Rhode Island governor to gay couples - you have no right to choose your partner's funeral arrangements

Regardless of what one feels about marriage equality (i.e. gay marriage), the actions by Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri is just wrong. It's meanspirited. The law has nothing to do with marriage so I don't necessarily see how it needs to be put up for a public vote. Why don't we just take it farther and vote on whether or not these folks should be buried at all.

It just highlights the hypocrisy of many of those against marriage equality:

An opponent of same-sex marriage, Governor Carcieri has vetoed bill that would have added "domestic partners'' to the list of people authorized by law to make funeral arrangements for each other.

In his veto message, Republican Carcieri said: "This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.

"If the General Assembly believes it would like to address the issue of domestic partnerships, it should place the issue on the ballot and let the people of the state of Rhode Island decide.''

The bill, also sponsored by state Sen. Rhoda Perry and state Rep. David Segal, would add "domestic partners'' to the list, in current law, of people who can legally make arrangements for a deceased person's funeral, cremation or burial to include domestic partners if the deceased person left no pre-arranged funeral contract.

More here