Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbySeptember 15th, 2009
A collection of political leaders, led by Rep. Nadler, who truly wish to see marriage discrimination removed from federal law, have taken the first step towards marriage equality. (NYT blog)
Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis appeared along with same-sex marriage advocates at a Tuesday morning news conference to announce the introduction of the bill, called the Respect for Marriage Act.
…
The bill already has roughly 90 cosponsors, though at least one name is conspicuously absent from that list: Representative Barney Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Democrat. Speaker Nancy Pelosi also indicated earlier this year that repealing the law would not be a top priority.
The next step will be trying to encourage those who are reluctant to move forward on equality – or for tying their political careers to things that matter to our community – to consider equality as a principled goal.
This bill is not expected to pass this Congress. But it does let us know who is really committed when they tell us that they support equality for gay couples. There are now 90 congresspersons whom I’m now willing to listen to … and a few notable ones for whom I find that I have other causes that “will take up all of what I can do and maybe more” and perhaps they should seek a “better venue” elsewhere.
p.s. the bill does not yet seem to have caught the attention of the President. But I am absolutely certain that he will support this bill every bit as much as he has used his bully pulpit and influence with Congress to support other promises he made to our community during his campaign.
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AJD
September 15th, 2009
Another thing to consider is the possibility that the Democrats could lose their majority in Congress in the next election… Then, anything even remotely friendly to gay people will be screwed.
Ken in Riverside
September 15th, 2009
Quality snark, Timothy!
David C.
September 15th, 2009
I find courage lacking on the part of Democratic leaders where it comes to LGBT* civil-rights. The rank and file Congressional Democrats have their hands full with the health-care reform debate, and judging from their stands on that issue, I suspect we can expect only tepid support for the gay civil rights bills introduced so far. My expectations are set very low.
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