We live in a Country where it is perfectly legal for a woman to leave $12,000.000 to her dog while the LGBTQ Community is forced to sit under the table to beg for even the smallest scrap of rights and protections.Hard to believe that -- in 2007 -- our State and Federal Governments remain entrenched in bigotry and ignorance.
This attitude is not only demeaning, it is infuriating.
Yesterday, the Senate voted 60-39 to end the debate on the Matthew Shepard Act, which expands federal hate crimes laws to include violence based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender, disability, and other factors.
The House already passed the Act, as a stand alone bill, last Spring.
What passed yesterday was only an amendment to a defense authorization -- a.k.a Pentagon spending bill and THAT bill has not yet passed the Senate!
And even if the bill DOES pass the Senate with the Hate Crimes Act attached to it, Bush may veto the whole thing anyway.
Why, you ask, would Bush veto a bill that gives the Pentagon the money it needs to continue to wage his immoral war?
Because he is a mean spirited, rich-kid bully whose been handed everything he could ever want in life and then some -- but still loves nothing more than to use his position to deny others he deems as unworthy.
And you, my dear queer, are the unworthiest of the unworthy.
If by chance the bill does pass and Bush does sign it, our struggle will have moved one step closer toward equality.
But -- as we were reminded yesterday by our dear friend, Ruthie Berman, "we've still got a million miles to go."
Postscript: In the saddest of ironies, Larry Craig, the self-hating, on the down-low, closeted gay Repugnican Senator from Idaho, stuck it to us one more time when he voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. Ugh.
