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LOUISIANA: House Bans Gay and Unmarried Couples from Surrogacy

The Louisiana House of Representatives has given its final approval to a bill that would block unmarried and gay couples from becoming surrogate parents, reports The Times-Picayune.  The final vote was 87-9. The bill now moves to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal for signature.

The bill would set up surrogacy contract rules in the state as well as define who is eligible to enter into such contracts. The final version of Senate Bill 162 defines "intended parents" as "married persons," thus barring unmarried partners and same-sex couples from becoming parents through surrogacy.

Louisiana law currently states any surrogate contract in the state is "unenforceable" and absolutely null and void, which proponents of the bill says has led to problems surrounding the legal rights of surrogate mothers, their spouses and the intended parents.

Opponents to the bill include the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Louisiana Family Forum, who contend that surrogacy is "anti-life" because the process involves the creation of embryos that are never implanted. On the other side of the political spectrum, Kathleen Sloan of the National Organization for Women, or NOW, and Jennifer Lahl from the Center for Bioethics and Culture also came out against the bill, saying it "turns women into exploitable commodities through financial inducement."

The conference committee also rejected an amendment that would have voided the bill if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Essentially, that would have meant that no one would have become eligible for surrogate parenting if same-sex couples were suddenly eligible.  Equality Louisiana opposed the legislation but thanked the conference committee for rejecting "legislative gay-bashing [and an] unnecessary and mean-spirited amendment."

So much for "what about the children" ...

GOP Funds DOMA Defense, Blocks Sandy Relief, Violence Agst Women

Priorities, priorities, priorities ...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said today that it was "disgusting" that the House adjourned without voting on a $60 billion relief package for the victims of superstorm Sandy and put the blame squarely on a fellow Republican -- House Speaker John Boehner.

Christie, who is considered a possible Republican presidential candidate four years from now, said there was "only one group to blame, the Republican Party and Speaker Boehner." ... Christie in an angry news conference decried the "selfishness and duplicity," the "palace intrigue," "the callous indifference to the people of our state."

The governor said his four calls to Boehner Tuesday night went unanswered, but he said he spoke to the House speaker today. Christie would not disclose any details of the conversation, but clearly his anger over the no-vote was not mollified. Following Christie's press conference Republican representatives from New York and New Jersey announced that the speaker promised a vote on the bill on Jan. 15.

Violence against women is NOT a priority of the House Republican leadership ...

Despite a late-stage intervention by Vice President Joe Biden, House Republican leaders failed to advance the Senate's 2012 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, an embattled bill that would have extended domestic violence protections to 30 million LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants and Native American women.

"The House leadership would not bring it up, just like they wouldn't bring up funding for Sandy [hurricane damage] last night," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a key backer of the Senate version of the bill, in an interview with HuffPost. "I think they are still so kowtowing to the extreme on the right that they're not even listening to the moderates, and particularly the women, in their caucus who are saying they support this."

Additional funding to defend anti-gay discrimination and legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act is a priority, though ...

A GOP source told The Huffington Post that, during a closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference, lawmakers gave a green light to including language in the 113th Congress rules package that authorizes the House legal team, known as the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), to keep paying outside counsel to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The proposed House rules package also states that BLAG continues to "speak for" the House in its defense of DOMA ...

A spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday slammed Republicans for taking "the extraordinary measure" of using the opening day rules package of the new Congress to authorize themselves to keep defending DOMA. "Today, House Republicans will send a clear message to LGBT families: Their fiscal responsibility mantra does not extend to their efforts to stand firmly on the wrong side of the future," said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

Hammill also noted that the rules package "for the first time" explicitly states that BLAG speaks for the full House on DOMA matters -- something he said is definitely not the case.

Your tax dollars at work!