From morsel at u.washington.edu Fri Mar 6 09:39:18 2009 From: morsel at u.washington.edu (Lindsay Alane Morse) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 09:39:18 -0800 Subject: [LCC] PLEASE HELP: Washington State Senate to Consider Including Crimes against Gender Identity in Hate Crime Legislation Message-ID: <2a45116a0903060939i3bec8538va9c9b44c9f06d0db@mail.gmail.com> There is currently a Washington State Senate bill that would include acts of violence against transgendered people and those questioning their gender identity in state hate crimes legislation in the Rules Committee in our state legislature. The UW GPSS Vice President has worked very hard to get it that far. If the Rules Committee approves it, it will move to the Senate floor for a general vote. There is some information below about contacting specific state senators on the rules committee. Please forward this to anyone you know in Washington State who think might be willing to email these senators to urge them to pass this to the Senate floor. Thanks, Lindsay ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 7:43 AM Subject: [GPSS Executive] HELP: Hate Crimes Bill Hi All, I really need all of your help immediately. We need as many people to pepper some specific Rules Committee members to pull the Hate Crimes Bill to the floor. I've done a vote count and the votes should be there for passage IF we can get it to the floor. I've heard that other bills have been pulled simply because of the volume of constituent email sent to Senators. So please make requests of your student government boards, friends, family, etc. as well! There will be very few Rules meetings left and possibly one today so I need you all to email the following Senators as soon as you get this email. I don't want to write a template letter because I want the requests to be varied a little. Some possible talking points for a 2-3 sentence email are at the bottom (template sentence structure: pull the bill, here is a reason why, thank you). DO NOT just send a mass email to these Senators ---- send separate emails. Senator Brown: brown.lisa at leg.wa.gov Senator Murray: murray.edward at leg.wa.gov Senator Eide: eide.tracey at leg.wa.gov > > > Senator Marr: marr.chris at leg.wa.gov > Senator Pridemore: pridemore.craig at leg.wa.gov pridemore.craig at leg.wa.gov> > Senator Regala: regala.debbie at leg.wa.gov > Senator Kohl-Welles: kohl-welles.jeanne at leg.wa.gov kohl-welles.jeanne at leg.wa.gov> > > Thanks, > Dave > > ---- Please pull SB-5952, the Hate Crimes bill, to the floor immediately. > There is no fiscal note and in these troubled times you can help change the > lives of hundreds of citizens in Washington so easily. > > ---- With 3 brutal attacks due to a student's gender identity or expression > on the WSU Campus last fall I am worried about the safety fears that pervade > our entire school community > > ---- Several transgendered students have said they considered themselves to > have a lucky life because they have not been beaten, raped, or killed. No > one should have that as the benchmark for a "lucky life." > > -- Lindsay Alane Morse University of Washington, Seattle Doctoral Candidate, Classics GPSS Executive Senator From jbravo at carleton.edu Sat Mar 7 09:23:43 2009 From: jbravo at carleton.edu (Jorge J. Bravo III) Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 11:23:43 -0600 Subject: [LCC] Domestic Partner Benefits and Imputed Income Message-ID: Dear Friends and Colleagues: I am writing to get a sampling of how various institutions around the country are handling the issue of imputed income on domestic partner health benefits. For those of you who may not know about this, the IRS requires that the value of the portion of health care coverage that an employer pays toward an employee's domestic partner be considered additional taxable income and subject to withholding, since a domestic partner is not a legal spouse. I found the following short article from the HRC (http://www.hrc.org/issues/marriage/domestic_partners/4820.htm ) helpful in learning about the matter. This is an issue that only recently came to my attention because my own institution, from the time I was hired up until the beginning of the year, had not been making this calculation or withholding an extra amount from my paycheck. It must have come to their attention that they were supposed to be doing this, and so they started doing this with my January paycheck. It seems to me that this was an opportunity for the college to consider whether, as a matter of equality, it should attempt to redress this unfairness imposed by the tax code by adjusting the gross pay of employees with domestic partners to cover the extra amount taken out in taxes; but the college did not have any discussion about this, so far as I know. So I have the following questions: How is this issue being handled at your colleges and universities around the country? Are there any institutions that do make the effort to correct this tax inequality by adjusting gross pay for employees relying on domestic partner benefits for health care? Has this issue been raised, even unsuccessfully, at other institutions? Regards, Jorge Jorge J. Bravo III Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Classical Languages Carleton College One North College St. Northfield, MN 55057 USA (507) 222-5136 Email: jbravo at carleton.edu From rhexter at hampshire.edu Sat Mar 7 12:01:38 2009 From: rhexter at hampshire.edu (Ralph Hexter) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:01:38 -0500 Subject: [LCC] Domestic Partner Benefits and Imputed Income In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49B2D2A2.1@hampshire.edu> Dear Jorge, thanks for writing and letting folks know about this. (And good to hear from you!) I'm surprised Carleton only figured this out now. I've been in this situation for years, and whether you regard it as good or bad, previous universities and my current employer, Hampshire College, have understood this from the beginning. In some states, it is even more complex, if that is possible, because such subsidies for a domestic partner -- or in our case in Massachusetts, a legal married spouse -- are not imputed as additional taxable income for state purposes but are for federal. I have never heard of an institution considering whether it should adjust payment to cover this -- and I should point out you'd be caught in an infinite regress, because that additional pay would be taxed, leading you to need more additional income, etc. etc. etc. Moreover -- forgive me if I sound like a college president -- wouldn't you then also want the college to consider what other injustices the tax code wreaks on somebody, whether single or married, or with many dependents or no dependents, and there could be no end to the discussions. One college president (let him remain anonymous) once said to me he thought his college should simply defy this directive, but I bet his CFO, college counsel, and/or board would hold him back if he ever actually proposed it. In my view, the only way to fix this is to get same-sex marriage at the national level OR establish that tax and other legal benefits for couples in marriage-equivalent relationships (marriage in some states, civil unions in others, domestic partnerships in yet anothers) must not vary from benefits for married couples. There is an interesting suit against the so-called 'Defense of Marriage Act' brought by several Massachusetts couples that has just been filed. We'll see where that goes, but if it gets anywhere, it will only be for legally married couples. Ralph Hexter Office of the President Hampshire College 893 West St. Amherst MA 01002 413/559-5521 Jorge J. Bravo III wrote: > Dear Friends and Colleagues: > > I am writing to get a sampling of how various institutions around the > country are handling the issue of imputed income on domestic partner > health benefits. For those of you who may not know about this, the > IRS requires that the value of the portion of health care coverage > that an employer pays toward an employee's domestic partner be > considered additional taxable income and subject to withholding, since > a domestic partner is not a legal spouse. I found the following short > article from the HRC > (http://www.hrc.org/issues/marriage/domestic_partners/4820.htm) > helpful in learning about the matter. > > This is an issue that only recently came to my attention because my > own institution, from the time I was hired up until the beginning of > the year, had not been making this calculation or withholding an extra > amount from my paycheck. It must have come to their attention that > they were supposed to be doing this, and so they started doing this > with my January paycheck. > > It seems to me that this was an opportunity for the college to > consider whether, as a matter of equality, it should attempt to > redress this unfairness imposed by the tax code by adjusting the gross > pay of employees with domestic partners to cover the extra amount > taken out in taxes; but the college did not have any discussion about > this, so far as I know. So I have the following questions: How is > this issue being handled at your colleges and universities around the > country? Are there any institutions that do make the effort to > correct this tax inequality by adjusting gross pay for employees > relying on domestic partner benefits for health care? Has this issue > been raised, even unsuccessfully, at other institutions? > > > Regards, > Jorge > > > Jorge J. Bravo III > Visiting Assistant Professor > > Department of Classical Languages > Carleton College > One North College St. > Northfield, MN 55057 > USA > > (507) 222-5136 > Email: jbravo at carleton.edu > > > > > _______________________________________________ > members mailing list > members at lambdacc.org > http://lambdacc.org/mailman/listinfo/members_lambdacc.org From lockyert at mweb.co.za Thu Mar 26 12:38:10 2009 From: lockyert at mweb.co.za (Terrence Lockyer) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:38:10 +0200 Subject: [LCC] Therapists and sexual orientation Message-ID: The BBC reports at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/7963828.stm on a study finding that a significant minority of therapists belonging to "the main United Kingdom psychotherapy and psychiatric organisations" are still offering treatments to "cure" or reduce homosexual orientation. The paper, - Annie Bartlett, Glenn Smith, and Michael King, "The response of mental health professionals to clients seeking help to change or redirect same-sex sexual orientation", BMC Psychiatry 2009, 9:11 is available in provisional form in an open access PDF from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/9/11/abstract and will later be available in final PDF and HTML form. Terrence Lockyer Johannesburg, South Africa