Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Department of Justice Emails Description An account of the resource The Department of Justice received more than 11,000 e-mails in response to the agency's public solicitation for comments upon its plans to distribute the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 established by Congress to benefit the victims of September 11 and their families. These e-mails have been organized here by date. September 11 Email September 11 Email: Body The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. Thursday, March 21, 2002 3:42 PM State laws compound tragedy of gays and lesbian victims of 9/11 I am not someone who will be impacted by how the Department of Justice defines "family" when dispensing funds for the victims of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. But every single person who died on September 11 is part of my family. They should be part of your family, too, and treated with equal respect. It is beyond an outrage if everyone who suffered loss is not treated equally. People died in those attacks who had families, who had children, but who did not have "wives" or "husbands". When the government defines legal marriage as the only love that counts, hundreds of people who had equal love for their partners are excluded from benefits they rightfully and morally deserve. Particularly at the Pentagon, everyone who works there is a patriot. Everyone who died was a patriot. New York law allows domestic partnership benefits through an executive order from the New York governor. If a gay or lesbian victim worked at the Pentagon and lived in Virginia and then died as a result of the terrorist attacks, his or her partner is denied benefits because of Virginia's archaic and hurtful laws born out of religious dogma. Virginia is wrong, and the US government shouldn't compound this outrage. There is no equity when the laws vary from state to state about who can be defined as "family." It's beyond absurd, and it bears no image of justice. Or mercy. If you have any sense of decency or patriotism, then ALL survivors' life partners--straight, gay and lesbian--should get equal benefits. Gays and lesbians aren't ALLOWED to get married, and now the government is considering that they be punished for not being married. Do the right thing: Allow gay and lesbian domestic partners to be given EQUAL benefits. Individual Comment Urbana, Illinois September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-03-21 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource dojR002549.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. email Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-03-21