R000157
Monday, March 11, 2002 10:59 AM
11 Sept Compensation Funds SHOULD NOT discriminate against gay
families...
Dear Mr. Feinberg, it is mean-spirited, cruel, and un-American to
discriminate against gay families who had victims killed and injured
in the 11 September terrorist events. I do not wish for my tax
dollars to be misspent in this way. To support this decision based
on supporting state laws that are discriminatory laws illustrates
that the Bush administration lacks moral courage. In the struggle
for African American civil rights, how could the states who
discriminated have understood that they were morally wrong without
the Federal government illustrating more principled leadership that
stood on higher ground? The Federal government, the Kennedy
administration, did not use the cover of states sueing in order to
support unethical and inhumane treatment.
Perhaps if the states (that have these discriminatory laws which
proactively choose to make gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered
families second class) had to spend their state funds to sue the
federal government, and the federal government had to spend money to
defend against these suits, the citizenry would come to understand
the negative economic impact to their state and their own quality of
life by supporting such discriminatory laws, and would move
expeditiously to repeal them.
In the past few years we have been witness to people like the Pope,
on behalf of the Catholic Church, and making
apologies for anti-Semitic remarks and actions which caused great
harm to Jews. Will you want to be going on the record some years
from now apologizing for the harm your actions bespeak now, or will
you choose to do the right thing?
There's a 3-year old girl somewhere in this country, daughter of a
widowed mother who lost her lesbian partner of many years on Sept.
11, and she doesn't understand why you, on behalf of all of us, are
mistreating her and her family. Her loss is already huge, to have
lost one of her two custodian parents, and be present for the
bereavement and suffering of the surviving partner. Can you explain
your decision to her in a way that doesn't make this action sound
reprehensible? I find my government's decision a different kind of
terrorism in our own country and I cannot let it pass unnoticed.
Sincerely,
Individual Comment
Atlanta, GA