TO: President Bush, Senators, and Representatives
SUBJECT: Marriage Equality
Dear President Bush, Senators, and Representatives:
In 1883, the United States Supreme Court upheld state bans on interracial marriages. For the next 75 years, anyone supporting interracial marriages was accused of being anti-family, of seeking to destroy good, old fashioned family values, of trying to undermine the value of marriage.
While the Supreme Court overruled Pace v. Alabama in 1967’s Loving v Virginia, and ruled such laws unconstitutional, it wasn’t until 2000 that Alabama became the last state to repeal such hateful laws. Those anti-miscegenation laws are a reminder of an ugly past that toleratead and even encouraged blind hatred, bigotry, and racism. That it is the past is something every American should be proud of, that we have overcome and risen above blind prejudice and stereotype to grant equal rights to people regardless of their skin colour.
It took over 75 years for Americans to accept that love is colourblind. It would be a tragedy if it took our great nation another 75 years to apply that same equal right and liberty to gay and lesbian couples who simply want the same legal recourse to declare their love as Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving did back in 1967.
Love does not discriminate, and neither should our government. I urge you to reject the politics of hate and division. Everyone has the same rights. There is no place in America for a Constitutional amendment denying marriage equality to anyone.
Sincerely,