------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 29, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
FROM THE PARKER-GUTIERREZ CAMPAIGN: KERRY, BUSH WORK TO BAR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
The Parker-Gutierrez Campaign applauds the lesbian, gay, bi and trans movement's victory over the bigoted Federal Marriage Amendment, which went down to defeat on July 14 in the U.S. Senate.
Both of us are long-time fighters in the struggle for LGBT liberation-- one of us as a lesbian, and the other as an ally who has fought for the rights of LGBT people for his entire political life.
We wholeheartedly support the right to same-sex marriage--it is an important demand that the state end its institutionalized discrimination. And we condemn this attempt to further enshrine hatred in U.S. law by adding a constitutional amendment to make legal only marriage between "a man and a woman."
We know that the Bush administration pushed the amendment in an attempt to buttress right-wing support for his presidential bid and to force the Democrats to demonstrate their own antipathy towards LGBT rights.
Headlines read, "Democrats kill a measure they derided as presidential politicking."
But Democrats didn't win this round--the struggle of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans people over the past three decades did. Because of that unrelenting fight against injustice and inequality, many working and oppressed people throughout the U.S. oppose legally discriminating against LGBT people. And at a time when the working class and its most impoverished sectors are scrabbling to make ends meet, yet see endless funding for "endless war" against the Iraqi people, the FMA ploy wasn't very popular. Some LGBT activists noted that most members of Congress were reluctant to vote for the FMA because now there are so many "out" LGBT people among their families, friends and co-workers.
However, while the Democrats voted the FMA down, they continued to back pedal as fast as they could away from any support for same-sex marriage, actually arguing that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) could do just as good a job as a constitutional amendment in preventing it.
The very wealthy Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has actually pledged to get his home state of Massachusetts to amend the state constitution so only heterosexuals can marry there.
That's right--Kerry would like to reverse the victory that makes his state the only one where same-sex marriage is actually legal!
We are running a different kind of presidential campaign--and we want your support.
We are running a campaign of struggle to embolden working and oppressed people to see that their future lies in the grassroots struggle in the streets today.
Not only are we for same-sex marriage rights, we are for:
* health care coverage for all, including LGBT people and partners
* expanded funding for HIV and AIDS, and for lesbian and women's health issues
* adoption rights for LGBT people, and an end to loss of custody of their children
* an end to all workplace and housing discrimination against LGBT people
Support an independent political movement that will fight for LGBT lives! Together, let's fight this oppressive profit-driven economic system. Let's build socialism--where production is planned to meet the needs and wants of all!
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