(OKLAHOMA CITY) Hunting season is on for gays and lesbians as long as the Oklahoma Legislature is in session. If the rednecks don't get us, the suit-and-tie boyswill.
Not content with passing SQ 711 in 2004 making marriage only between one man and one woman as many times as they like, the Senate has just passed 38-9 a bill (SB1965) opting out of the recently passed federal Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Law. The bill now goes to the House side of the building.
Senate Bill 1965 seems optimistically numbered in that I'm sure Sen. Russell, the sponsor, and 38 of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle would like to return to the year of 1965, if not earlier, when gays and lesbians knew that our place was not alongside other Americans but rather in the closet of narrow, scared shadows with the door hinges well rusted. The voting record is located here:
Odd isn't it that many of these legislators weren't even born then or were very young. Where did they learn such animosity towards strangers that never did them any harm? Surely not in their church pews, or at their dinner tables, do you think?
After all, African-Americans had just achieved a legal victory in 1965 with the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Acts for which white bigots thought the sky would fall in. The sky did not fall in and it won't fall in when gays and lesbians achieve our social and legal victory over the bigots of Oklahoma. The only thing lost will be the legal right bigots so jealously retain to impose their ignorance over the rest of us.
According to Sen. Russell's legislative webpage he has a serious military record and several medals. If medals are a mark of bravery why is Sen. Russell so afraid of gays and lesbians that he sponsors bills that remove them from the protection of the law and maintain their second-class status as taxpayers--second-class in that gay/lesbian money is Accepted for payment of taxes yet we are Excepted when it comes to protection from hatred and discrimination? Why is Sen. Russell afraid of gay/lesbian equality under the law?
Sen Russell just can't stop fighting wars and looking for enemies. He should re-enlist and put his life back on the line, for his country, of course.
