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Wednesday, November 07, 2007

ENDA Passes at Last

History Was Made Today.
John Aravosis speaks for me: Anyone who didn't feel a sense of history watching this debate today. Well, I just feel sad for you. Today was a chance to educate America, and 200 Democrats, and 35 Republicans, rose to the occasion. You just couldn't watch this debate and not feel a sense of pride, and of change. It doesn't matter if it's only one House. My God, we've never had one House on a federal gay civil rights bill. Now we do.



Rep. Frank: 35 years ago, I filed a bill that tried to get rid of discrimination based on sexual orientation… But here’s the deal: I used to be someone subject to this prejudice. And through luck, circumstance, I got to be a big shot. I’m now above that prejudice. But I feel an obligation, to 15-year-olds dreading to go to school because of the torments, to people they’ll lose their job in a gas station if someone finds out who they love. I feel an obligation to use the status I have been lucky enough to get, to help them. And I want to ask my colleagues here, Mr. Speaker, on a personal basis, please don’t fall for this sham [the "sham" refers to disgusting typical wingnut Republican efforts stop the bill the better to Spread Hate in the Name of White Power War God Jeebus's Holy Daddy Luv -- DC]. Don’t send me out of here having failed to help those people.

3 comments:

Robin said...

This is Good News. I hadn't heard that ENDA finally passed (I'm out of the loop, apparently) but it looks like I can stop sending action alerts to my representatives every few days demanding they pass it. One down, multitudes to go!

Anonymous said...

An excellent development. What are the Senate prospects? In general the Senate is more sensible on issues like this or immigration because it's less democratically responsive to the voters (generally the revolting appeals to intolerance and fundamentalism are concentrated among legislators up for re-election), but I'm not sure about a filibuster-proof majority.

jollyspaniard said...

The times are a-changing. The head of the Conservative Party in Alberta, traditionaly Canada's most reactionary political leader supports gay marriage. This despite the fact that there are probably at least a million Albertans who think homosexuality is some kind of satanic conspiracy.