NOM Doesn’t Want Rhode Island’s Gays to Have Rights In Life. Or Death

If you thought the National Organization for Marriage only concerned itself with “redefining” the “institution of marriage,” you’d be wrong. Now Maggie Gallagher & Co. are getting into the death industry.

With Rhode Island’s legislators weighing whether there’s enough support to overturn anti-gay Gov. Don Carcieri’s veto of a bill that would have let the same-sex partners of the deceased claim the body and make funeral arrangements, NOM “urges” lawmakers to drop the attempt and keep the veto. You know, because it’s just one step closer to granting full marriage rights!

“[T]he proposed legislation simply is not necessary to avoid such a repetition,” reads a NOM New Year’s Eve statement from the group’s oft-confused Rhode Island chapter president Christopher Plante (pictured). “The right of any person, without regard to sexual preference or relationship to the decedent, to serve as a designated funeral-planning agent is already expressly guaranteed by Rhode Island Law 5-33.1-4. That statute only requires a simple notarized form naming an agent. By law, that agent’s designation must be honored by medical examiners, funeral homes and presumably even the obituary page of The Providence Journal. Rather than being compassionate, the legislation in question is actually an exploitation of Mr. Goldberg’s tragedy by the homosexual-marriage activists in Rhode Island. Despite their claims to the contrary, these bills serve simply as ‘Trojan Horses’ for homosexual-marriage.”

Which, to be fair, is true.