All apologies to Jim Ventura but he must be delusional to believe that Minneapolis is a better place for glbt people to be than anywhere in Canada(where same sex couples can now legally marry in British Columbia, Sasketchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, or Nova Scotia and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador before the end of the year).
Wizard Marks mentioned there having been a gay man murdered no less than 10 years ago but it was just a few weeks ago I joined a candlelit vigil march of 130 people, mostly glbt youth from District 202, through downtown Minneapolis to protest the hate induced shooting of Tameka McCloud in South Minneapolis. News story about the shooting and vigil made national media(see link below) even if the event was ignored by much of the local press(aside from an article incredibly disrespectful towards Tameka's transgender status in the Star Tribune which outraged the local transgender community by not even meeting AP standards for such stories. http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2004/10/11/2 Minneapolis does not offer domestic partnership benefits like many many public employers do across the country because the city has not been successul in getting the state legislature to update an archaic law that does not include domestic partners in the definition of family. (of course there are so many battles that have had to be fought at the state legislature- maybe if a handful of Republicans would support the change in the house it could be passed this session with enough effort in light of the election results). Don't get me wrong!!! I really appreciate the fact that the broader community in Minneapolis supports equality for glbtiq people and is a much better place for glbt people(and I'd say everyone) to live because of it! It's just that doesn't mean we can't do better. David Strand Loring Park __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
