Dubya: More Pointless Hate

Our ignoble leader is threatening to veto the federal budget for Washington, DC unless a provision is reinserted to prevent DC from using any of the money for its domestic partners registry. Most of the money to operate the District of Columbia comes from local taxes but about 25% comes from a $120M federal appropriation. When the Democrats took over Congress last year, they removed the domestic partners restriction from DC's federal budget.

The White House issued this statement: "The Administration strongly opposes the bill’s exclusion of a longstanding provision that disallows the use of Federal funds to register unmarried, cohabitating couples in the District, to enable them to qualify for benefits on the same basis as legally married couples. Under Federal law, legal marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Federal tax dollars are not used to extend employment benefits to domestic partners of Federal employees, and D.C. should not enjoy an exception to this rule." HRC's Joe Solmonese responded: "With his popularity at an all time low, this President has yet again dipped his cup into the well of anti-gay bigotry."

DC established its domestic partners registry in 1992 but the Republican Congress blocked its enactment until 2002, after which it inserted the funding restriction - a meaningless move because only local funds are allocated to the registry. The federal funding restriction is merely toothless anti-gay propaganda, but that has never stopped this administration.

UPDATE: Today the House of Representatives voted to reattach the anti-gay wording to the DC appropriations bill.