Dear Texans:
One week after passing legislation that would rip children out of loving, stable homes, the Texas House of Representatives took yet another swipe at Texas families. The passage of HJR6 by the Texas House marks a sad day in our history. If approved by the Senate and voters, it will write discrimination into a document designed to protect all Texans.
One week after passing legislation that would rip children out of loving, stable homes, the Texas House of Representatives took yet another swipe at Texas families. The passage of HJR6 by the Texas House marks a sad day in our history. If approved by the Senate and voters, it will write discrimination into a document designed to protect all Texans.
HJR 6 is not about marriage. It does nothing to strengthen marriage, because state law (DOMA and various state statutes) already defines marriage as applying to unions between one man and one woman. HJR6 is all about discrimination against law-abiding, hard working men and women in loving relationships who must now pay thousands of dollars to secure a fraction of the basic rights to which they are entitled as Texans.
I offered an amendment to HJR6 that would affirm the existing marriage definition and allow for the legislature to trigger approximately 1,000 state and federal rights through some form of civil recognition like civil unions, domestic partnerships or civil registries. Regrettably, the House voted against my amendment and instead went the other direction by banning virtually all recognition of rights for same-gender families.
I was hopeful that my colleagues would agree with from the comments offered by the President on the subject. “I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do so. I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. States ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others." President George W. Bush, October 2004.
I hope everyone checking out this blog will weigh in with your Senators on this important issue. Urge them not to write discrimination into the Texas Constitution.
6 comments:
Have you ever seen the format over at DailyKos.com? It allows for more than one person to blog under their own sig/login. He's got people like John Conyers, Louise Slaughter and Barbara Boxer that pop in from time to time to check in , or post interesting articles they come across.
I woud think something like that would be useful for Lone Star Rising. Then again, you'd have to get someone to design it for you...
Just a suggestion
-d flores
Rep. Anchia, Thank you for your work on the House floor trying to defeat this biggoted Constittional Amendment. I only wish "Democrats" like Richard Raymond would have followed your leadership.
What the hell is going on here? Raymond voted for that crap? Oh my god. We need to have a serious talk with our democrats.
I just read the article in The McAllen Monitor and I am ashamed.
Thank you so much for working so hard to support my right to be protected by the Texas Constitution, rather than discriminated against by it.
Even if you didn't succeeed in defeating the amendment in the House, you did succeed at something else: you kept at least one person's faith in the essential goodness of humanity alive in the face of much recent evidence to the contrary -- much of it from your own colleagues in the House.
Thank you. We won't forget.
Rep Anchia,
Leave the Cheerleaders Alone, you Suck!
Soldier
US Army
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