When lawmakers acknowledge that the United States Constitution, and all state constitutions and laws must be applied unconditionally, and not just to those people they approve of, agree with or accept, the field of equality will begin to be leveled for gay and lesbian Americans.
In New York, the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act (SONDA) rattled around Democrat and Republican controlled state legislatures for 31 years. The New York state Assembly passed their version of the bill in 2002. Since incumbent Governor George Pataki(R) supports this bill, it may actually be passed by the state Senate this year. This bill is intended to give gay and lesbian New Yorkers some protections in employment, housing and public accommodations. A corresponding bill will not allow insurance companies to base sexual orientation as criteria for coverage.
A hate crime compensation bill will allow targets of antigay biased hate crimes to civilly sue any convicted perpetrator for monetary damages. The Family Court Act would allow gay and lesbians families to be served by that court, recognizing both partners in a relationship, and their children. The Dignity for All Students Act and the Campus Bias bills are expected to protect students from harassment.
The reason five bills are needed, especially hate crime compensation and protection
from harassment for students, is best explained by Concerned Women for America
who assert that, "Adding sexual orientation to hate crimes laws wrongly legitimizes the claim that sexual orientation is immutable rather than a chosen behavior. Therefore, those who hold religious or moral objections to homosexuality could be prosecuted for hate." They contend that their version of their Christian bible gives them the right to deny gay and lesbian Americans the rights to employment, housing, legal recognition of families, and safety from harassment and assault.
This organization and others like it, advocates replacing the United States Constitution with the New American Bible , forcing us all to live under theirtheocrRatic rule.
These heterosexual theocRats are delusional, convinced that their sexuality is superior to that of gay men or lesbians. They are supremacists, just as white supremacists believe that they are superior to people of color, or Christian anti-Semitic supremacists believe they are superior to Jewish people.
They advocate an agenda of heterosexual superiority because they are heterosupremacists, choosing to claim special rights only for heterosexuals. They demand that the United States Constitution apply only to those people they approve of or accept.
Reacting to the gay and lesbian equal rights movement, heterosupremacist theocrats have created over 100 multibillion dollar political propaganda machines, cashing in on fear and lies. They invade other states, pouring money into constitutional amendments, referenda, and political races. The latest state they invaded is Massachusetts, the only state to pass equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. But on the 2008 presidential election ballot, the people of Massachusetts get to decide if the tyranny of the majority will prevail, because a special marriage rights for heterosexuals is up for grabs.
Unfortunately, they are not just in evangelic lobbying organizations. Heterosupremacist theocRats are also lawmakers and judges, refusing to accept the fact that we live in a republic democracy not a Christian theocracy. Their agenda is to deny gay and lesbian Americans their guaranteed Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
Gay men and lesbians must to be protected from heterosupremacist theocratic tyranny.
Approximately 2 million youth nationally are targets of antigay harassment in public schools, denying them the right to equal education opportunities, according to the Human Rights Watch report "Discrimination and Violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students in U.S. Public Schools." Traditional Values Coalition theocrat Louis Sheldon called the National Education Association and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network the "equivalent of Nazi Brown Shirts" because they advocate stopping antigay harassment on public school and college campuses. Sheldon chooses to ignore the fact that Nazis imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered gay and lesbian Europeans.
SONDA became law in New York state in 2002.
Will New Yorkers be next in line to recognize the rights of gay and lesbian Americans to marry? Or will they be tyrannized by theocRats into amending their constitution to give special marriage rights only to heterosupremacists. |
