A Thanksgiving Message For You
Submitted by sandi on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 18:47
Once again the LGBT community suffered a great loss at the hands of the American voters. On November 2, 2009 the voters in Maine chose to take away civil rights from the LGBT community by voting Yes on Prop 1. This is reminiscent of California's Prop 8 fiasco of 2008. As you may know, I take this affront to civil rights very seriously. I am the mother of a gay son who, luckily, got married last year here in California during that short time when it was legally possible to do so. Also, luckily, the state of California Supreme Court saw fit to uphold all those 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place during that time. Notice I specified that the SAME-SEX marriages were upheld. There was never any question for the straight couples as to whether or not their marriages were threatened.
This business of taking civil rights away from an entire class of people scares me, and it should scare you as well. Although you may feel very safe in your social standing right now, how do you know that your particular class of people won't be on the list of groups to be affected some day?
On election day, I wrote a post for my blog appealing to the voters of Maine who were planning to vote Yes on 1 to reconsider. Of course, I didn't think that my little blog post was going to sway the voters much if at all, but I just felt I had to DO SOMETHING! And now I am writing this article in an effort to do something more. For those of you who feel as I do, I am preaching to the choir. For those of you who are not quite convinced yet, please allow me to offer some information for you to think about.
First, do you really KNOW what you are taking away from those same-sex couples in terms of the rights they would have that straight couples take for advantage? There are 1,138 rights that are afforded to legally married couples. Take a look at this site "An Overview of Federal Rights and Protections Granted to Married Couples" . And after you read this material and really think about it, what does it take away from the straight married couples if these rights are granted to gay couples?
Second, if your objection to gay marriage is based on your religious beliefs, why should you be able to force YOUR religious tenets on those of us who believe differently? And wasn't this country literally established by people who fled religious persecution from their country? Whatever happened to separation of church and state? What would you do if the tenets of a different religion than yours took over the way our laws are governed under the auspices of just practicing their freedom of religion? Pretty scary, huh?
Third, whatever happened to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."? Do we really want to re-write that element of our government to read "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - except for those who are gay."?
As we celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends and loved ones this year, think about how lucky you all were not to have lost any of YOUR civil rights this year. And then think about the ones who have. Please think about how YOU can contribute to equal rights for all American citizens under the law in the year ahead.
This business of taking civil rights away from an entire class of people scares me, and it should scare you as well. Although you may feel very safe in your social standing right now, how do you know that your particular class of people won't be on the list of groups to be affected some day?
On election day, I wrote a post for my blog appealing to the voters of Maine who were planning to vote Yes on 1 to reconsider. Of course, I didn't think that my little blog post was going to sway the voters much if at all, but I just felt I had to DO SOMETHING! And now I am writing this article in an effort to do something more. For those of you who feel as I do, I am preaching to the choir. For those of you who are not quite convinced yet, please allow me to offer some information for you to think about.
First, do you really KNOW what you are taking away from those same-sex couples in terms of the rights they would have that straight couples take for advantage? There are 1,138 rights that are afforded to legally married couples. Take a look at this site "An Overview of Federal Rights and Protections Granted to Married Couples" . And after you read this material and really think about it, what does it take away from the straight married couples if these rights are granted to gay couples?
Second, if your objection to gay marriage is based on your religious beliefs, why should you be able to force YOUR religious tenets on those of us who believe differently? And wasn't this country literally established by people who fled religious persecution from their country? Whatever happened to separation of church and state? What would you do if the tenets of a different religion than yours took over the way our laws are governed under the auspices of just practicing their freedom of religion? Pretty scary, huh?
Third, whatever happened to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."? Do we really want to re-write that element of our government to read "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - except for those who are gay."?
As we celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends and loved ones this year, think about how lucky you all were not to have lost any of YOUR civil rights this year. And then think about the ones who have. Please think about how YOU can contribute to equal rights for all American citizens under the law in the year ahead.