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. Saturday, March 30, 2002 5:07 PM A second tragedy Dear Mr. Feinberg: The exclusion of gay & lesbian partners of victims of 9/11 from the compensation fund is nothing short of the worst kind of discrimination. These people have already suffered the enormous loss of their loved ones. Now, they suffer doubly by having their relationships deemed unworthy by the very society in which they lived and in which their partners unwittingly died. Every single person who perished in this horrible attack--regardless of the texture, shape, or size of his or her part in the great American mosaic--deserves to be honored in the fullest possible way. This includes honor and respect for the ones they left behind, the ones with whom they chose to lead their lives, the ones who will remember and mourn for them long after their names have faded from your and my memories. I have studied your recent comments about the Fund and find your argumentation as to why you must discriminate morally and intellectually indefensible. You avoid responsibility for discriminating by citing the need to respect each individual state's laws on domestic partnerships and gay and lesbian partnerships. However, in the next breath you take great pains to stress that the laws governing illegal aliens will be waived in order to accomodate the moral duty to compensate the surviving victims of this tragedy. Why are federal laws regarding residency, naturalization, immigration, and taxation subject to flexible interpretation given the extraordinary circumstances of 9/11 but not laws regarding domestic partnerships? It is obvious to anyone who cares to pause and thoughtfully reflect on your words that you are electing to follow the the narrowest interpretation of the when it suits your purpose to disenfranchise one particular group of victims - gay and lesbian victims. I urge you to use courage and compassion to do the right thing and provide the same support to all the gay and lesbian victims and surviving partners of this tragedy as you do to the others sufferers. Sincerely, Individual Comment New York, NY September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-03-30 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 dojR002830.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. 2002-03-30