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Margaret Cho's Letter To John Kerry! On Gay Marriage!!!

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Chicago Democrat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-04-04 05:14 PM
Original message
Margaret Cho's Letter To John Kerry! On Gay Marriage!!!
Here Cho says what all lovers of Gay Rights and Democrats want to say! I love you Ms. Cho!

3/3/2004
Dear Senator Kerry
I am very grateful for your victories and am praying for your swift and graceful transformation from Senator to President of the United States. I heard you speak in San Francisco last year, when you were embarking on your campaign trail. I found you to be an eloquent and sincere man. We spoke briefly at the reception about your support and dedication to the HRC. You were received with much applause and relief. I especially appreciate the valiant efforts you made to assure blue collar workers and unions that under your administration, their rights would be upheld.

My grandfather was a labor union leader. He experienced great persecution during his life, much of which was spent in exile. Workers' rights were not popular with the governing party at the time. Fortunately for South Koreans, the times changed dramatically, and my beloved grandfather went from the caves of the mountainous regions of my parent's homeland to an office in the cabinet of the newly elected President of Korea, where he spent the rest of his life fighting to keep improving conditions for the working class in a country that was experiencing change too quickly. He struggled to stay alive in order to see my face when I was born. When he did, he was overjoyed, and died happily, somehow knowing that his message would be carried on, perhaps not in his country, but possibly throughout the world. My memories of him are blurry at best, but his legacy lives on, and I see him in you.

I could have sworn that you said that if elected, you were going to make same sex marriage a reality. Since then, there has been somewhat of a change in the direction of your attitude toward this incredibly important issue. Perhaps I heard you wrong. I was also trying to listen with an optimism that sometimes lends itself to a kind of selective understanding. Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart. I am aware of your support of civil unions, but you also know, this is a compromise. It doesn't give equal rights, nor is it enough to placate the GLBT community any longer. Even in your home state, the courts are challenging the ban on same sex marriage, and they were the first to do so. Although Gavin Newsom beat everyone to the punch, Massachusetts had a huge impact on the issue. They started the fight. Bostonians are rebels by nature, as evidenced by that old tea party.

I support your candidacy. I want to see you in the Oval Office. I think that Teresa Heinz Kerry would be a fantastic First Lady. She is charismatic, eloquent and fiery. I believe you would get this country out of the spider hole we have been stuck in for the last four years. However, I plead you reconsider your stance on same-sex marriage. I know that for political reasons, you will continue to smoothly change the subject, one talent that you are particularly masterful at, as evidenced by watching the democratic debates these past several weeks. You don't wish to alienate - or rather inflame the inherent bigotry and prejudice held by the other underdogs, the workers, the voters who don't live in the big cities, the people who distrust the current administration, but whose personal values unfortunately include homophobic tendencies. My take on it is that they would rather see a president who will ensure their financial future and create jobs than escalate wars with money earmarked for social programs and affordable health care

Rest at....

http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/blog.htm
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LiberalBushFan Donating Member (831 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-04-04 05:28 PM
Response to Original message
1. i'm ambivalent
"My take on it is that they would rather see a president who will ensure their financial future and create jobs than escalate wars with money earmarked for social programs and affordable health care"

That's what one would think, but sadly...
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Chicago Democrat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-04-04 05:38 PM
Response to Original message
2. I hopeful Kerry will do more than Clinton for us
gay people.

Clinton talked and talked and when it came time to implement he dropped us like shit on a shoe!

I want Kerry to suprise us by making real inroads for our civil rights. For example, while we may not have gay marriage; isn't Federal Rules for civil union a worthy goal??? How about changing the tax code to allow for civil unions (gay or straight) to have the same benefits under law as marriages (cept a different name) Something like that.

Im a realist. I want change, but we have to cobble together a winning set of principles in order to win.

Right now the conservative right is running amok with this issue and we Democrats can regain the initiative through bold ideas and reasoned compromise that the vast majority of Americans can live with.
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-04-04 06:31 PM
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3. 1/2 disappointed

I was half disappointed with his response on the gay-marriage issue. As I recall it was (paraphrase): "I support a prohibition on gay marriage, as long as civil unions *are* allowed".

My (mind-reading) interpretation: Kerry meant well, but suffered a moment of political cowardice.

The correct position would be: "I support civil unions for same-sex couples. Marriage is a religious sacrament, and must be left up to individual religions, and kept out of public politics"

In his moment of fear, he chose to emphasize some anti-marriage position, which is too bad. His support of civil unions suggests to me that he is on the right side of this issue, but got over-cautious when he opened his mouth.
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