Fair disaster suit could test civil-union benefits

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC

A wrongful-death lawsuit filed by an Illinois woman whose partner was killed in a stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair could test the boundaries of legal benefits of same-sex unions recognized in one state but not in another.

Alisha Brennon, 24, was injured and her partner, Christina Santiago, 29, was among seven people killed when an outdoor stage at the fairgrounds in Indianapolis toppled onto spectators Aug. 13 as high winds whipped the grandstand area. The incident happened just minutes before the country duo Sugarland was scheduled to perform.

Brennon and Santiago were among the first couples in Illinois to enter a civil union when such same-sex partnerships became legal in June.

On Monday, attorney Kenneth J. Allen filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court in Indiana on behalf of Brennon and of Santiago's estate against Mid-Sound Corp., which set up the stage, and other companies involved in the fair's concert events. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, alleges negligent and/or reckless acts on the part of the defendants led to the state collapse.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44688825/ns/us_news-life/

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Alisha Brennon, left, survived, but her partner, Christina Santiago, died in the Aug. 13 stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair.

[No Elephants]

1. .I am so sick of reading stories like this.

E--FUCKING--NOUGH ALREADY!

If SOME ministers and priests and rabbis and mullahs don't get it yet, let it be on them and only on them. My government REALLY needs to stop making me be their damned accomplice against my will and against MY religious beliefs.

If SOME people think God wants them to shun their own kids and stuff, let it be on them and only on them. My government REALLY needs to stop making me be their damned accomplice against my will and against MY religious beliefs.

No one is making one single person of any group of religious extremists marry anyone of their own gender.

No one is stopping even one of them from telling their children whatever crap they wish to tell their children.

No one is stopping them from dragging their kids to Our Lady of Bigotry or Disciples of the Condemning Christ or from sitting shiva for their gay kids.

STOP makinhg me support a government that supports them, though, when MY religious. moral and ethical beliefs require something very different from he.

Separate church and state. End government's participation in this wrong in which we are all forced to participate simply because it is the religious people of SOME Americans.

My government REALLY needs to stop making me be the damned accomplice of SOME religious bigots against my will and against MY religious beliefs.

[yardwork]

2. The founders wrote the First Amendment to protect everybody's religious freedom from tyranny.

The religious extremists don't get this. They impose their religious beliefs on everybody else, which is indeed a violation of many other people's religious views.

Thank you for mentioning that many religious and spiritual beliefs affirm equal treatment for GLBTQ people. It no more "Christian" to hate gay people than it is to steal.