PRAISE!
GLORY!
Emphasis mine.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.
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...[relative to] sensitive personal traditions and issues regarding funeral arrangements, burial rights and disposal of human remains.''
Carcieri said he was also uncertain "how it would be ascertained in many circumstances whether [a couple] had been in a relationship for year'' since there is "no official or recognized form'' of domestic partnership agreement in Rhode Island. He called this proviso "vague and ill-defined.''
Governor Carcieri has vetoed 24 other bills today
Describing himself as ''genuinely upset'' by Carcieri's actions, Rep. Segal said: "'I think the man is heartless and this has become a bad joke that has carried on for far too long.'' The joke? "His insistent, persistent need to assert himself by undermining the lives of gay people who love each other and want to be in committed relationships.''
Segal said Carcieri took his adamant opposition to same-sex marriage too far, since this "doesn't change the definition of the word 'marriage,' as evidenced by the fact the "overwhelming majority of people in the General Assembly who oppose gay marriage saw fit to support the legislation. ''
The legislation was prompted by one of the more heart-wrenching personal stories to emerge from the same-sex marriage debate.
At a hearing this year on one of the stalled bills to allow same-sex marriage, Mark S. Goldberg told a Senate committee about his months-long battle last fall to persuade state authorities to release to him the body of his partner of 17 years, Ron Hanby, so he could grant Hanby's wish for cremation -- only to have that request rejected because "we were not legally married or blood relatives."
Goldberg said he tried to show the police and the state medical examiner's office "our wills, living wills, power of attorney and marriage certificate" from Connecticut, but "no one was willing to see these documents."
He said he was told the medical examiner's office was required to conduct a two-week search for next of kin, but the medical examiner's office waited a full week before placing the required ad in a newspaper. And then when no one responded, he said, they "waited another week" to notify another state agency of an unclaimed body.
After four weeks, he said, a Department of Human Services employee "took pity on me and my plight ... reviewed our documentation and was able to get all parties concerned to release Ron's body to me," but then the cremation society refused to cremate Ron's body.
"On the same day, I contacted the Massachusetts Cremation Society and they were more than willing to work with me and cremate Ron's body," and so, "on November 6, 2008, I was able to finally pick up Ron's remains and put this tragedy to rest."
"I felt as if I was treated not as a second-class citizen, but as a noncitizen," Goldberg told the Senate Judiciary Committee, an hour into the first hearing this year in the 13-year push by gay-rights advocates for the right to marry in Rhode Island, and the pushback from the Roman Catholic Church and other opponents.
Kathy Kushnir, executive directive of the advocacy group Marriage Equality of Rhode Island, called the governor's veto "unconscionable'' when "people are trying to piece their lives together, which is what Rhode Island is requiring them to do without legal recognition,'' and then when "faced with a time that could not be more difficult or more painful, not even being able to take care of funeral arrangements for their loved ones."
Providence Journal Newsblog
As if there weren't enough evidence of the extent of the animosity towards the attempt to obtain social equity, here comes this pathetic fuckface who condemns a bill because of the conditions in which it's framed, conditions which he seeks to propagate; an inability to ascertain how long a relationship has been in existance.
What a contemptable, shitsucking, cuntfaced motherfucker this cretin is. No "official or recognised form" of recognising a domestic partnership, and you condemn a bill that allows grieveing people to simply bury their dead for it?
Go fuck yourself with a piece of frozen dog shit, governor.
Fucker. 
