Get ready to read, and read you better!!!
"On May 21, 2003, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., and five co-sponsors introduced H.J. Resolution 56, a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman."
The Federal Marriage Act as proposed will read…
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
AMERICA: LAND OF THE FREE* (see below)
*(Sans homosexuals)
In less than two week our Senate will battle one of the last remaining civil rights issues in our nation, the same nation based on the principles of equality and freedom. In the week of July 12th, the senate will have a full vote on the Federal Marriage Act. Such an amendment to our constitution would also require the approval of two-thirds of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Amending the Constitution is almost unheard of and is only done to address great national needs. In our Constitution's 214-year history, it was first amended to include the Bill of Rights in 1791. Since then, it has only been amended 17 times. In the last thirty years it has only been amended once, in 1992, to change the way elected officials are paid.
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
-- Patrick Henry
The only time the constitution has been amended to take away the rights of an individual or group was the 18th amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. That was the last time the religious right of our country were allowed to impart their moral vision through the constitution and look how great that amendment worked! It got a sequel! Repealing the first.
The only way to properly diagnose a nation’s enlightenment is to see how much freedom they allow their citizens to enjoy. It is well known that some of the first Americans, the pilgrims, came to America to escape religious persecution. They came to America so they could follow whatever religion they wanted to follow without undue harassment from the king in England. Likewise our revolution was fought, in part, to secure our freedom from undue taxation, forced quartering of British soldiers, and to ensure that we would be allowed to rule ourselves.
But when you look around the world today you would be hard pressed to say the people of America are allowed the most personal freedoms. We aren’t even the freest people in our own hemisphere! Our neighbors to the north in Canada have decriminalized marijuana, gay marriage, and national health care to boot. In fact, for the last, oh I don’t know, three and a half years America has been showing it’s other face. The face of repression and suppression of freedoms once taken for granted. When congress passed The PATRIOT Act in 2002 out went all of our once cement freedoms of due process, search & seizure, and any form of privacy. Our media is slowly becoming one government partnered conglomerate, and the people in our country have become fat on leisure…they forget that you have the responsibility to be heard when you disagree. To quote the Declaration of Independence….
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
It is with this cocoon like state the American people find themselves in that George Bush and his right wing neo-cons are allowed TO EVEN THINK of amending OUR constitution to take away OUR rights. I remind you that if even one person in your society is oppressed then ALL people in that society are guilty of Oppression. I particularly do not want to be part of any more cancellations of rights in America so I write this to tell you to get your voice to your senator or representative and tell them that WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT SUPPORT ANY GAY BASHING LEGISLATION! THAT WE WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY POLITICIAN WHO DOES! Tell them in caps…. It helps.
“ WE LIVE IN A FREE SOCIETY.” “ ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.”
“UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.” “ LAND OF THE FREE.”
The thing I love about civil rights issues is that they serve as a lovely reminder of just how hollow our little national maxims really are. Nothing shoots “ Freedom isn’t free” down like a nation that could easily give freedom for free and doesn’t. I love how that saying is invoked to get people rallied around a flag to go to war and die, but when given the opportunity to hand over peaceable freedom to our own people we choose not to. We grab for a reason, any reason to continue our silent oppression of whatever minority in question. No one and I mean no one is accelerating this retrogression of personal freedom like our own leader George W. Bush.
LET THE EAGLES SOAR! Actually… ONLY THE STRAIGHT WHITE EAGLE.
George W. Bush is in full effect on this new amendment. He is the personification of this type of legalized hate, this de-progressive southernism. Somewhere, in some closet on Pennsylvania Avenue, George Bush has a confederate flag belt buckle. You know it… and I know it.
Why wouldn't Bush support this amendment? He is just a simple god fearing man from Texas after all. In fact when he was governor of Texas and running for the presidency he opposed workplace anti-discrimination laws, supported a ban on gay adoptions, and said he wouldn't allow gays to serve openly in the military. The May before the 2000 election he stopped the Texas hate crime law from passing because it included sexual orientation. It went to point of during his time with Texas he spearheaded a state government that made gay sex, ANY gay sex illegal. Consensual oral or anal sex was illegal. Even in the privacy of their homes.
The whole issue of gay marriage is being used as a wedge in America to get people over to Bush's side. The majority of Americans do not care about politics. Only 90 or so million showed up for the 2000 election. ( Thanks!) On the other hand, over 80% of Americans consider themselves religious. Most religions, including Christianity, aren't exactly homosexual lovers. The republicans and religious right are using this issue of gay marriage as a fog screen over what actually matters. What ACTUALLY matters right now are our people dying in Iraq, the presidency turning despotic, and our national debt reaching record levels. All Bush has to do to make hate mongers everywhere forget this is to say that he too doesn't like gays.
White Rich Straight Christian Male + White Rich Straight Christian Subservient wife = Rich Aryan Haven
The right wing fanatics and old people conservatives this whole countrywide are trying to keep the narrow-minded façade of the nuclear family. They will hang on to this fifties archetype even as it falls off the edge of the world. Since they probably still believe in a flat earth also. The Neo-cons are attempting to give Marriage this magical stamp; one, which we all know, is fake. Look around people!! You watch people get married on reality shows as a prize! Britney Spears can get married and divorced while I sleep! We should be SO happy these gay people EVEN WANT to get married at this point.
The Nuclear 2.5 kids, two-parent family is very simply NOT what America is. America is step- parents, step-step brothers, single mothers, mixed families, and grandmothers raising children. America is gay couples adopting, teenage pregnancy, beatnik fathers, dead mothers, broken homes, families living on welfare in subsidized houses and families not even living in houses.
America is complex. Its unfortunate that the people in power are often those who are the most disconnected from the realities of their decisions. When Clinton signed his welfare reform did his welfare checks stop coming? No, but someone’s did. When Bush decided the war in Iraq was the answer did his daughters die? No, but Nick did. And when our congress & president decide gays shouldn't marry is it going to affect them in the least? Obviously not. Because cowboys aren't gay. Unless they are in the village people.
Except for one rather surprising fact…Mary Cheney, our Vice President’s daughter, is a lesbian. Yes the lady who stumped her fathers campaign trail in 2000 is now on the brink of having her own father spearhead an amendment to take away her rights. At least we know these republicans are equal opportunity fuckers. Oh and they are liars too!
"I think the fact of the matter, of course, [same-sex relationship recognition] is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area. I try to be open-minded about it as much as I can, and tolerant of those relationships. And like [Senator] Joe [Lieberman], I also wrestle with the extent to which there ought to be legal sanction of those relationships. I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 2000 vice presidential debate
Citizen rule number two thousand and eighty: Politicians are shady
----- The Beastie Boys
REALLY Mister Cheney? Do you REALLY think we ought to do everything we can to accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into? Hmmmmmm what like LETTING THEM FUCKING MARRY????? No, no because you are about FAMILY VALUES and nothing is like family values like discouraging marriage and not allowing gay couples to adopt all the thousands of children who need a family…
No that’s not family values… Family values is making sure all those sodomites stay away from our little Christian brethren and don’t contaminate them with their fag juices right, Mr. Cheney? JUST COME OUT AND SAY IT PEOPLE!!!
Y O U H A T E G A Y S !!
C’mon hide behind the bible like you always do… but there is no shelter there. Why your savior Jesus Christ was a friend to the most outcast and oppressed in his society, the lepers. Yes he walked among those diseased with leprosy and treated them as equal beings. Lets look at the bible some more shall we? In fact I suggest all of you hate filled Christians out there open the bible MAYBE ONCE in your life and read it.
Luke 6:37 "moreover, stop judging, and you will by no means be judged; and stop condemning, and you will by no means be condemned. Keep on releasing and you will be released."
Weird… so all this holier than thou, moral superiority isn’t even supposed to be happening. When in fact the bible says to take the splinter out of your own eye ( infidelity anyone?) before taking your neighbors out of his eye. Let’s read some more, this must have been a fluke….
Luke 6:31 "Also, just as you want man to do to you, do the same way to them."
SO ADMIT IT YOU HATE GAYS JUST LIKE YOU USED TO HATE BLACKS!
It was not until 1967 that the supreme court finally unanimously agreed to allow interracial marriages. That means up until my mother was fifteen black and whites were not allowed to marry. 1967… Not even forty years ago. Can you even imagine suggesting today that blacks should not be able to marry whites? I mean WHAT POSSIBLE reason could you think of for this? Anyone want to guess??? ……. DUN, DUN, DUN …. “ THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE!!!”
Yes that was the SAME argument back then. Does it make anymore sense now? No… but who cares? Bush doesn’t. In fact Bush doesn’t care much about what the public has ever said about his policies…
56% of Americans either oppose a constitutional amendment or support gay marriage. Only 33% support a constitutional amendment. Newsweek poll, February 19-20, 2004, margin of error ± 3 percent
But anyway… The traditional marriage has never changed right? Traditions are after all the best thing possible. Like the tradition of pre arranged marriages to secure business ties between families. This was a commonplace occurrence that the bride and groom would already have been slotted to marry before they were pubescent. Having never met before previously these two people would get married in a TRADITION… That was the “sanctity” of marriage.
“Religious conservatives might consider banishing divorce and infidelity, not gay couples, in order to protect the sanctity of traditional religious marriage."
- Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, Jan. 3, 2004, Boston Globe
In fact the main purposes of marriage were to ascertain ownership of children, which were a nice labor pool and a valuable resource to the family. The “sanctity” of marriage at one time said the husband owned his wife as a piece of property. He could use all sorts of physical, let alone mental, abuse on her without punishment. The wife was mainly a man’s slave. That was marriage.
Marriage wasn’t some Judeo-Christian love elitism program… This was a program for men to make money, keep their ho in check, and have nice little children slaves running around. So MAYBE it’s a good thing to change our perceptions of marriage every once in a while, don’t you agree?
So to those who are for an Amendment to ban gay marriage, give me a reason. A reason that makes sense. Don’t worry there isn’t one. I accept that. I know some people will always hate gay people. I think straight males are still scared from our ape ancestors who assert superiority by raping the weaker male. Maybe all those bigots just don't want to be proven to be inferior by sodomy? Either way there is a psychological fear of gay men in straight males minds. So there will always be bigotry and I’m cool with that. JUST ADMIT IT. ADMIT THE REASON.
SAY: I H A T E G A Y PEOPLE! Don’t hide behind semantics & rhetoric… The truth shall set you free my younguns.
Who's vision of America do you want? The people who wrote this (Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams)
“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.”
OR
George Awares Bush and his post-apocalyptic view of America??
The truth is
Gays can die for our country, vote for our leaders, and pay our taxes… Why not enjoy our right to the pursuit of happiness, our right of marriage?
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
By Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Take Action! Tell your Senators to Oppose the Discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment
Those who would condone the stripping of someone else’s rights don’t deserve their own.
Those who would trade a freedom for safety deserve neither.
First comes love,
Then comes marriage
…. Right?
(thanks kiddo)
The Federal Marriage Act as proposed will read…
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
AMERICA: LAND OF THE FREE* (see below)
*(Sans homosexuals)
In less than two week our Senate will battle one of the last remaining civil rights issues in our nation, the same nation based on the principles of equality and freedom. In the week of July 12th, the senate will have a full vote on the Federal Marriage Act. Such an amendment to our constitution would also require the approval of two-thirds of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Amending the Constitution is almost unheard of and is only done to address great national needs. In our Constitution's 214-year history, it was first amended to include the Bill of Rights in 1791. Since then, it has only been amended 17 times. In the last thirty years it has only been amended once, in 1992, to change the way elected officials are paid.
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
-- Patrick Henry
The only time the constitution has been amended to take away the rights of an individual or group was the 18th amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. That was the last time the religious right of our country were allowed to impart their moral vision through the constitution and look how great that amendment worked! It got a sequel! Repealing the first.
The only way to properly diagnose a nation’s enlightenment is to see how much freedom they allow their citizens to enjoy. It is well known that some of the first Americans, the pilgrims, came to America to escape religious persecution. They came to America so they could follow whatever religion they wanted to follow without undue harassment from the king in England. Likewise our revolution was fought, in part, to secure our freedom from undue taxation, forced quartering of British soldiers, and to ensure that we would be allowed to rule ourselves.
But when you look around the world today you would be hard pressed to say the people of America are allowed the most personal freedoms. We aren’t even the freest people in our own hemisphere! Our neighbors to the north in Canada have decriminalized marijuana, gay marriage, and national health care to boot. In fact, for the last, oh I don’t know, three and a half years America has been showing it’s other face. The face of repression and suppression of freedoms once taken for granted. When congress passed The PATRIOT Act in 2002 out went all of our once cement freedoms of due process, search & seizure, and any form of privacy. Our media is slowly becoming one government partnered conglomerate, and the people in our country have become fat on leisure…they forget that you have the responsibility to be heard when you disagree. To quote the Declaration of Independence….
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
It is with this cocoon like state the American people find themselves in that George Bush and his right wing neo-cons are allowed TO EVEN THINK of amending OUR constitution to take away OUR rights. I remind you that if even one person in your society is oppressed then ALL people in that society are guilty of Oppression. I particularly do not want to be part of any more cancellations of rights in America so I write this to tell you to get your voice to your senator or representative and tell them that WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT SUPPORT ANY GAY BASHING LEGISLATION! THAT WE WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY POLITICIAN WHO DOES! Tell them in caps…. It helps.
“ WE LIVE IN A FREE SOCIETY.” “ ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.”
“UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.” “ LAND OF THE FREE.”
The thing I love about civil rights issues is that they serve as a lovely reminder of just how hollow our little national maxims really are. Nothing shoots “ Freedom isn’t free” down like a nation that could easily give freedom for free and doesn’t. I love how that saying is invoked to get people rallied around a flag to go to war and die, but when given the opportunity to hand over peaceable freedom to our own people we choose not to. We grab for a reason, any reason to continue our silent oppression of whatever minority in question. No one and I mean no one is accelerating this retrogression of personal freedom like our own leader George W. Bush.
LET THE EAGLES SOAR! Actually… ONLY THE STRAIGHT WHITE EAGLE.
George W. Bush is in full effect on this new amendment. He is the personification of this type of legalized hate, this de-progressive southernism. Somewhere, in some closet on Pennsylvania Avenue, George Bush has a confederate flag belt buckle. You know it… and I know it.
Why wouldn't Bush support this amendment? He is just a simple god fearing man from Texas after all. In fact when he was governor of Texas and running for the presidency he opposed workplace anti-discrimination laws, supported a ban on gay adoptions, and said he wouldn't allow gays to serve openly in the military. The May before the 2000 election he stopped the Texas hate crime law from passing because it included sexual orientation. It went to point of during his time with Texas he spearheaded a state government that made gay sex, ANY gay sex illegal. Consensual oral or anal sex was illegal. Even in the privacy of their homes.
The whole issue of gay marriage is being used as a wedge in America to get people over to Bush's side. The majority of Americans do not care about politics. Only 90 or so million showed up for the 2000 election. ( Thanks!) On the other hand, over 80% of Americans consider themselves religious. Most religions, including Christianity, aren't exactly homosexual lovers. The republicans and religious right are using this issue of gay marriage as a fog screen over what actually matters. What ACTUALLY matters right now are our people dying in Iraq, the presidency turning despotic, and our national debt reaching record levels. All Bush has to do to make hate mongers everywhere forget this is to say that he too doesn't like gays.
White Rich Straight Christian Male + White Rich Straight Christian Subservient wife = Rich Aryan Haven
The right wing fanatics and old people conservatives this whole countrywide are trying to keep the narrow-minded façade of the nuclear family. They will hang on to this fifties archetype even as it falls off the edge of the world. Since they probably still believe in a flat earth also. The Neo-cons are attempting to give Marriage this magical stamp; one, which we all know, is fake. Look around people!! You watch people get married on reality shows as a prize! Britney Spears can get married and divorced while I sleep! We should be SO happy these gay people EVEN WANT to get married at this point.
The Nuclear 2.5 kids, two-parent family is very simply NOT what America is. America is step- parents, step-step brothers, single mothers, mixed families, and grandmothers raising children. America is gay couples adopting, teenage pregnancy, beatnik fathers, dead mothers, broken homes, families living on welfare in subsidized houses and families not even living in houses.
America is complex. Its unfortunate that the people in power are often those who are the most disconnected from the realities of their decisions. When Clinton signed his welfare reform did his welfare checks stop coming? No, but someone’s did. When Bush decided the war in Iraq was the answer did his daughters die? No, but Nick did. And when our congress & president decide gays shouldn't marry is it going to affect them in the least? Obviously not. Because cowboys aren't gay. Unless they are in the village people.
Except for one rather surprising fact…Mary Cheney, our Vice President’s daughter, is a lesbian. Yes the lady who stumped her fathers campaign trail in 2000 is now on the brink of having her own father spearhead an amendment to take away her rights. At least we know these republicans are equal opportunity fuckers. Oh and they are liars too!
"I think the fact of the matter, of course, [same-sex relationship recognition] is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area. I try to be open-minded about it as much as I can, and tolerant of those relationships. And like [Senator] Joe [Lieberman], I also wrestle with the extent to which there ought to be legal sanction of those relationships. I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 2000 vice presidential debate
Citizen rule number two thousand and eighty: Politicians are shady
----- The Beastie Boys
REALLY Mister Cheney? Do you REALLY think we ought to do everything we can to accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into? Hmmmmmm what like LETTING THEM FUCKING MARRY????? No, no because you are about FAMILY VALUES and nothing is like family values like discouraging marriage and not allowing gay couples to adopt all the thousands of children who need a family…
No that’s not family values… Family values is making sure all those sodomites stay away from our little Christian brethren and don’t contaminate them with their fag juices right, Mr. Cheney? JUST COME OUT AND SAY IT PEOPLE!!!
Y O U H A T E G A Y S !!
C’mon hide behind the bible like you always do… but there is no shelter there. Why your savior Jesus Christ was a friend to the most outcast and oppressed in his society, the lepers. Yes he walked among those diseased with leprosy and treated them as equal beings. Lets look at the bible some more shall we? In fact I suggest all of you hate filled Christians out there open the bible MAYBE ONCE in your life and read it.
Luke 6:37 "moreover, stop judging, and you will by no means be judged; and stop condemning, and you will by no means be condemned. Keep on releasing and you will be released."
Weird… so all this holier than thou, moral superiority isn’t even supposed to be happening. When in fact the bible says to take the splinter out of your own eye ( infidelity anyone?) before taking your neighbors out of his eye. Let’s read some more, this must have been a fluke….
Luke 6:31 "Also, just as you want man to do to you, do the same way to them."
SO ADMIT IT YOU HATE GAYS JUST LIKE YOU USED TO HATE BLACKS!
It was not until 1967 that the supreme court finally unanimously agreed to allow interracial marriages. That means up until my mother was fifteen black and whites were not allowed to marry. 1967… Not even forty years ago. Can you even imagine suggesting today that blacks should not be able to marry whites? I mean WHAT POSSIBLE reason could you think of for this? Anyone want to guess??? ……. DUN, DUN, DUN …. “ THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE!!!”
Yes that was the SAME argument back then. Does it make anymore sense now? No… but who cares? Bush doesn’t. In fact Bush doesn’t care much about what the public has ever said about his policies…
56% of Americans either oppose a constitutional amendment or support gay marriage. Only 33% support a constitutional amendment. Newsweek poll, February 19-20, 2004, margin of error ± 3 percent
But anyway… The traditional marriage has never changed right? Traditions are after all the best thing possible. Like the tradition of pre arranged marriages to secure business ties between families. This was a commonplace occurrence that the bride and groom would already have been slotted to marry before they were pubescent. Having never met before previously these two people would get married in a TRADITION… That was the “sanctity” of marriage.
“Religious conservatives might consider banishing divorce and infidelity, not gay couples, in order to protect the sanctity of traditional religious marriage."
- Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, Jan. 3, 2004, Boston Globe
In fact the main purposes of marriage were to ascertain ownership of children, which were a nice labor pool and a valuable resource to the family. The “sanctity” of marriage at one time said the husband owned his wife as a piece of property. He could use all sorts of physical, let alone mental, abuse on her without punishment. The wife was mainly a man’s slave. That was marriage.
Marriage wasn’t some Judeo-Christian love elitism program… This was a program for men to make money, keep their ho in check, and have nice little children slaves running around. So MAYBE it’s a good thing to change our perceptions of marriage every once in a while, don’t you agree?
So to those who are for an Amendment to ban gay marriage, give me a reason. A reason that makes sense. Don’t worry there isn’t one. I accept that. I know some people will always hate gay people. I think straight males are still scared from our ape ancestors who assert superiority by raping the weaker male. Maybe all those bigots just don't want to be proven to be inferior by sodomy? Either way there is a psychological fear of gay men in straight males minds. So there will always be bigotry and I’m cool with that. JUST ADMIT IT. ADMIT THE REASON.
SAY: I H A T E G A Y PEOPLE! Don’t hide behind semantics & rhetoric… The truth shall set you free my younguns.
Who's vision of America do you want? The people who wrote this (Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams)
“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.”
OR
George Awares Bush and his post-apocalyptic view of America??
The truth is
Gays can die for our country, vote for our leaders, and pay our taxes… Why not enjoy our right to the pursuit of happiness, our right of marriage?
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
By Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Take Action! Tell your Senators to Oppose the Discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment
Those who would condone the stripping of someone else’s rights don’t deserve their own.
Those who would trade a freedom for safety deserve neither.
First comes love,
Then comes marriage
…. Right?
(thanks kiddo)