What a difference a Congress makes

[dsc]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8IUI6OO1&show_article=1


WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, ending for another year a congressional debate that supporters of the ban hope will still reverberate in this fall's election.
The 236-187 vote for the proposal to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman was 47 short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance a constitutional amendment. It followed six weeks after the Senate also decisively defeated the amendment, a top priority of social conservatives.

end of quote

The story above is from July 2006. The story below from today.

The House voted Thursday to expand federal hate crime categories to include violent attacks against gays and people targeted because of gender, acting just hours after the White House threatened a veto.

The legislation, passed 237-180, also would make it easier for federal law enforcement to take part in or assist local prosecutions involving bias-motivated attacks. Similar legislation is also moving through the Senate, setting the stage for a possible veto showdown with President Bush.

"This is an important vote of conscience, of a statement of what America is, a society...

http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/ap-house-passes-expanded-hate-crime-bill/93233.htm

end of quote

It is hard to find a starker difference. This issue is personal for me, one only has to look at my avitar to figure that out. But this is a larger issue. In a very real sense we are only as well of as the least among us. The simple fact is that sometime, somewhere, somehow, someone hated us or our ancestors for simply who we were. It might have been being Protestant in a Catholic country, being black in a Caucasian one, speaking the wrong language, coming from the wrong country, or a host of other things over which we have little or no control. Today our Congress went from perpetuating hate to saying it is wrong. In less than a year, our Congress went from saying "no rights for you" to "We'll be there".

I lost my faith several years ago. I got beaten up simply for being gay. When I went to a hospital for treatment and talked to the chaplin, I was told that maybe God was telling me something and that I should listen. As much as I would like to say I didn't take that to heart, I did. I gave up on God, and gave up on straight America. It took me a long time to start trusting God or America. Frankly lately the federal government hasn't been all that great a friend of gay Americans. Today it is starting the long walk home for LGBT Americans.

Thank you those who voted for this Congress. Thank you to those in that Congress. Thank you to those who made this day possible. What a difference a Congress makes. Now we just need a new President.

[dsc]

1. kick

[dsc]

2. kick

[dsc]

3. a final kick

[tom_paine]

4. You're welcome. I donated and busted my ass these last six years

not just for one group of people, but for ALL of us. Never has it been made so clear how much Free America sinks or swims together...or hang together, if the darkest fantasies of the Loyal Bushie Comrades comes true.

Gay or straight, black, white or any other shade, all religions welcome (except perhaps Bush-Christianity or as it is more commonly known anti-Christianity, but that is actually a form of narcissistic Satan-Worship), we must all put aside our differences, STAND AND BE TRUE to this great nation (for all it's faults, flaws and imperfections).

I very much hope that the Long Walk Home continues for so many.

And for democracy.

[dsc]

7. We are one signature away from that walk becoming a run

[dsc]

5. kick

[Richard Steele]

6. A kick and a rec.