Thursday, March 8, 2007

Let's Take Action!

Here's a copy of the body of an email I sent this morning to my state Senator:

I hope you are doing well as you take care of the people's business in Raleigh. I just wanted to drop you a line to see what your thoughts/feelings are about the measures that have been presented in the House and Senate that seek to amend the state constitution regarding marriage.

I find these measures troubling on many levels, as I am a concerned citizen, active in the community here, and I'm the new chair of precinct 82 for the Forsyth Democratic Party. Is there anything that you are doing to fight these mean-spirited measures that seek to enshrine discrimination into our state constitution? I know we already have a couple of laws on the books concerning this issue (an antiquated measure from the 19th century and a mean-spirited act from the mid 1990s), and, while I disagree with them, I respect them as the law of this state until a judge or panel of judges sees fit to show them for what they are----an unconstitutional tyranny of the majority.

The way I see it, the fundamentalist, anti-gay movement is seeking to empower their discrimination by removing any prospect for judicial review, and this is the very reason we have wise, elected represenatives in our republic to protect us from democratic referenda that will bring on majority tyranny on an easily misunderstood issue such as gay relationships. If we ran things this way throughout our history, I have no doubt in my mind that many of the constituents you and I now serve and represent in Precinct 82 might still be slaves, or, at least be subject to the whims of Jim Crow.

I'm not asking you to legalize gay marriage----that's a bigger job that will take years to solve, though judicial review and legislative compromise (see: New Jersey). I'm just asking you to protect our constitution from a fundamentalist assault.

Please let me know where you stand on these issues. I have supported you since I moved to your district from Greensboro three years ago, and I'll look forward to lending my help whenever I can.

Thanks, in advance, for taking time to respond to my concerns. I am not copying my state representative, Mr Folwell, as I know that he is one of those leading the charge to bash gay people with legislation. I sincerely hope you are acting as a counterweight to him.

3 comments:

JeJeDe said...

Great letter! I agree totally! I will write a letter also.

knewparty said...

Your letter is well put (no surprise).

It's unfathomable to me how in this day and age, even those in government fail to acknowledge any right not expressly limited or denied, freely belongs to the people. But when has a law degree or any other "driver's license" kind of proof of experience ever been required of our elected officials.

As to the concept of "special interests," which from the elephants seems to mean any issue or group they don't like and to the burros means the money men behind the party of Lincoln's dead body, I must reiterate my earlier sentiment on divisive strategy: polarize people on same-sex marriage in order to continue to run amock (ie- run in the muck) in Afganistan and Iraq and everywhere else.

Your letter touches on something of primary significance, which is likenning modern day gay bashing to ole Jim Crow. Not to diminish the importance or power of the ongoing Civil Rights struggle rather to show it's relevancy, now is a time of Human Rights, which is to say mislabelled "special interests" including the rights of: Native Americans, African Americans, Immigrants, Women, Homosexuals, the Differently Abled, Prisoners, Religious groups, and so forth represent the core of our country not its fringe.

I envision a day where we see each other not for our differences, but for our similarities. For if we all worked to look at the world and our places in it through these glasses, ideas like compassion and peace become very tangible.

Brain said...

Wow, Knew. I didn't say that better myself. And it made me sad to think that the US, once the beacon of civil rights in the world (albeit ALWAYS with caveats), has now become one of the world's worst abusers of such rights. I heard the other day that Darth Cheney wanted to change the name of our country to Tortureburton, Inc.