While gay rights activists were engaged in fits of apoplexy over Barack Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation, outgoing President George W. Bush quietly took a small step toward ensuring equality for same-sex partnerships by signing The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA).
American employers will soon be required to allow the partners of gay and lesbian employees to inherit 401(k) retirement savings accounts without incurring tax penalties. The newly signed legislation will allow any designated beneficiary to roll retirement savings over into an IRA, a benefit employers may limit to spousal survivors under current law.
As you might imagine, commenters in the progressive/gay blogosphere had a little trouble giving “Bushitler” credit for taking this small but meaningful step. The upstanding folks at Minnesota Independent reveled in Bush’s perceived betrayal of his base and engaged in a little Christianist bashing (just for good measure.) The gang at Think Progress is pretty sure this law only got the thumbs up because BushCo failed to read the legislation attentively, possibly due to a drug-induced stupor. To be fair, a few commenters at The Huffington Post offered Bush their gratitude; others celebrated what was termed a fundie smackdown, but explained that the legislation was only approved by Bush so he could throw one last bone to his log cabin cronies.
Perhaps it’s best that the mainstream media ignored the passage of this law. There’s always something to be said for avoiding a large scale outbreak of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
