Faces For Equality: Carol Benevy
Name: Carol Benevy
Age: 37
Hometown: Alexandria, VA
Occupation: Contractor for a Government Aerospace Field
Why I Found Her at The NEM:
Carol has no rights in Virginia, and that’s a problem. She and her wife have been through quite a bit of turbulence in terms of the rights they have as partners, but any rights they had while they were living in New Jersey vanished when they moved to Virginia.They’re still waiting.
Carol and her wife have been together since 1998. In 2004, the state of New Jersey allowed them to obtain a domestic partnership. They went down to City Hall, paid $10, and obtained four rights.
In 2007, they were able to obtain a civil union. While this was an upgrade, there were still problems. Carol had to fight with her employer to get health insurance coverage for her wife. When she finally was able to get it, she still had to pay taxes on it, and her wife still couldn’t inherit her pension.
Now that they’re living in Virginia, their relationship has no rights. This is a problem, because they want to have children. They are considering another move into the District of Columbia, because DC offers more support for their marriage than the state of Virginia. She is angry that she has to give up her Congressional representation for the right to raise a family, explaining, “That’s fucked up… a choice you shouldn’t have to make.”
Carol was marching in her wedding dress for the rights of her family now and in the future.
What She’d Change in America:
Carol has serious concerns about the way change occurs in our country, particularly how money is distributed. She described to me how in her former work she had to fight incredibly hard to get a $250,000 grant to address juvenile delinquency for an entire county in New Jersey. In her recent work, she has been dealing with $3 billion dollars for air traffic software. It astounds her how skewed the priorities are.
I’m inclined to agree.
I was not quite looking at the camera. Oops. Carol looks fabulous and that’s all that matters.
A podcast w/ Peterson Toscano!
