Wonder if this has anything to do with the Fundy-nuts disdain for our union auto companies?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/09/business/big-carmakers-extend-benefits-to-gay-couples.html

Big Carmakers Extend Benefits To Gay Couples

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: Friday, June 9, 2000

General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler division announced today that they would begin offering medical, dental and prescription drug benefits for same-sex partners of their 466,000 hourly and salaried employees in the United States, the largest move yet by corporate America to provide such benefits for gay and lesbian couples.

Many companies in the financial, media, entertainment and airline industries and some state and local governments have offered same-sex benefits in the last several years. But gay and lesbian advocates said the automakers' decisions dwarfed previous corporate moves and were particularly welcome because Midwestern companies have been slow to provide such benefits.

''When the Big Three come together as a group to announce domestic benefits for same-sex couples, it's really a sea change,'' said Kim I. Mills, the education director of the Human Rights Campaign, a group that represents gay, lesbian and transgender Americans. ''We have not seen this kind of movement in the manufacturing sector.''

The two largest American companies offering same-sex benefits until now have been I.B.M. and Citigroup, she said. Both companies are based in the New York area, where gays and lesbians are more influential than in the Midwest.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit expressed dismay at the automakers' decision. The Catholic Church favors open and equal access to health care, but ''anything that compromises or erodes the traditional shape of the family tears at the very fabric of moral relationships that the church seeks to uphold,'' said Ned McGrath, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

[Taverner]

1. No - the fundies are just useful idiots. They do whatever their overlords say to do.

[Fading Captain]

2. I hate to say this, but I bet Repubs support union built automakers

More than Dems.

Seems like a lot of Dems drive Hondas and Toyotas.

[NNN0LHI]

3. I agree we have Fundy-nut Dems

That is for sure.

Don

[mrcheerful]

5. Only if it eats a lot of gas and bellows smoke out the exhust, other wise they drive non union

their major problem with unions is mainly the they get paid more then I get paid and they don't deserve it.

[donco6]

4. But it's just about "marriage" . . . right?

Well, that and anything that elevates a gay relationship to anything approaching the status of a straight one.