Articles tagged with: Sarah Palin
Palin Supports Gay Rights?
No, she doesn’t. She opposes health benefits for gay and lesbian partners, and supported a $1.2 million non-binding advisory vote for legislation that would have taken away the partner benefits granted by an Alaska Supreme Court ruling. (The vote passed by a narrow margin, and the benefits remain.)
For the full story on the health benefits, see: Alaskans Together on Palin’s LGBT Record. For Palin on other gay issues, see the Sarah Palin Series.
But conflicting reports about Gov. Sarah Palin’s stand on gay rights are showing up all over the web. Outside reporters know little about her record on gay rights (or anything else) and call her everything from ally to enemy.
The mainstream media says she opposes same-sex marriage but has gay friends and is sympathetic to gay issues. (Their evidence of her sympathy shows how little they know about her.)
The national liberal and conservative media found something to agree on: that Palin is anti-gay.
The evangelical writers are excited to vote for her, the progressives are disgusted by her anti-health benefits stand and by the media’s “gay friends” spin.
The national LGBT media recognizes her opposition to equality and civil rights – except the Log Cabin Republicans (gay republicans, believe it or not) who think she is a wonderful choice.
And the fringe elements are joining the fray.
In these reports, I found only two LGBT Alaskans quoted (both in the same article by Gay City News):
Some press reports following the McCain campaign announcement have repeated the right-wing rhetorical flourish that has Palin declaring that she has gay friends. That softer image is not what some Alaskans saw.“That’s just completely wrong,” said Allison E. Mendel, the attorney who brought the 1999 [partner benefits] case. “She spoke on radio programs all throughout the campaign saying, ‘I want a constitutional amendment, I think these things are only for a man and a woman.’ … I don’t think she’s ever said a friendly word about gay people, that they ought to have health benefits like other people do or anything along those lines.”On AIDS issues, Palin simply has no record at all.“There is not a lot to speak of for AIDS policy because she hasn’t done much,” said Trevor Storrs, executive director of the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association. “She’s never been given the opportunity to address our situation here because it has never been put before her.”“She has done very little to address the major epidemics,” he said.
But the most often quoted sentence about her stand on gay rights was from her old Wiki profile: “She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination.”
Then her Wiki profile was changed and currently reads: “Palin has said she has good friends who are gay, opposes same-sex marriage, but complied with an Alaskan state Supreme Court order and signed an implementation of same-sex benefits into law, stating that legal options to avoid doing so had run out. She supported a non-binding referendum for a constitutional amendment to deny benefits to homosexual couples.”
The Associated Press reported that Palin “opposes gay marriage — constitutionally banned in Alaska before her time — but exercised a veto that essentially granted benefits to gay state employees and their partners.”
That sentence is quoted in numerous articles to imply that she is sympathetic to gay and lesbian rights.
The national LGBT rights group HRC has the real story:
“Sarah Palin not only supported the 1998 Alaska constitutional amendment banning marriage equality but, in her less than two years as Governor, even expressed the extreme position of supporting stripping away domestic partner benefits for state workers. When you can’t even support giving our community the rights to health insurance and pension benefits, it’s a frightening window into where she stands on equality.”
Meanwhile, someone has created a web site called Sarah Palin Gay Rights . com. This is the full text:
Sarah Palin (GOV-Alaska-Republican), supports gay rights, says Anchorage Daily News.Quote “Gov. Sarah Palin vetoed a bill Thursday that sought to block the state from giving public employee benefits such as health insurance to same-sex couples.”Quote “”It is the Governor’s intention to work with the legislature and to give the people of Alaska an opportunity to express their wishes and intentions whether these benefits should continue,” the statement from Palin’s administration said.”Coghill said he’s interested in a new plan that would allow state employees to designate one person — maybe a same-sex partner, but also possibly a family member or roommate — who would be eligible for state-paid benefits. But the employee would have to pay to add that person to his or her benefits.”Sarah Palin’s veto gave gays the same rights as married couples in Alaska.A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for gay marriage.
The quotes don’t support the conclusion, but the overall message is clear: evangelicals should not be fooled into voting for McCain because they think Palin supports their agenda. The site is anonymous, maybe by a disgruntled Huckabee supporter?
Many readers of Bent Alaska are LGBT Alaskans and our allies. You know more about Sarah and gay rights in Alaska than the Outsiders. What do you think about Palin and gay rights?
Sarah Palin and Gay Rights in Alaska
UPDATE: For Gov. Palin’s response to all three pieces of LGBT legislation, see: Alaskan’s Together on Palin’s LGBT Record.
From Gay City News:
Republican Senator John McCain has selected Sarah Palin, Alaska’s governor and a little-known conservative with a slim record on gay and AIDS issues, to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential race.
“She’s fairly socially conservative, she’s fairly anti-choice,” said Jeffrey A. Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska (ACLU).
Palin became governor in 2006 after serving as a councilwoman and then mayor of a small Alaskan town. She made an unsuccessful run at becoming Alaska’s lieutenant governor in 2002. Palin has confronted a single piece of gay rights legislation in that time.
In 2005, Alaska’s highest court ruled, in a case brought in 1999 on behalf of nine couples, that the state could not deny benefits to the domestic partners of state government employees. The court ordered the state to implement that ruling in late 2006.
The ruling was seen by right wingers as conflicting with a 1998 amendment to the Alaska Constitution, passed by voters in a ballot referendum, that defined marriage as solely between one man and one woman. The Republican-dominated State Legislature passed a bill that barred the state’s administrative agency from implementing the ruling. Palin vetoed it.
“The Department of Law advised me that this bill… is unconstitutional given the recent court order… mandating same-sex benefits,” Palin said in a statement. “With that in mind, signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office.”
The statement added, “The governor’s veto does not signal any change or modification to her disagreement with the action and order by the Alaska Supreme Court. It is the governor’s intention to work with the Legislature and to give the people of Alaska an opportunity to express their wishes and intentions whether these benefits should continue.”
Eight days before signing the veto, Palin signed another bill that called for a “statewide advisory vote” regarding the ruling from Alaska’s high court, saying in a statement, “We may disagree with the rationale behind the ruling, but our responsibility is to proceed forward with the law and follow the Constitution… I disagree with the recent court decision because I feel as though Alaskans spoke on this issue with its overwhelming support for a Constitutional Amendment in 1998 which defined marriage as between a man and woman. But the Supreme Court has spoken and the state will abide.”
The ACLU’s Mittman framed the way the bill calling for the statewide advisory played out in the ongoing controversy about the high court’s order.
“Then what happened was the anti-gay forces came up with what they called an advisory vote,” he said. “It was essentially a way for anti-LGBT people to try and rally public opinion to try and move their agenda forward.”
In 2007, the state spent an estimated $1 million to hold that vote and Alaskans expressed their opposition to the court ruling by a narrow margin. The vote did not have the effect of making law.
The McCain campaign has very effectively spun the veto to show Palin, 44, as sympathetic toward the gay and lesbian community.
Palin opposes same sex marriage.
A 2006 Anchorage Daily News story, said of Palin: “She’s not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay,” but that “she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.”
Some press reports following the McCain campaign announcement have repeated that right-wing rhetorical flourish that has Palin declaring that she has gay friends. That softer image is not what some Alaskans saw.
“That’s just completely wrong,” said Allison E. Mendel, the attorney who brought the 1999 case. “She spoke on radio programs all throughout the campaign saying, ‘I want a constitutional amendment, I think these things are only for a man and a woman.’ … I don’t think she’s ever said a friendly word about gay people, that they ought to have health benefits like other people do or anything along those lines.”
On AIDS issues, Palin simply has no record at all.
“There is not a lot to speak of for AIDS policy because she hasn’t done much,” said Trevor Storrs, executive director of the Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association. “She’s never been given the opportunity to address our situation here because it has never been put before her.”
With roughly 1,200 AIDS cases, Alaska is a “low incidence state,” Storrs said, and most of its HIV funds come from the federal government.
Then Palin’s 20 months in the governor’s office have been taken up with the state’s oil and gas industry. Health issues generally, such as substance abuse or mental health, have not received much attention, Storrs said.
“She has done very little to address the major epidemics,” he said.
