Paper to Rerun Obit After Omitting Partner

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/23/Paper_to_Rerun_Obit_After_Omitting_Partner/

An Arkansas newspaper that omitted the name of a gay man’s surviving partner from his obituary has apologized and agreed to reprint the obit — with the partner’s name — after receiving pressure from groups including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

When John Christopher Millican died June 11, his partner of 10 years, Terrance James, filled out paperwork to have his obituary run in the local paper, The Batesville Daily Guard. When the obit was published, however, it did not include James’s name, but it did list Millican’s deceased parents and surviving siblings, with whom he had little contact, according to the Center for Artistic Revolution, an Arkansas gay rights group.

James complained, but an editor for the Daily Guard told him the paper has a policy against printing names of unmarried partners and cited the fact that Arkansas does not recognize same-sex unions. She told him, however, that the paper would run a paid obituary for $85 that would include any information he wanted. (Most smaller newspapers run obituaries free of charge; in larger cities, the obits of prominent people run as news items, while other death notices carry a fee.) This led to an action call on Change.org and coverage in many gay news outlets.

[Coyote_Bandit]

1. I had a sibling who died

in Arkansas and the fucking newspaper omitted my name from the obit and refused to re-print it with the correction.

Not the same I know.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

2. It's the Least They Can Do...

If they could have been married then the paper might have had a point. But they don't and they can't.