, he'd be a left leaning republican - and Eisenhower republican, but since the parties have both shifted rightward, he's actually more like a centrist dem.

He was the mayor of my city and he was a great mayor - really down to earth for a guy born into the position he was born into.

I still didn't vote for him, LOL - and he came out and said the people of RI did the right thing by the country as a whole for voting for Whitehouse over him to take away the R majority in the Senate.

Chafee is good people and now that he's not a repug, I feel free to work on getting him elected.

[theHandpuppet]

8. This has been a concern of myself and my partner

And hateful pigs like Carcieri come out with degrading and hateful crap such as this. How much do you have to hate to hate us beyond death?

[gaspee]

9. Hateful is right

The man is a sorry excuse for a human being - I don't know how he won the last election - the man is a PIG. I can't even look at his face when he's on TV - I have the same reaction to his smirk as I did to Chimpy's - we're only stuck with the prick for one more year.

[HillWilliam]

10. He's just following GoodHair Perry's lead

Lest we forget that Perry wanted gay veterans to leave the state. As I said on another thread, they just can't out-wacko one another enough. Sunsabitches.