Letters to CongressCritters
Feb. 25th, 2004 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
richardf8These are the letters I just sent to my representatives in congress regarding Bush's "I Hate Fags" amendment proposal. Included are their respective positions. Dayton's the only one trying to make up his mind, so he is the only one I made a real attempt to persuade.
Dear Betty,
I very nearly didn't write you on this issue because my faith and trust in you is so complete, it scarcely seemed necessary. But then it occured to me that it might be nice if you knew that. So thank you, Betty, for opposing the attack on marriage proposed by Mr. Bush. Rest assured, you may count on my vote for any office you might choose to pursue.
Dear Senator Dayton,
I am writing to you regarding the amendment recently proposed to "protect" the "sanctity" of marriage by excluding gays from it.
I myself am a heterosexual white male. I oppose this amendment on a number of grounds:
1) Many churches and synagogues perfom gay marriages. This would restrict the freedom of those houses of worship from doing that in any meaningful way, and thus contradicts the freedom of religion clause in the first amendment.
2) The last time we passed a constitutional amendment that was restrictive in nature, we ended up having to pass another amendment rescinding it. That should be a lesson to us.
3) The nation that makes the exclusion of a particular group from a particular institution part of it national definition has set its feet upon a very dangerous path indeed.
For these reasons, I urge you to oppose this proposed amendment.
Dear Norm,
I heard you on MPR this morning, talking about Bush's "I Hate Fags" amendment. What's wrong with you, are you stupid or something? As a Jew you, of all people, should know the dangers of codifying hatred in a national document, or did you not see the same films I saw in Hebrew School? You know the ones I mean -- where they'd show you the children behind the barbed wires, the gas chambers, and the ovens.
You know, the Pink Triangle that the Gay Rights Movement as its symbol? It was a gift to them from the same gentleman who gave us those memories. Hitler himself used that symbol to tag gays for death even as he tagged us with the shield of our greatest king. And the bodies of the gay and the bodies of the Jew were married in the smoke of the ovens at Auschwitz.
Never forget that.
Of course, could be you already have. Could be, being powerful is more important to you than being a mensch. If I were your father, I would have sat shiva for you years ago, for crawling into bed with hatemongers like Falwell and Robertson, and championing their causes. Could be if you were at Auschwitz you'd have been one of the Jews guarding the place in hopes of having his own miserable life spared.
I don't expect to change your mind, it is for that reason that I am being so harsh with you; since I cannot persuade you, I may as well let you know what I think of you.
Betty McCollum (Opposed)
Dear Betty,
I very nearly didn't write you on this issue because my faith and trust in you is so complete, it scarcely seemed necessary. But then it occured to me that it might be nice if you knew that. So thank you, Betty, for opposing the attack on marriage proposed by Mr. Bush. Rest assured, you may count on my vote for any office you might choose to pursue.
Mark Dayton (Fence Sitting)
Dear Senator Dayton,
I am writing to you regarding the amendment recently proposed to "protect" the "sanctity" of marriage by excluding gays from it.
I myself am a heterosexual white male. I oppose this amendment on a number of grounds:
1) Many churches and synagogues perfom gay marriages. This would restrict the freedom of those houses of worship from doing that in any meaningful way, and thus contradicts the freedom of religion clause in the first amendment.
2) The last time we passed a constitutional amendment that was restrictive in nature, we ended up having to pass another amendment rescinding it. That should be a lesson to us.
3) The nation that makes the exclusion of a particular group from a particular institution part of it national definition has set its feet upon a very dangerous path indeed.
For these reasons, I urge you to oppose this proposed amendment.
Norm Coleman (licking Bush's boots)
Dear Norm,
I heard you on MPR this morning, talking about Bush's "I Hate Fags" amendment. What's wrong with you, are you stupid or something? As a Jew you, of all people, should know the dangers of codifying hatred in a national document, or did you not see the same films I saw in Hebrew School? You know the ones I mean -- where they'd show you the children behind the barbed wires, the gas chambers, and the ovens.
You know, the Pink Triangle that the Gay Rights Movement as its symbol? It was a gift to them from the same gentleman who gave us those memories. Hitler himself used that symbol to tag gays for death even as he tagged us with the shield of our greatest king. And the bodies of the gay and the bodies of the Jew were married in the smoke of the ovens at Auschwitz.
Never forget that.
Of course, could be you already have. Could be, being powerful is more important to you than being a mensch. If I were your father, I would have sat shiva for you years ago, for crawling into bed with hatemongers like Falwell and Robertson, and championing their causes. Could be if you were at Auschwitz you'd have been one of the Jews guarding the place in hopes of having his own miserable life spared.
I don't expect to change your mind, it is for that reason that I am being so harsh with you; since I cannot persuade you, I may as well let you know what I think of you.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 05:08 pm (UTC)I wrote a similar letter to Barbara Boxer, expressing my disappointment in her for opposing the same-sex marriages going on in San Francisco. I thought she was pretty liberal. So much for that.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 05:40 pm (UTC)I've never been able to quite forgive Wellstone for voting for the Defense of Marriage Act. It was '96 and he was running against Rudy Boschwitz to retain his seat. He knew he could gamble with the gay vote because, as one friend put it "he's all we've got." He didn't want to lose the swing vote by giving Boschwitz the opening to attack him for "destroying marriage." It was a sadly pragmatic vote for a man reknowned for his idealism to make.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 06:30 pm (UTC)It's probably a personal failing of mine that I have a hard time taking this thing as seriously as I should, especially since I do have some stake in this. With all the myriad problems facing us as a nation, and they are very many and very serious, Da Prez shoves this one into the national spotlight. It's like watching a bad Saturday Night Live sketch parody of a comic book president.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 08:06 pm (UTC)