Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 23:14:05 -1000 From: Mia H H Lam Subject: BREAKING NEWS: US HOUSE TRYING TO BAN GAY ADOPTION *** (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 23:06:01 -1000 From: HELENADAMS@aol.com Subject: BREAKING NEWS: US HOUSE TRYING TO BAN GAY ADOPTION *** *** BREAKING NEWS: US HOUSE TRYING TO BAN GAY ADOPTION *** Please read this, and email it to as many friends as possible. <><><><><><><><> US CONGRESS CONTACT INFORMATION: * Main switchboard (ask for your House Member, then ask the office for the staffer handling the DC Appropriations bill): 202/224-3121 * Email the House: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ * Email the Senate: http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm <><><><><><><><> Folks, this is bad. We need calls and emails to Congress today, please. When militant fundamentalists tried to ban gay adoption in Indiana several months ago, they succeeded in stopping a couple from adopting an eight-year-old girl. The girl was instead put into the hands of a "family values" conservative Christian - one of the leaders of the anti-gay adoption battle - who proceeded to have oral sex with the child, repeatedly. Zoom ahead to today. Friends on the Hill called this morning to warn that notoriously anti-gay Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK) is planning on offering an amendment, perhaps as early as this evening (Tuesday), that would ban gays and lesbians from adopting in the District of Columbia. The amendment is to the DC Appropriations Bill (HR 2587). You see, it seems that homosexuals are a threat to children. According to this week's edition of CultureFacts from the fringe-right Family Research Council, the group has issued yet another "report" establishing a "link" between gays and pedophilia. The Family Research Council, the American Family Association, the supposed "ex-gay" ministries, and other militant fundamentalists have tried for years to paint gays as child molesters (see my "Matthew Shepard Hate Speech" Web site for more examples - http://www.wiredstrategies.com/hate.html). Apparently, accusing us of systematically raping small children is an expression of the religious right's "love" for us. It's a sign of how tolerant and how Christian they are. And lest anyone be confused, accusing gays of regularly sodomizing grade school children is NOT hateful, it's NOT bigoted, and it most certainly DOES NOT inspire wackos to commit hate crimes against us. Really. It doesn't. I swear. Friends, this is important. I know it's only the District of Columbia being affected by this amendment, but think of the implications. Republicans in the Congress are trying to pass legislation saying that gays are inherently bad parents, and should not be around small children. What does that imply for any of us who want to have children in the future? What does it mean for gay men and lesbians who already have children - will the state some day take them away like it did in Virginia to Sharon Bottoms? And what does it mean for anyone of us who work around children - e.g., doctors, teachers? This isn't just about DC, it's a disgusting attack on us all. It's a legislative hate crime. And it has to stop. Please do what you can to get the word out to your friends and networks about this TODAY. Then email, and especially CALL (time is of the essence), your US House Members. I also recommend sending an email copy of your message to your US Senators. Tell them to oppose the anti-gay Largent adoption amendment to the House DC Appropriations bill (HR 2587). *** US CONGRESS CONTACT INFORMATION *** * US Congress Main Switchboard (ask for your House Member, then ask the office for the staffer handling the DC Appropriations bill): 202/224-3121 * Email the House: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ * Email the Senate: http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm (You can use the Email the House and Senate Web sites to find out who your Representatives are in Congress). Thanks for helping out on this one, JOHN **************************** Rep. Largent's past attacks on gays: The Christian Coalition enlisted Largent to do a newspaper ad in 1997 opposing a ballot initiative in Washington State that would have banned employment discrimination against gay Americans. According to the Seattle Times: "Steve Largent said [in an open letter to Washingtonians] sexual orientation...was a choice. And, he said, giving it civil-rights protection would be granting gays 'special rights.' 'I-677 isn't about fairness, it's about special rights,' said Largent's 'letter' to voters. 'I-677 goes too far in trying to extend civil rights protections to behaviors and lifestyles that are controllable, and creates special rights for choices that some people have made in defining their sexual identity.' " Largent reportedly wrote the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, that passed the Congress and was signed by the President a few years ago. Largent links gay relationships to pedophilia: "There is . . . a radical element, a homosexual agenda, that wants to redefine what marriage is," Largent said during a bitter floor debate. "They want to say that a marriage is not one man and one woman, but it's two men or it's two women. What logical reason is there to keep us from stopping expansion to include three people or an adult and a child, or any other odd combination?" ************************************************************** JOIN "THE LIST"!!! To subscribe to the free Wired Strategies email update list for the latest on gay civil rights issues, send mailto:join-THELIST@wiredstrategies.com - don't worry about a subject line or message text. To unsubscribe, send mailto:leave-THELIST@wiredstrategies.com - again don't worry about a subject line or message text. You'll usually receive about two emails per week - sometimes more when big issues are breaking. "In Germany they first came for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.... Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. 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