Thursday, June 14, 2007

Protect our neighbors: the Matthew Shepard Act

This just in from a dear friend:

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Did you know that one in six hate crimes is motivated by the victim's sexual orientation, and yet today's federal laws don't include any protections for these Americans?

What's even more outrageous is that the radical right is running an all-out campaign to stop Congress from expanding hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity - something three out of four Americans support.*Please join me in contacting our U.S. Senators and urging them to pass the Matthew Shepard Act. *The Human Rights Campaign has made this very easy to do on their Web site.

Just visit here.

Thanks so much.

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In memory of Matthew Shepard.

See also here.




10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Jane, for pushing us on this. We Episcopalians ought to be especially fervent in our support for Matthew's bill, as he was one of our own, an altar boy at St. Mark's, Casper.

June Butler said...

Jane, they tell me I have already done the contacts. I guess I forgot. Anyway, it's done.

johnieb said...

Okey-Doke.

Hmmm. It appears one of my Senators does not accept "Rev." in the drop-down box; I rarely use it anymore, but I thought it might help here.

pj said...

Jane, I did it.

Jane R said...

Thanks, friends.

Odd, JohnieB, the Human Rights Campaign form had a little pull-down that let anyone do Dr., Rev., Ms., Rabbi, etc. Did you not go to that one using the link I gave?

Never mind, you did it. That's what matters.

johnieb said...

That's where I encountered it; I got a reply that said "one of my recipients" didn't accept mail with my chosen prefix "rev." and the sexist twerp (referent deliberately vague) gave me a one choice box to continue; guess what it offered: Mr. / Ms. Sorry; no extra points for the right answer.

In fairness, I doubt this reveals intent. It only made me think there might be an Orthodox Judaic prohibition on that use.

Edward said...

Good story here showing why this is important.

Jane R said...

Oh, dear Godde. Thank you for telling us about this.

johnieb said...

In fairness, Senator Lieberman's gracious and informative reply is addressed to "Rev."____ AKA JohnieB. He indicates he intends to co-sponsor it in the Senate.

Now to Ed's link.

johnieb said...

Ed, being from the working class in Middle America (my grandparents were from NE Indiana) I may be more accustomed to horror; I saw this, but only thought "Yeah; more trouble."

'course, being a trauma survivor and a former cop may have something to do with it, too; I do know how to pull my head and feet in my shell.