Some legal victories

Argentina has signed and enacted their gay marriage law Another step forwards, another victory Nations that don’t recognise our marriages are looking increasingly more pathetic with every victory won. And another reason for me to do my happy dance.

Following up from the disgraceful way that Sonoma County, California, treated Clay Greene, the surviving partner of Harold Schull we finally see some degree of justice. The country will pay $600,000 in compensation, the home $53,000. There is no way that anyone could adequately compensate Clay Greene for what they did to him – but it’s something and some confirmation that what was done to him was wrong. Perhaps best of all, the county is retraining their workers – hopefully they’ll have a clue, an ounce of compassion and some basic human decency next time.

In Maine a gay man has won a discrimination suit against his employer, Express Jet Airlines that passed over him for promotion because he was gay. Congratulations to him, I know from experience these cases are damned hard to prove (at least if your employer tries to be at least a little subtle about it)

Similarly, in New Zealand a school has been forced to pay compensation to a gay sports coach they fired… for being gay. In addition the board members of the school will attend courses that will hopefully give them a clue.

In France, a gay man who was forced to pay inheritance tax on the home he inherited from his deceased partner has been reimbursed. This is the problem with half measures and patchwork laws about marriage – because people are so desperately concerned about us terrible gays sullying their precious precious hetero marriage.

Arizona, as I previously mentioned, decided to revoke the benefits it had given to same-sex partners working for the state – along with the protections and anti-discrimination provisions they had won as well. While it still remains bvery very wrong, a judge has ruled that deciding to address a budget shortfall by specifically targetting partners of gay employees but not straight ones is wrong (who’d have thought)

There’s a lot of bad out there – but there are victories. Victories we need to hold on to and remember – because we will win this, damn it.