ACLU Cautions President Against Taking A More Extreme Anti-Gay Stance

Here is an article from the ACLU site. <A HREF="www.aclu.org">www.aclu.org</A> I think everyone should 
check out this site, even support them by joining, and join other Gay and 
Lesbian Rights Groups, contact your Governors, your Senators, etc., and tell them 
how you oppose any law that bans Gay Rights to legal marriage, and any change 
to the united states constitution! 

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<A HREF="http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRightsMain.cfm">Lesbian & Gay Rights</A> : <A HREF="http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRightsList.cfm?c=101">Domestic Partnership, Civil Unions, Marriage</A> 

ACLU Cautions President Against Taking A More Extreme Anti-Gay Stance 
    
July 30, 2003
    
WASHINGTON – Responding to President Bush’s support for a discriminatory new 
law restricting marriage to a man and woman, expressed this morning at a rare 
Rose Garden news conference, the American Civil Liberties Union cautioned the 
President against supporting a constitutional amendment that would forever 
ban same-sex marriages.

“With only a few exceptions, most legal attacks on gays and lesbians are like 
jabs relative to the knockout punch to gay and lesbian rights the President 
could be gearing up to support,” said Christopher E. Anders, an ACLU 
Legislative Counsel.   “By trumping all local and state protections for gay or lesbian 
relationships, such an extreme move would deprive millions of loving, devoted 
families of their most fundamental rights in one fell swoop.”

At his news conference this morning, the President said, “I believe in the 
sanctity of marriage.  I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.  And I 
think we ought to codify that one way or another.”  At the same time, right 
wing activists are rallying behind a constitutional amendment being pushed 
currently in Congress by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) who got in trouble earlier this 
year for equating homosexuality with incest and bestiality.  

The White House has to date declined to endorse a constitutional amendment 
limiting marriage to heterosexual arrangements and the ACLU, although dismayed 
that the President wants to shut the door to states that want to recognize 
same-sex families, urged him to continue to reject any constitutional change.

The proposed amendment, the ACLU said, would undermine state domestic 
partnerships, adoption, foster care and kinship care laws. Significantly, the 
amendment also would not hurt just gays and lesbians.  It would deprive all unmarried 
couples of all legal protections for their relationships by overriding any 
federal or state constitutional protections and federal, state and local 
laws.  In many states, unmarried persons -- including unmarried relatives, 
heterosexual couples, and even unrelated clergy members -- have the same rights as 
married persons to jointly adopt or provide foster care or kinship care. 

The proposed amendment would also take the extremely rare – and inevitably 
disastrous – step of changing the Constitution to restrict rights, a purpose 
that the founders never intended.  The last time the Constitution was changed to 
constrain Americans’ liberties – with the 18th Amendment and Prohibition – 
the move was an unqualified failure that had to be repealed.

The President’s remarks also come on the heels of the Lawrence v. Texas 
Supreme Court decision striking down state anti-sodomy laws, which was based on a 
strong affirmation of a basic right to privacy in the United States.

“The President’s stance belies any prior lip-service to limited government 
or the traditional Republican values of individual rights and personal dignity,”
 Anders said.  “This is the government in our bedrooms and interfering with 
our families all over again.”


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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DAMN THE CROSS!!! 

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