| NEWS
from DontAmend.com - http://www.DontAmend.com
August 1, 2003
Contact: Robin Tyler 818-893-4075 RTDontAmend@aol.com
Robin Tyler, John Aravosis, 202-328-5707, John@DontAmend.com
ONLINE PLEDGE DECLARES WAR ON ANTI-GAY POLITICIANS
Americans Asked to Vote Against All Who Support Anti-gay
Constitutional
Amendment
Washington, DC - DontAmend.com is asking Americans to
sign a new online
pledge to vote against any politician of any political
party who supports
adding anti-gay language to the US Constitution.
The online pledge can be found here:
http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/votepledge/
"No matter our political party, gay Americans must
join together in
opposing any candidate for public office - Democrat,
Republican or
third-party - who supports adding anti-gay language
to the US
Constitution," said Robin Tyler, cofounder of DontAmend.com.
After the Supreme Court recently ruled in Lawrence v.
Texas that states
could not throw gays in jail simply because of why they
are, religious
right groups along with some Republicans and Democrats
in Congress have
been agitating in support of a constitutional amendment
to ban gay
marriage. The White House said just yesterday
that President Bush is now
considering endorsing such an amendment. In response,
DontAmend.com is
asking millions of Americans take an online pledge to
oppose any candidate,
even of their own political party, who supports adding
anti-gay
discrimination to the US Constitution.
"We stood by seven years ago when a Democratic
president, and the Democrats
and Republicans in Congress, overwhelmingly passed the
anti-gay Defense of
marriage act. Well it was not the Defense of marriage
act. It was the
Denial of Marriage act, which legalized continuing discrimination",
said
Robin Tyler of DontAmend.com.
"We stood by when the majority of states passed
similar laws making gays
and lesbians second-class citizens," said John
Aravosis, cofounder of
DontAmend.com. "Now that the courts are set to
possibly overturn those laws
as unconstitutional, a Republican president and the
Democrats and
Republicans in Congress are preparing to enshrine anti-gay
bigotry in the
US Constitution. We cannot afford to stand by a second
time."
DontAmend.com hopes to follow the wildly successful
MoveOn.org model, which
collected millions of online pledges to oppose candidates
who voted for
impeachment in the late 1990s.
DontAmend.com is cofounded by Robin Tyler and John Aravosis,
two of the
founders of the successful StopDrLaura.com campaign,
which ran a successful
boycott of Dr. Laura Schlessinger's then-new TV show
three years ago. The
show was subsequently canceled after over 170 advertisers
left as a result
of the campaign. DontAmend.com will be the website
and national grassroots
organizing base to push for the final frontier, total
LGBT equality in the
United States.
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