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Letters to
Gay Today


Bush Says He Won't Knowingly
Appoint a Gay Official

gwbush.jpg - 7.62 K In an interview with a Christian group trying to determine the bona fides of the GOP presidential candidates, Texas governor George W. Bush said he would not "knowingly" appoint a gay man to a position in his administration, conservative columnist Cal Thomas reports. Bush met last Friday with members of the Madison Project, a group of conservative leaders, to allay their concerns about his conservative credentials.

Asked by the panel, which included such leading religious-right figures as the Rev. D. James Kennedy, former Colorado senator William Armstrong, Tim LeHaye, and Paul Weyrich, about his policy on hiring gay people, Bush said he would not hire an openly gay man but would not fire someone if he was subsequently discovered to be gay. Armstrong told Thomas, "I wish he had nailed that down a little more," but said he was "favorably impressed" with Bush.

Good news for all self-hating closet cases, but not so good for self-respecting honest open gay men who might wish to serve in their government. Which is why I just can't bring myself to vote for a party that thinks this way about me.

Ellipse


Bush is Our Enemy

The Democrats (in California) just passed three great pieces of pro-gay legislation - a bill that moves management of illegal housing discrimination to the Fair Housing commission, a bill to extend insurance benefits to same-sex couples, and a bill to target hate speech against gays at high school, which is one of most uneducated of all the breeding grounds for anti-gay behavior.

The Democrats continue to show their committment to this essential issue of freedom of sexual orientation, freedom of socialization of sexual identity, and institutionalized recognition of these freedoms through the enactment of rules which may be enforced by the executive branches of government.
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Openly-gay Ambassador James Hormel would be excluded from his current post under a George W. administration

Republicans have lagged terribly in their usual way, instead they rely on kowtowing to the fundamentalist activists who fill up Republican campaign coffers. Bush's last remarks about never knowingly appointing a gay man in whatever role he was discussing makes Bush not only a political enemy, but a personal one.

Clinton had the balls to appoint an openly gay ambassador to Luxembourg. He had the balls to face the entire military establishment and start the process that will inevitably lead to the freedom for gay men and women to serve their country.

Novato


Episcopal Treachery in Venezuela

This is a follow up to a message I posted a while ago regarding the possibility that language protecting the Venezuelan Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community would be included in the new Venezuelan constitution.

An article that ran yesterday, October 12, in the mainstream newspaper El Nacional, shows that the Episcopal Church in Venezuela has forcefully organized itself to defeat measures that would allow abortion or same sex marriage in Venezuela.

Furthermore the article says that the Committee that wrote the draft of the Constitution agreed with the Episcopal Church that the new constitution should defend the right to life "from conception until death" and protect family values by not recognizing language that would normalize "changes in patterns of behavior."

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Courting the Vote: The 2000 Presidential Candidates

Republicans Attack Fair Play 'Pearl Harbor-Style'

World-Wide Anglican Communion Rejects Same-Sex Love

Related Sites:
George W. Bush Official Site

George W. Bush Paradoy Site

Venezuela Constitution
GayToday does not endorse related sites.

What amazes me is that this type of language ("right to life," homosexuality as a "behavior" and not an innate status, the family unit at risk, etc.) is exactly the type of language that the extreme right has used in the United States to defeat pro-gay rights.

Most hypocritical is Monsignor Velasco's statement of support for the respect that the Electorate Assembly has shown for human rights, while at the same time demanding that the Electorate refuse to "facilitate the disintegration of the family" (in other words saying that homosexuals are not worthy of those same human rights given to other Venezuelans).

To read the DRAFT version of the new Constitution (in Spanish) go to: politica.eud.com/franteproy.html or www.el-nacional.com/actualidad/propuesta/

I have given it a quick scan and it appears the church might get away with its wishes unless there is an outcry from the LGBT community before the final Constitution is approved!!!

Sincerely,
Andres Duque
Latino Commission on AIDS
Mano a Mano
Colombian Lesbian & Gay Association (COLEGA)



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