XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: k@t.org   
      
   Good for Idaho!   
      
   An Idaho veterans cemetery is refusing to bury the ashes of a   
   lesbian couple together because the state does not recognize   
   same-sex marriages, KBOI reported on Wednesday.   
      
   Madelynn Taylor served in the U.S. Navy from 1958 to 1964. She   
   was discharged along with several other women in her unit after   
   another recruit told superiors that they were gay. But Taylor   
   later petitioned to have her discharge documents read   
   “honorable.”   
      
   When Taylor – now, 74 years old, and in failing health –   
   presented those documents along with a certificate of marriage   
   to her late wife, Jean Mixner, the Idaho Veterans Cemetery   
   refused to reserve a joint-spot for the two women’s ashes,   
   something the cemetery allows heterosexual couples to do. That’s   
   because the Idaho Constitution defines marriage as an   
   institution between one man and one woman, and as such, does not   
   consider Taylor and Mixner’s 2008 union valid. (The two legally   
   wed in California before voters enacted Proposition 8, that   
   state’s ban on same-sex nuptials.)   
      
   “We have to follow the law,” said Tamara Mackenthun, deputy   
   administrator at the Idaho Division of Veterans Services, to   
   KTVB-TV. “We have to follow the Idaho definition of spouse.”   
      
   Taylor disagrees with that logic.   
      
   “I don’t see where the ashes of a couple old lesbians is going   
   to hurt anyone,” she told KBOI.   
      
   Idaho is one of 33 states that currently prohibits gay couples   
   from marrying, and does not recognize same-sex marriages   
   performed anywhere else. Four gay couples have filed a federal   
   lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s 2006 voter-approved   
   amendment limiting marriage rights exclusively to heterosexual   
   couples. A hearing is scheduled in that case for May 5.   
      
   In recent months, judges have been sensitive to the needs of gay   
   couples when it comes to death-related matters. Last November, a   
   federal judge in Illinois allowed a lesbian couple to receive an   
   expedited marriage license more than six months before that   
   state’s marriage equality law was due to take effect. One of the   
   women was battling a terminal illness and passed away in March.   
   Weeks later, a federal judge in Indiana ordered state officials   
   to recognize the marriage of another same-sex couple because one   
   of the women had been diagnosed with stage-4 ovarian cancer.   
   Theirs was the only marriage in the state affected by the   
   judge’s order.   
      
   Taylor said that if she died before the Idaho State Veterans   
   Cemetery agreed to accept her ashes along with Mixner’s, someone   
   else would keep them together until the law changes.   
      
   “Eventually I’m going to be there. It’ll happen,” she said to   
   KTVB. “They might as well give up and let us go now.”   
      
   http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/idaho-cemetery-lesbian-couple-ashes   
      
        
      
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