civil unions

United Parcel Service (UPS) has denied health benefits to the families of two Teamster-represented drivers in New Jersey who happen to be gay. UPS claims that the drivers’ partners are not “spouses” under the state's civil union law.

Now Governor Corzine is involved. He wants UPS to offer gay employees the same benefits for their partners that married workers get.

In her second speech aimed at our community, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic Presidential Candidate, Senator John Edwards, pledged to fight for issues that effect gays and lesbians.

Costa Rican lawmakers proposed legalizing same-sex civil unions in a bill introduced on Tuesday, but said it may be difficult to pass the plan in the strongly Roman Catholic country.

Under the proposal, same-sex couples would be granted marital-type rights like bereavement leave, inheritance and power over medical decisions. It stops short of recognizing same-sex marriage or allowing adoption by same-sex couples.

It's a tale of two women who lived together as a couple for several years in Virginia before traveling to Vermont in 2000 to enter into a civil union. Their daughter was born in Virginia in 2002, after one woman was impregnated with sperm from an anonymous donor. The donor sperm was chosen by the woman's partner.

When the baby was 4 months old, the women moved to Vermont, where they lived for about a year before separating. The biological mom and daughter moved back to Virginia, and the bio-mom had refused to let her ex-partner to see their daughter.

The New York Times Editorial
Published: June 7, 2007

A potentially groundbreaking legal battle over Connecticut’s exclusion of gay people from the state’s marriage law has catapulted the debate over same-sex marriage to a new level.

Gay couples in New Hampshire can start applying for many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage as early as January 2008 under a law Gov. John Lynch signed Thursday establishing civil unions.

"We in New Hampshire have had a long and proud tradition taking the lead in opposing discrimination," Lynch said. "Today that tradition continues."