In 1873, Susan B. Anthony delivered a compelling speech about women's right to vote after her arrest in 1872 for casting an "illegal" vote in the presidential election. I have co-opted a part of this speech on this presidential election eve. (For the original speech, go here).
It was we, the people, not we, the white heterosexual citizens; nor yet we, the heterosexual citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to a portion of ourselves and a percentage of our posterity, but to the whole people - homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. And it is a downright mockery to talk to gay men and women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while we are denied the means of enjoying all the same rights and priviledges of our heterosexual brothers and sisters.
For any state to legislate what a successful and ordained union of two people is that then results in the disfranchisement of up to 10% of the people is a violation of the very principles set forth in our Constitution and the defeat of miscegenation laws. To amend the Constitution against its own citizenry withholds the blessings of liberty the Constitution should protect.
This government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sexual orientation; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe. This oligarchy makes every straight person the ruler and sovereign over every gay person and carries dissention, discord, and rebellion into thousands of homes across the nation.
Are all gay Americans not citizens as our straight brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers? And, if being citizens (and I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the fortitude to say we are not) every discrimination against homosexuals in the constitutions and laws of any state or our great nation is today null and void, precisely as is every one against our transgendered friends.
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