This piece is now up at the Tennessee Independent Media site.
Republican State Rep. Dunn, sponsor of the Hate Amendment this year, last year and as many years as it takes, plans to get the amendment passed "quickly, quietly and in a bipartisan manner." The plan is to get it into committee this week.
Why does Dunn imagine the gay marriage ban will pass “quietly” and “quickly”? When the measure passed last year, it passed with no discussion. There were also no committee rooms packed with members of the progressive community, no demonstrations in the street, and certainly there was no public condemnation by our Democratic Governor. It passed the Senate with a 29-1 vote; in the House it was 85-5.
Dunn calls his Hate Amendment the “natural marriage bill”. Dunn is clueless about the absurdity of this concept. Sorry, Dunn, but there’s precious little about the human race, or our many inventions, that qualify as “natural.” A nude marriage ceremony, now there’s a “natural marriage.”
Dunn and his Republican cronies, along with so-called Democratic lawmakers, plan to hold the first committee vote this Wednesday. If that goes well for them, legislators may seal the hate deal as early as the following week. If the measure passes by a two-thirds majority, the same-sex marriage ban will be on the ballot in 2006. Rest assured, every fundamentalist yahoo in the state will show up at the polls.
Let’s face it these guys are following in the longstanding American tradition of denying rights to everyone who is not just like them. From the US Constitution that proclaimed all white propertied men to be equal to each other and superior to everyone else, to the current Hate Amendment, the idea is the same. If you subscribe to their religious beliefs, their lifestyle, if you look like them, dress like them, live next door to them, belong to their country club, you’re in luck. The rest of us be damned.
With few exceptions, lawmakers in Tennessee are an elitist, arrogant, and selfish bunch who think anyone different from them is inferior, “unnatural”, or just plain weird. They are clueless about how to save the healthcare program that serves one quarter of all Tennesseans, and then feign surprise when someone points out that they get healthcare for life. Gee, they get healthcare for life and no one told them?
What are they good for? They excel at writing sexual prejudice into the constitution.
Obviously, the wrong people are watching children’s programming aimed at inspiring tolerance, understanding, cooperation and that other endangered value, empathy.
Democrats who have signed on to sponsor the Hate Amendment include: Rep. Eddie Yokley (D-Greeneville) and Rep. John Litz, (D-Morristown). Among the many Democrats who plan to vote for the amendment are: Sen. Doug Jackson (D-Dickson) and House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh.
As leader (some say dictator) of the Democratic-controlled House, Naifeh is signaling his okay for democrats to feel at ease about joining in the hate fest.
According to Naifeh, the Hate Amendment is “bad public policy”. Naifeh plans to vote for bad public policy because it’s popular. In his words: "It has overwhelming public support. I'm not going to stand in the way and get run over by that train."
With leaders like this, can anyone seriously wonder why the country is in so much trouble?
According to Howard Dean, democrats stand for social responsibility and republicans have proved they do not. Let’s face it Dean is not talking about Tennessee democrats.
These yahoos are not going to do the right thing until the progressive community demonstrates it's overwhelming opposition and in a style as visible and loud as the horn-honkers.
Six thousand progressives showed up in downtown Nashville to see Michael Moore. How many will show up to demand that legislators abandon the plan to let some of us vote on the civil rights of others?
