GAY GROUPS ARE DEBATING SOCIAL SECURITY: From the New York Times

...Leaders of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy group, said this week that they would consider supporting Social Security revisions that included private retirement accounts if the changes brought the right of gay partners to receive survivor benefits under the program.

Because federal law does not recognize gay marriages, surviving partners of gay men and lesbians, and their nonbiological children, are not entitled to Social Security benefits. The political director of the Human Rights Campaign, Winnie Stachelberg, said on Friday that although the group did not endorse any particular approach to Social Security reform, it was willing to discuss changes that would extend equal benefits to gays and their partners. ...

''We have to talk about the denial of benefits in a way that people can hear,'' Ms. Stachelberg said. ''We have to say privatization might bring more equity to the system because it gives an individual more flexibility in designating a beneficiary. That addresses one concern of the gay and lesbian community, but it may raise others.''

That suggestion provoked a sharp protest from other gay and lesbian leaders. After the article was published, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force sent a letter to all members of Congress saying the gay rights movement should not try to obtain equal rights at the expense of any other group of Americans.

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