UPDATE: You can thank the legislator here.
You go girl! Damn good speech, via the wonderful Molly Ivins.
And anti-gay prejudice IS the same thing an anti-black prejudice which is the same thing as anti-Jewish prejudice and on and on and on. Bigotry is bigotry is bigotry, and anybody who can't handle that truth can go Cheney themselves. It's high time we stopped pussy-footing around, being afraid to offend people by equating the two (or three). I am not afraid of some bigot who thinks their suffering is greater, or more important, or more worthy than someone else's.
And now, the wonderful Ms. Ivins and the wonderful state legislator (note that this is only an excerpt below, read the entire story):
Rarely are the words of one state legislator worth national attention, but when Senfronia Thompson, a black representative from Houston, stalks to the back mike with a certain "get-out-of-my-way" look in her eye, it's, Katie, bar the door. Here is Thompson speaking against the Legislature's recent folly of putting a superfluous anti-gay marriage measure into the state constitution:
"Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination... When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about 'protecting the institution of marriage' as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd often find the people of my color hanging from a tree... Fifty years ago, white folks thought interracial marriages were 'a threat to the institution of marriage.'....
"I have served in this body a lot of years, and I have seen a lot of promises broken... So... now that blacks and women have equal rights, you turn your hatred to homosexuals, and you still use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag -- brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what?....
"Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids -- sweet little vulnerable kids -- out of the homes of loving parents and put them back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That's disgusting.
"I have listened to the arguments. I have listened to all of the crap... I want you to know that this amendment [is] blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry."
