All of us here at GOProud wish to congratulate Mary Cheney and Heather Poe on the birth of their second child. Sarah Lynn Cheney was born in Washington, DC last Wednesday weighing 6 pounds and 14 ounces. In an interview on the Scott Hennen Show, the proud grandfather, former Vice President Dick Cheney, said that the new addition made the Cheney Family especially thankful this Thanksgiving. Here’s the entire interview -
Read the Boston Globe’s story about Massachusetts State Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei being selected as the running mate of Charlie Baker, candidate for governor. Tisei, who is openly gay, has served in the legislature since 1990.
The choice drew immediate comparisons to William Weld’s selection of another veteran legislator, Paul Cellucci, to be his running mate in the 1990 and 1994 governor’s races. Tisei, 47, who was first elected to the House at the age of 22, has served in the Senate since 1990. He is a realtor by trade.
“He’s got 20 years of a fabulous record of a guy who fights for the taxpayers, fights for citizens, knows what’s on regular people’s minds, represents a district that looks a lot like the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I’m very excited to have him on board,” Baker said with Tisei by his side outside the Americal Civic Center in Tisei’s hometown of Wakefield.
GOProud’s executive director, Jimmy LaSalvia, will be speaking on a panel with a representative of the Log Cabin Republicans at an event hosted by the American University College Republicans on Wednesday, November 18th. The event will be held at American U’s Mary Graden Center, in Washington, DC. The two will discuss political views, gay Republicans, and their organizations - similarities and differences. Those of you in DC should plan to attend this discussion on Wednesday night.
It was just a few weeks ago when GOProud warned against the expansion of government discrimination in this op-ed in The Hill. This Washington Blade story confirms that final Democrat health bill does indeed discriminate against gay families
But the bill, H.R. 3962, uses the terms “family” and “dependent,” and advocates say the new Health Choices Commissioner — a position established in the legislation to oversee the insurance exchange — could interpret this language to mean someone’s opposite-sex spouse, but not a same-sex spouse.
For example, the section describing the retiree reinsurance program — for which employer-based programs could submit claims to the government — says claims could be made on “employment based health benefits provided to a retiree or to the spouse, surviving spouse, or dependent of a retiree.”
Brian Moulton, the Human Rights Campaign’s chief legislative counsel, said the term “dependent” and “family” in the bill are “fairly open-ended” and “leave a lot of discretion to the new commissioner to define them.”
“Certainly, there is some use of the term ‘spouse’ in the bill in some of the provisions, and certainly DOMA would control that definition of spouse,” he said. “I think there are some areas where there’s a potential there won’t be access to some of the benefits.”
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