Equality Ohio Urges Support of Benefits

Columbus, OH- Equality Ohio urges all the candidates for Governor of Ohio to support state employees and their families by providing domestic partnership benefits for those in long-term relationships.

"It is estimated that offering domestic partnership benefits to state of Ohio employees will only increase the state’s health insurance costs 0.6 percent," said Lynne Bowman, Executive Director of Equality Ohio. "Like many Ohioans, we believe basic health coverage for all, including Ohio's state workers and their life partners, should be a priority for our next governor." Read the entire news release

Parsley has skewed view of marriage (Letter to the Editor)

Equality Ohio's Bo Shuff writes a letter to the editor about Rod Parsley's view of marriage, which was published in The Columbus Dispatch:

The Rev. Rod Parsley argued in favor of the passage of a so-called Marriage Protection Amendment (Faith & Values column, June 2). The only problem is his argument flies in the face of medical science, ignores historic reality and ridicules the fundamental system of checks and balances written into our Constitution.

Parsley began with a parable about a 3-year-old child playing with a drawer of knives, as if to convince us that a child growing up in a same-sex household is in mortal danger. This is simply not true. Peer-reviewed medical studies, including both psychological and sociological studies, have shown that children raised in a samesex-headed household perform equally well on all measures as compared with children raised by opposite-sex parents. Almost every national child-welfare organization, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, has upheld these findings and offered official support of families headed by same-sex parents.

Testimony at the 75th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Church

Equality Ohio Executive Director Lynne Bowman testified at the 75th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Church:

Good afternoon. My name is Lynne Bowman and I am the Executive Director of Equality Ohio. Equality Ohio is Ohio’s statewide organization focusing on issues of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who live in or visit the Buckeye State. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon regarding the resolution being considered regarding the criteria used to select future sites of the convention. I’ve been asked to speak directly about how the implementation of Ohio’s constitutional amendment banning marriage equality has impacted domestic partnership benefits in the state.