State and local officials joined hundreds of people outside the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood on Sunday morning to kick off a national grass-roots campaign demanding equal Social Security benefits for same-sex couples.<\/p>\n
The rally and march event–dubbed Rock for Equality–was put together by the center and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in coalition with the Aids Community Action Foundation, said Jim Key, a spokesman for the center. <\/p>\n
At the rally, U.S. Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D-Lakewood), who is a member of the House Subcommittee on Social Security, announced that she would sponsor legislation to provide equal Social Security benefits for same-sex couples. " I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right that Americans should be treated differently by the country they love because of who they love,\u201d Sanchez said, triggering thunderous applause and cheers from the crowd. <\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, same-sex marriage couples pay equally into a system that they don\u2019t receive equal benefits from in return,. Shame on this country for allowing that to happen,\u201d Sanchez said. <\/p>\n
As of now, people in same-sex relationships are denied Social Security survivor benefits of their deceased partners because the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages or domestic partnerships as valid relationships. <\/p>\n
Sanchez’s bill, however, would lead the Social Security Administration to recognize those civil unions or domestic partnerships as valid relationships for the purpose of dispensing survivor benefits that heterosexual couples with a marriage certificate get.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying to the Social Security Administration, this must stop,\u201d Sanchez said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/br>Rep. Judy Chu (D-El Monte), who also attended the event, offered to support the bill. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act as a law to protect the elderly from poverty. It was a great moment, but the act wasn\u2019t perfect,\u201d Chu told the crowd. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1966, members of the armed services were added, in 1983, federal employees were added, and in the year 2010, that will be the year people from the LGBT community will be added,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
About 700 people attended the event, including Maria Garcia, 44, of North Hollywood who had arrived an hour early to the rally with her 23-year-old son, Philip Garrelts, who is gay. \u201cEvery mother should do this for her children,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cThere should be equal rights for everyone.\u201d <\/p>\n
–Ruben Vives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State and local officials joined hundreds of people outside the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood on Sunday morning to kick off a national grass-roots campaign demanding equal Social Security benefits for same-sex couples. The rally and march event–dubbed Rock for Equality–was put together by the center and the National Gay and Lesbian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}