Posted on 04/28/2005 10:13:37 AM PDT by Columbus Dawg
MASON, Ohio -- A lesbian couple says a community recreation center's refusal to sell them a family pass because they aren't married is discriminatory.
Heather Scott, 33, and Carrie Scott, 40, applied for the family pass for themselves and Heather Scott's three children who live with them and were told they don't meet the city's definition of a married couple.
"We're no different than anyone else," said Carrie Scott, Heather's partner and the children's stepmother since the women's civil union ceremony in Vermont in 2002. "Our family is the same as the one across the street. It's a little different makeup, but we deserve the same as everyone else."
City Law Director Ken Schneider said the taxpayer-financed Mason Community Center's policy is not discriminatory.
The center offers family memberships to married couples or single adults and any children residing in the same household and claimed on their most recent federal income tax return.
Mason officials say the policy, in place since the center opened in 2003, isn't intended to ban same-sex partners. They say they just wanted to find a definition of family and decided the federal standard was the best.
"We were just trying to put our arms around it," said Michael Hecker, director of the parks and recreation department in this city 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati. "We just didn't want to be taken advantage of by 10 people who don't live together."
Mason officials say the Scotts can still be members of the center, but they must get an individual membership for Carrie. Annual family passes cost $525 a year for residents. A separate membership for Carrie would cost an extra $335.
I thought of her too. But monkey!
NO its not. The families I grew up around all had mom's and dads. (Now whether the parents were married or divorced or had a missing parent was another story)
fighting the good fight...
"No - you are very different."
I'm assuming even though you posted to me, you were addressing Carrie. I'm with you on the parenting issue. Things like legal or tax advantages for a couple would be a tricky question, however, if homosexuality was ever proven to be a choiceless "behavior". In that case I believe it would be discriminatory to deny a couple legal status or benefits (religious rites like marriage would be a different issue) just like it would be discriminatory to deny on grounds of another choiceless property like race.
Excellent post. My heart breaks for these children. What a selfish mother they have. Too bad she didn't discover she was a lesbian BEFORE she had children. What a pair of losers!
"refusal to sell them a family pass because they aren't married is discriminatory"
Of course it is. It discriminates between the group living in your house and what we in the United States call a FAMILY. There's nothing illegal, immoral, or "wrong" with such discrimination, however. We can, will, and do discriminate between good family folk and perverts, as we ought.
Honey, saying that having two people of the same gender in a romantic relationship with children is the same as two people of the opposite gender in same is so completely removed from reality I don't know where to begin.
One of these women can still purchase a family pass for her and the kids. The other one has to purchase her own pass, however.
This is really no different than if two straight unmarried people tried to purchase a family pass.
Watch out for "choiceless behavior" - that could include pedophiles and sexual predators. After all, most experts agree they cannot change. Do we want special rights for all perverts? Where do we draw the line? And I seriously doubt it will ever be proved that homosexuals have no choice. To say a human being has no choice over their sexual behavior is a very dangerous attitude, IMHO.
If they get the family pass can the childrens' father come with them?
Obviously these guys failed biology class.
Hey Heather!
YOU ARE NOT THE SAME! You are not a family!!! Playing house as you did as children, and pretending you are is not a family, it make believe, it playing at being a family, it's not real!!!
"We're no different than anyone else," said Carrie Scott,"
Yeah, you are..you're queer.
And you are not a family any more than any other unmarried persons with kids are.
Deal with it. In fact, you should probably have the kids evaluated for abuse issues.
And it will only continue to get worse. Note the post on here today about the father being arrested for "trespass" at his son's elementary school when confronting the administration about not having his child involved with any homosexual circirrulum. Scary.
Besides, that would be redundant.
I don't consider alcoholism a choiceless behavior. Your analogies are off target. You said homosexuality is not choiceless, but you don't know that. Performing homo acts is certainly a choice, but being born a homosexual may very well be choiceless, just like race.
The state provides legal and tax advantages because it is trying to encourage certain behavior beneficial to the state. Since no benefit can be reasonable assumed or derived from a homosexual "marriage" the state should not reward it.
Want more of a behavior? Reward it.
Want less of a behavior? Remove the award.
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