dojA001217.xml

dojA001217.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2001-12-11

Tuesday, December 11, 2001 10:55 AM
Administration of Victim's Compensation Fund

Kenneth L. Zwick, Director
Office of Management Programs
U.S. Department of Justice


Dear Mr. Zwick:

I hereby submit my comments on your request for public input concerning the
administration of the September 11th Victim's Compensation Fund.

I have read that it is your intent to deny the domestic partners or de facto
families this compensation, thereby enforcing your conservative Christian
agenda. I am writing to urge you to include unmarried heterosexual partners
and gay/lesbian domestic partners in the compensation. Our pain is no less.
Our families are just as real. Our losses leave just as much grief in our
lives as those in so-called "traditional" marriages.

I am a United Airlines employee. I have a domestic partner. On our
airplanes and the airplanes of American Airlines were members of the gay
games ( ) who had a domestic partner of 6 years ( was one of
the men thought to have assisted in overcoming the hijackers on United flight
93), a member of the gay pilots association on American Airlines; gay flight
attendants on United, two male partners who had adopted an infant (the infant
perished on the United flight) and on and on. We were part of America's
tragedy and heroism as well as hetersexual people.

I urge the Justice Department to administer the Victim's Compensation Fund to
include those who lost their life partners as well as de facto parents or
children, without regard to sexual orientation or marital status.

I ask the U.S. Government to follow the example already set by New York
Governor Pataki in granting compensation benefits "on a showing of mutual
interdependence with the victim, in recognition that anyone who shared with
the victim living expenses, day-to-day activities and the emotional bonds of
family deserves help in this time of need."

Please do the right thing here. Please urge Mr. Ashcroft not to use his
Christian belieft to deny these benefits to the survivors of this attack. I
am a Christian too, raised in a fundamentalist Missionary Baptist family. I
may be able to discriminate against people with whom I morally disagree in my
church or parochial school, but in a democracy where everyone pays taxes
alike, it is not fair to discriminate based on my moral understanding.
Please ask Mr Ashcroft not to his conservative Christian personal beliefs to
impose further hardship on these survivors.

Thank you,

Individual Comment
Aurora CO

2001-12-11