I guess it’s a fair exchange, eh?
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Springfield will no longer offer health benefits to the unmarried domestic partners of city employees now that same-sex couples are legally allowed to marry in Massachusetts. Mayor Charles Ryan said couples have 90 days to marry and retain insurance coverage.
Then there’s this good news — being called gay is (finally) no longer “libelous.”
BOSTON — Stating that someone is homosexual does not libel or slander that person, particularly in light of new court decisions granting gays more rights, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner dismissed a lawsuit by James Albright, a former bodyguard and boyfriend of pop singer Madonna. Allbright said he was libeled because his name appeared in a photo caption in a book about Madonna — under a picture of Madonna walking with a gay man.
“In fact, a finding that such a statement is defamatory requires this court to legitimize the prejudice and bigotry that for too long have plagued the homosexual community,” she wrote in her opinion on Friday.
Gertner said other courts’ rulings that stating someone is gay is defamatory had relied on laws criminalizing same-sex sexual acts that might well be unconstitutional. Previous decisions had not taken into account more recent decisions recognizing gays’ equal rights, she said.
She pointed to a Supreme Court ruling last year that found a Texas sodomy law unconstitutional, and to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling last year that it would be unconstitutional to prevent gays in the state from marrying.
I always found those kinds of lawsuits to be ridiculous, obvious attempts at grabbing money — like most lawsuits. Hell, people have accused me of being straight… perhaps I should sue?
