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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!decvax!bbncca!msimpson
From: msimpson@bbncca.ARPA (Mike Simpson)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Discrimination, gay marriages
Message-ID: <672@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 16-Apr-84 12:38:38 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.672
Posted: Mon Apr 16 12:38:38 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Apr-84 07:33:22 EST
References: <897@linus.UUCP> <19399@wivax.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 34

***
16 April 1984.

        Nothing like a good controversy to get people going
again. Or is it just springtime?  I dunno.  ("LOST:  One Spring.
Last seen about eleven months ago.  If found, please return to
Greater Boston Weather Pattern AT ONCE.")

        Anyway, in response to Steve's statement that I was a
little "short-sighted" in comparing the backlash that might have
followed passage of the "gay rights" bill in California to the
furor surrounding passage of civil rights legislation , I wish to
state that it is my belief that most successful "rights"
legislation in this country is merely 'ratification' of a change
in values.  I am not sure whether America's view of homosexuals
today is more or less positive than America's view of people of
color in the early 1960's. I hope it's MORE positive, but I'm
sure that I will be corrected if necessary. 

        If we were to find some way of 'endowing' willing gay
relationships with the same legal responsibilities as those of
straight marriages, then I can see extending job benefits to your
lover/partner.  Of course, if simple 'straight' cohabitation for
a certain amount of time were also covered, then I see no reason
why a same-sex relationship (for the same amount of time) should
not also be covered. 

	Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!
-- 
		        -- cheers,
			   Mike Simpson, BBN
			   msimpson@bbn-unix (ARPA)
			   {decvax,ima,linus,wjh12}!bbncca!msimpson (Usenet)
			   617-497-2819 (Ma Bell)