MARRIAGE: No to discrimination
As a heterosexual woman, I would feel shame if I didn't write on behalf of my gay and lesbian friends.
I just read in the paper that a Senate committee rejected amending the state's Human Rights Act to protect the LGBT community. This has not only outraged me, but it made my heart heavy. So, I must ask the following question: Doesn't EVERY Idaho resident deserve the same rights and protection?
The landlord next to you can't discriminate against an atheist, skinhead full of hate from living next to you, but they can against a kind and respectful gay person? How would you feel if the serviceman/woman coming home from defending OUR freedom wasn't allowed to rent the apartment next to you? Or work next to you, all because he/she loved someone you didn't feel they should? Remember that they fought for the rights of ALL!
I am not asking you to agree with them. I am asking you to allow them the same protection that you have. Who are you to say they deserve less as a HUMAN than you deserve? I don't want to hear the old mantra of "God made Adam and Eve, not blah, blah, blah." Or that marriage is for procreation only. If that were so, then no senior citizen should be allowed to marry, nor should the menopausal woman or the sterile man or woman.
Some people out there are getting married who aren't going to have children. Should we void their marriages? Also, how does someone else getting married affect YOUR marriage, and or, way of life? If your marriage is so unstable that a gay couple getting married would in some way affect yours, then I say the wind blowing north would lead you to divorce also.
I find it funny that so many people wrote in complaining about the play "Rent." All talk, and no action. Not one person showed up to picket the play" as promised. There are some people out there who like nothing more in life than to complain about what others are or are not doing. I say to them, find something to do with your time that would improve the life of someone or something else. There are plenty out there hurting right now, and they could use your voice and time.
Last week I went down to my veterinarian's office to sign the petition to make animal cruelty a felony in Idaho (we are one of three states left in the U.S. that isn't). Now I see that it will never make it here in Idaho. If our gay and lesbian citizens are treated like they don't matter, if they are allowed to be fired from their jobs, allowed to be disqualified from an apartment or house, or served in a restaurant, or, or, or. If they have no rights, then sadly I know our animals will have none either.
It is up to people like me and you (I know there are a lot of people like me out there) who MUST be the voice for these causes! Don't allow our gay/lesbian friends and family to be persecuted for whom they love! Don't allow the animals to be abused/tortured without their aggressors being punished! People have NO RIGHT to shove their "moral" beliefs down another person's throat! Remember, this is AMERICA!
BRANDI BYE
Post Falls