Widower to Conservative Org: I Won’t Be Needing Your Services

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/07/21/Widower_to_Conservative_Group__I_Won/

During Wednesday’s historic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Ron Wallen, a 77-year-old veteran and resident of Indio, Calif., spoke plaintively in his allotted five minutes about how the 1996 law has cost him his home because he does not qualify for Social Security survivor benefits.

Wallen’s husband, Tom Corrollo, died in March of leukemia after the couple’s 58 years together. “I wake up in the morning, and forget for a minute that he is not in the kitchen making coffee,” Wallen said. "Tom and I worked hard, and together we tried to live out our own version of the American dream. ... And yet, as I face a future alone without my spouse of 58 years, it is hard to believe that it is the American government that is throwing me out of my family home.”

Puzzling remarks by anti-marriage equality witnesses were legion at the hearing, but perhaps no more so than those of Focus on the Family senior vice president Tom Minnery, who spoke directly after Wallen's heartfelt testimony about his group’s firm stance against repealing DOMA. Minnery expressed his condolences for Wallen’s loss, then seemed to offer him counseling and outreach services from his organization, which until two years ago had sponsored an ex-gay summit known as Love Won Out.

“I had read his prepared testimony the night before, so I knew what he was going to say,” Wallen told The Advocate. “But I was shocked when he offered condolences, and was in disbelief when he was offering his services. If I were looking for help, his would be the last place I would go to.”

[midnight]

1. America has been hijacked by ALEC, KOCH, IMF, and they put into office

men that meet with the approval of Murdocks spying agencies... It's a mess...

[ejpoeta]

2. while we are supposed to have freedom of religion, this also means freedom FROM religion.

this means protection from these people. There should be no state religion. The state has no business telling gay people they cannot be married because some religion doesn't like it. No one is forcing religious people to get married to people of the same sex. This has nothing to do with them AT ALL!! They need to keep their fucking religion to themselves and out of the rest of our business. period. I don't understand how it is that they get to dictate to the rest of us. There is no state religion... that means christianity is not allowed to be the state religion EITHER!!

[RetiredTrotskyite]

3. THANK YOU!!!

I feel the same way. Like I told a religious type at HuffPost spewing his stuff: My policy for you is DLDLP Don't Like? Don't Look. Don't participate. From all the whining you would think that they are going to be dragged into the town hall and FORCED into a same sex marriage. Hey, fundies, It's not all about you--remember DLDLDP.