http://www.advocate.com/news_detail.asp?id=15483
Former consultant for Jesse Helms marries male partner
A longtime and well-known consultant who has directed a series of
highly conservative political campaigns to elect candidates in the
United States and Israel, including former antigay stalwart U.S.
senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, has acknowledged that he
married his male partner in Massachusetts.
Arthur J. Finkelstein declined to provide details of the wedding other
than to say it it was a civil ceremony in his Bay State home last
December, according to The New York Times.
Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by
trying to demonize liberalism, said in a brief interview with the
paper that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the
couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual
couples.
"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits, and other
human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married
people should be available to partners," he said.
Some of Finkelstein's associates said they were startled to learn of
the wedding given his history with the GOP, especially at a time when
many Republican leaders, including President Bush, have campaigned
against same-sex marriage and proposed amending the U.S. Constitution
to ban it.
Finkelstein has been allied over the years with Republicans who have
fiercely opposed gay rights measures and has been the subject of
attacks by gay rights activists who have accused him of hypocrisy.
He was identified as gay in a Boston Magazine article in 1996.
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Heard anything from Jesse? Of course you haven't.
Harry
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