Thursday, April 05, 2007

Fair Question

Dodd asks: What if your child were gay? - Yahoo! News

Senator Dodd's run for the presidency is a quixotic quest, but today he's injected a much-needed voice into the debate over equal rights for gays and lesbians:
"We ought to be able to have these loving relationships," the Connecticut senator said.

Dodd, the father of 2-year-old and 5-year-old girls, said his daughters could grow up to be lesbians and that he hopes they would have the opportunity to enjoy marriage-like rights.

"They may grow up as a different sexual orientation than their parents," he said. "How would I want my child to be treated if they were of a different sexual orientation?"

These statements were made on the same day that the New Hampshire House passed a bill that would create "spousal unions" in the state, a new term for the civil unions/domestic partnerships that have been popping up in other states.

I hope the media ask the other candidates about Dodd's statement today, and about New Hampshire's possibly becoming the eighth state to offer some sort of formal recognition to gay couples (following Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, California, New Jersey, and Hawaii). At the least, we should be able to get Democrats on the record saying that where applicable--in matters like income tax, Social Security, etc.--they would support legislation to recognize, at the federal level, whatever form of legal arrangement states come up with for gay couples.

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