Frist announces debate on anti-LGBT amendment
by Matt | May 26th, 2006 |According to an Associated Press article published by the Washington Blade, Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn) announced today that debate on the anti-LGBT marriage amendment will open in the United States Senate on Monday, June 5, 2006.
In his announcement, Frist keeps the promise he made to conservative, right-wing voters earlier in the year. Although Frist openly admits that the amendment will not have the 2/3 majority needed to pass, he is going through with his plans to put it up for a floor vote.
Frist and his Republican colleagues are using this amendment and the lives and relationships of LGBT Americans to further their own political goals.
It is sad that politicians must use people’s lives, families and relationships in order to play politics. While demeaning and demonizing LGBT people, Frist and his colleagues are trying to play politics, using it as a way to hurt and harm a portion of the American public.
This is in no way different from how Republicans are using immigrants and the issue of illegal immigration to further their own bigoted and biased political aims.
Don’t be fooled. Marriage isn’t the only thing these Republicans want to “protect.” Amendments such as the federal amendment have passed in numerous states and couples, gay and straight alike, are suffering from their consequences. The langauges of these amendments are so broad that domestic partner benefits from private companies and civil unions and “other similar legal arrangements” could be banned. We are now even seeing hints, if not outright attempts, to use state constitutions to ban adoption by LGBT people and prohibit healthcare benefits for LGBT families.
These attacks are nothing more than thinly-veiled attempts at putting LGBT people into even more of a second-class citizenship than they already are.
Oh… and Dean (who, according to the article spoke out against Frist) needs to get some balls. Stop saying we shouldn’t deal with this because of other “more important issues.” Say it like it is: This amendment is discrimination and discrimination should NOT be written into our Constitution.
Matt, 22, is an LGBT journalist, activist and youth advocate currently living and working in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as the Editor of Q-Notes, the Carolinas' LGBT news source. A native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Matt attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is still continuing to pursue his bachelors degree. He is the Owner & Editor of InterstateQ.com and has been active in LGBT advocacy work since the age of 14.
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