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Written by Rob Power
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Saturday, 10 January 2009 00:00 |
We at Outright have been calling for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act for more than ten years now. So, when I saw:
Nationwide DOMA Protest - Join the Impact January 10
I was ready not only to join the effort, but even lend Outright's name to it.
The devil's in the details.
You see, it's not only about repealing DOMA, but also about:
Enact[ing] a fully inclusive Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)
Enact[ing] the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw "hate crimes"
Confront[ing] the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the stigma surrounding it (Translation: Increasing federal spending on HIV/AIDS programs)
Why, oh why can't the Democrats who organize these events just stick to one message for the duration of a few-hour-long rally? It's like when I showed up at the protests in advance of the invasion of Iraq, only to hear speaker after speaker talk about the evils of business and the free market, with the occasional punctuation (as if they just remembered what the rally was really for) of a "No blood for oil" chant.
Discrimination is wrong -- whether it's against gays in the form of DOMA or in favor of gays in the form of ENDA. And violent crime is wrong -- regardless of the sexual orientation of the victim -- which is why inventing "thought crime" as the Matthew Shepard Act attempts to do is a bad idea.
And don't get me started on how ineffective federal dollars are in the fight against HIV/AIDS compared to private money.
So, here I am, with a stack of petitions sitting warm on top of my laser printer (since I printed them before I read the accompanying letter), and now I'm mad that, because I oppose regulations on private business, oppose inventing thought crimes, and oppose throwing good money after bad into federal HIV/AIDS programs, I'm not able to participate in an event to repeal DOMA, something I've spent a fair amount of my life trying to accomplish.
Why do they insist on muddling the message?
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