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Wal-Mart sued for denying health insurance to gay worker's wife
Reuters ^ | July 14, 2015 | BY DANIEL WIESSNER

Posted on 07/14/2015 3:51:17 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

A Wal-Mart employee sued the retailer on Tuesday, saying its prior policy of denying health insurance to the spouses of gay employees violated gender discrimination laws.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, seeks nationwide class-action status.

Jackie Cote, who has worked at Walmart stores in Maine and Massachusetts since 1999, said in the lawsuit that her wife, Diana Smithson, developed cancer in 2012 and the denial of insurance led to more than $150,000 in medical debt.

Cote and Smithson were married in Massachusetts in 2004, days after a court ruling made the state the first to allow gay nuptials.

Smithson worked for Wal-Mart until 2008.

Last year, Cote filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a prerequisite to filing an employment discrimination lawsuit. The commission said in January that Wal-Mart violated gender discrimination laws by denying benefits to Smithson.

The commission in recent years has pioneered the argument that employment discrimination against gay people is a form of gender discrimination, since it would not happen if an employee were of the opposite sex, but it has not been vetted by courts.

In Cote's case, for example, the commission said if her spouse were a man or her wife were married to a man, the couple would've received insurance.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fatuglylezbos; homosexualagenda

1 posted on 07/14/2015 3:51:17 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Hey, sorry about your wife, wife.


2 posted on 07/14/2015 3:53:05 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc OÂ’Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

hmm...gay workers wife? Why does she stay married to him?


3 posted on 07/14/2015 3:56:29 PM PDT by bkepley
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To: steve86
So, which one is the wife?


4 posted on 07/14/2015 3:57:22 PM PDT by Gamecock (Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered. R.C. Sproul)
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To: Gamecock

I have no clue. All I know is that they obviously both got beaten with the ugly stick as children.


5 posted on 07/14/2015 4:01:46 PM PDT by Politicalkiddo ("He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -Thomas Paine)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

So the “spouse” couldn’t buy insurance privately? And doesn’t Massachusetts require everyone to have insurance or be fined?


6 posted on 07/14/2015 4:15:22 PM PDT by Prince of Space (Be Breitbart, baby. LIFB.)
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To: Gamecock

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/taxpayers-continue-spend-millions-find-out-why-lesbians-are-fat#.cqqho2:usp1


7 posted on 07/14/2015 4:20:48 PM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
I stopped using the term, "marriage", now I'm going to expunge "wife" and "husband". I will refer to the lady I married as my "bride". They will take that word away soon, too, I imagine.

May God treat this country as gently as Sodom. I hope America gets it good and hard, because America deserves it.

8 posted on 07/14/2015 4:28:35 PM PDT by backwoods-engineer
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To: Gamecock

Wait a minute, is this how lesbians really look?

Blast you, Penthouse!


9 posted on 07/14/2015 4:48:13 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: backwoods-engineer

Amen Brother. This nation deserves whatever it gets.


10 posted on 07/14/2015 4:50:42 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA (war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, obama loves America)
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To: steve86

I am confused. I thought Wal-Mart was liberal on those issues.


11 posted on 07/14/2015 4:52:15 PM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: Gamecock
So, which one is the wife?

Neither. To be a wife you have to have a husband. To be a husband you have to have a penis. So unless one of them has a pecker, there's no wife or husband.

12 posted on 07/14/2015 4:52:57 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there....)
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To: Gamecock

There may be a silver lining in that they can’t breed.


13 posted on 07/14/2015 5:25:02 PM PDT by Cowgirl of Justice
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

I’ve seen some very good looking lesbians. Not at all the stereotype. Granted, not a lot. Laz would have hit them, me too.


14 posted on 07/14/2015 6:07:33 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there....)
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To: backwoods-engineer

While a disaster from outside ourselves might be more merciful to us, in that we may be more likely to join together to fight it, and perhaps even repent, than if we simply go all Kosovo on each other, I am personally praying that the repentance comes first, so that neither form of disaster may overtake us.


15 posted on 07/15/2015 12:03:51 AM PDT by Apogee (Just when I thought I was All done with sleepless contemplation of jus ad bellum and jus in bello,)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Sure, “gay” marriage was “legal” in MA prior to the plaintiff’s injury, but as the SCOTUS did not “make it constitutional” until recently, her case has a bit of an ex post facto feel to it.
But what do I know?


16 posted on 07/15/2015 12:07:54 AM PDT by Apogee (Just when I thought I was All done with sleepless contemplation of jus ad bellum and jus in bello,)
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To: Apogee
Do you seriously think America will repent?

Did Sodom?

17 posted on 07/15/2015 11:06:59 AM PDT by backwoods-engineer
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