Freedom to Marry: It’s Time.
I attended the 8th annual Wingspan fundraising dinner on Saturday night along with more than 1100 other people who together raised almost a quarter-million dollars for LGBT support services. The place was full of bright, passionate, loving people of all sexual orientations enjoying each other’s company in the heart of a town that welcomes lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people as a vital part of our community.
But the whole crowd knew that outside the doors, things aren’t all that friendly to LGBT people in the state of Arizona right now. A far-right fundamentalist group is circulating petitions to destroy our families, take away our civil rights, and divide us against one another based on whom we love. The absurdly named “Protect Marriage Arizona” amendment will likely be on the ballot in November 2006, and we need to start fighting it now.
This amendment will consitutionally ban not only gay marriage (which is already illegal in state law), it will also nullify all domestic partnership programs affecting straight and gay couples (like the City of Tucson’s laws), eliminate medical and other benefits for thousands of Arizonans (including children), eliminate domestic violence protection for unmarried people, and set us against one another in a state of fear and hatred.
We can defeat this hateful amendment, because here in Arizona, we don’t believe that government belongs in our bedrooms and we certainly don’t believe government should take away our rights based on who we are. We can stop the spread of these homophobic efforts and roll back the tide nationwide. Please join me in taking a stand against this threat to our way of life–visit the website of Arizona Together, the group leading the fight, and help in any way you can.
And once we have defeated this cancer on our politics, I believe we must go further. I see no reason why we should forbid loving couples to marry just because they happen to be gay. Up until 1966, we still had state laws forbidding interracial couples to marry; discrimination against gays and lesbians is no different. This is a basic civil rights issue, and should be treated as such.
If you would like to find out more about the importance of ending discrimination in marriage rights, see Marriage Equality USA and Freedom to Marry.
This is simple. We need more families, not fewer. We need more community, not less. We need more love and less hatred. It’s time to extend our marriage laws to gays and lesbians.