Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Department of Justice Emails Description An account of the resource The Department of Justice received more than 11,000 e-mails in response to the agency's public solicitation for comments upon its plans to distribute the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 established by Congress to benefit the victims of September 11 and their families. These e-mails have been organized here by date. September 11 Email September 11 Email: Body The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. Tuesday, March 12, 2002 1:34 PM Victim Benefits I have heard that it is likely that the partners of the gay and lesbian victims of the tragedy of 9/11 will not be compensated as the partners of their heterosexual counterparts. May I remind you that, even though the RELIGIOUS RIGHT will impose their values to the detriment of all others and discriminate however they please (while crying that no one should discriminate against their CHOICE to be christian), this country is supposedly founded on the groundstone that EVERYONE is CREATED EQUAL. That we are endowed with inalienable rights of LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. By the continued discrimination and denial of certain rights (such as those of a legal union between two people, i.e.. marriage), these three tenants are thereby denied to all gay and lesbian people in this country. Without getting into the debate of marriage, I simply recommend that a legal union granting all the rights of heterosexual marriage to same sex couples to give them their Constitutional and Declared rights that formed this nation. Religions should not be forced to accept this union nor perform them, but the rights of "marriage" should be granted to same sex couple in entirety as a union. Beside the point, the gay and lesbian people who died on that terrible day, some who died in heroic acts such as &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp who helped bring down the plane over Pennsylvania thus diverting even further disaster, and &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp , who died giving last rights to a fallen firefighter, deserve to have their established partners compensated for the loss they incurred. Gay and lesbian people experience love and loss as much as heterosexual people and the loss of their fallen loved ones is NO LESS than the heterosexual people who lost their loved ones as well. I think it a violation of human dignity as well as our human rights (see the rights we are guaranteed under the Declaration of Independence mentioned before) to deny these people what they are as entitled to as any recognized married people. To give the benefits to the blood relatives simply because they are related is deplorable. It is likely that some of those people despised, discriminated against, and disavowed the very people by whose death you will now reward their bigotry and hatred. This is despicable and disgusting! I find it absolutely hypocritical that this administration has the nerve to speak of human rights violations in other countries when it advocates, legislates, supports and encourages discrimination against its gay and lesbian citizens. I will lobby my legislators to continue to oppose such discrimination. I hope that this will change and the gay and lesbian survivors will be able to have their lives compensated for the great loss that they have also incurred. Sincerely, Individual Comment San Diego, CA September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-03-12 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource dojR000456.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. email Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-03-12