On domestic partnerships and health coverage

I was self-employed back in 1997 when my partner and I decided to start a family. Since I didn’t have any health insurance, she asked her employer whether they would allow me to join their group insurance plan as her spouse (this was before legal gay marriage) as long as I paid the full premium amount. The company readily agreed, but when I called BC/BS to enroll, they told me it was illegal to provide coverage to me.

It took me two weeks of telephone calls to find out why. In Maryland, the insurance laws were written to only allow group coverage based on blood, marriage or adoption. I went about changing that law. First I started a letter writing campaign to the Health Care Cost Commission, then testified at their annual meeting, and then another letter campaign directed at the Maryland Insurance Administration. Both HCCC and MIA later told me it was the most letters they had ever received on a single issue.

Once gay marriage was legalized, many of these issues related to being a couple with no legal standing were resolved, but now several states are passing resolutions to ask the Supreme Court to end gay marriage. These resolutions are simply for show since the only way to reverse legal marriage is to bring forth a case to challenge the Obergefell ruling.

Whether this will happen remains to be seen, and reversals of such laws are rarely retroactive so existing gay marriages are likely safe. Still, I’m comforted by the knowledge that thanks to my work on the insurance law in Maryland, at least in this state couples will still be able to add their partners to their employer health plans no matter what.

— Barbara Stratton, Baltimore

This is not a genocide

I read Elizabeth Shire’s letter to the editor, and once again the hairs on the back of my neck were rattled. For the life of me, I cannot understand why someone would berate Israel for the “genocide” brought forth on the Palestinians.

First off, the term genocide has been used repeatedly by many folks, including the press. This is not genocide. Look to the camps during WWII to see what true genocide is. Secondly, Israel did not look to begin this war. You may say that Israel belongs to the Palestinians; however, God gave us the promised land thousand of years ago. Our people escaped the Pharaoh and came home. Does this entitle Hamas to encroach on our land and kill hundreds, if not thousands of Israelis just because they want to eradicate all the Jews of the world, starting on Israeli turf?

You must ask yourself two questions — why do these people allow Hamas to rule over them and, this is the bigger question — why are the other nations in this region not giving up land or even helping their brothers in this war? I ask myself this every day and the only answer that I can come up with is that they don’t want to have them as neighbors.

— Terry Weiner, Bel Air

God does not like a lying tongue

I do believe that Trump wants to dumb down America, so the folks will not be able to think for themselves and, therefore, will be more susceptible to his habitual lying. The so-called Christian should keep in mind that God does not like a lying tongue.

Also, the federal employees being fired, they provide services to American citizens, like processing social security, giving tax refunds, providing safeguards in workplaces, warning of dangerous weather, protecting consumers from fraudsters, well at least they did until Trump dumped the CFPB, etc. Thirty-percent of the federal workforce is military. So to show how we revere them and those who previously died in the wars fighting for not only our but draft-dodger Trump’s freedom we demonize an ally, Ukraine, to support Putin, who kills his adversaries.

— Lou Ann Prosack, Jessup

How does the math work?

I can do math on the two-cent per ounce tax on soda. If I get a 30-pack of 12-ounce soda at my big box store, that results in a $7.20 price increase (if indeed it is two cents per ounce). Relative to my last purchase ($17.78), that is a 40% increase. Is that what our representatives want? My solution is the big box store in Pennsylvania.

— Jeff Lyons, Freeland