I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
There’s a great story by T.J. Wilham in today’s Albuquerque Journal (“A Gay Cop’s Struggle“), about the first openly gay cop in the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Matt Wolke, now a SWAT sniper, had a hard time being accepted by his colleagues when he and his partner, Pat Davis (a former cop) first moved here from Washington, D.C. four years ago.
Most of it sounds like typical insensitive, insulting, lawsuit-worthy crap. But his story is also familiar to proponents of domestic partnership. From the story:
The worst began one evening, when Davis began having seizures at home. When Wolke called 911, the dispatcher realized he was an officer and called Wolke’s co-workers to the scene. When the other deputies arrived, Wolke said, they treated him like a domestic violence suspect.
Things went downhill at the hospital. Hospital staff wouldn’t let Wolke into Davis’ room, even though he explained they were partners. They owned a house together, shared bank accounts and had rings.
Wolke was forced to wait outside.…The next day, Wolke was called to his captain’s office and told he couldn’t take sick time to care for Davis because the two weren’t married. If he didn’t show up for work, a lieutenant told him, he would be disciplined.
This is precisely the kind of situation that fires up advocates for domestic partnership, which briefly seemed like it had a chance during this year’s regular legislative session. Would testimony by Deputy Wolke have changed any minds in Santa Fe? Probably not. There were some very, very compelling speakers during a joint committee hearing, but in the end, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe appeared to win over enough legislators to kill the bill.
Still, domestic partnerships could be on the agenda for the Legislature’s special session this fall, Gov. Bill Richardson told NMI’s Trip Jennings recently. And the national landscape has changed dramatically just in the weeks since the end of the session. Iowa, Vermont and the District of Columbia have joined Massachusetts and Connecticut as states that recognize same sex marriage.
Speaking of other states, many on the east coast also have more experience in dealing with gay officers. In June, the Gay Officers Action League of New York will host the International Conference of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Criminal Justice Professionals. GOAL-NY was formed in 1982; the first conference was held in 1994.
