"Wapello native and University of Iowa student Cody Shafer, an openly gay and politically active 22-year-old praised the hate crimes legislation as a step forward for the nation.
Before tackling same-sex marriage rights on the federal level, Burlington resident Corey Cox of Burington, an openly gay student at Southeastern Community College, said Congress should work on extending other protections.
'There needs to be a lot more steps as far as the don't ask, don't tell policy, the anti-discrimination policy. I think those need to be in place before they even bring anything to floor about gay marriage or civil unions,' Cox said.
Terry Callahan of Burlington also has an interest in seeing don't ask, don't tell -- the military policy that bars service members from asking about others' or telling their sexual orientation -- reversed because she once served in the military.
...
The Callahans and the Harris-Johnsons, as well as the young men who hope one day to meet and marry partners, agree they'd like to see the federal government recognize their union. However, they're fine taking it state by state for now."
Most of the piece is pretty biased against LGBT rights and really likes to give weight to the opinions of hateful bigots who want America to think gays are trying to insinuate themselves in their business. Au contraire, we just want to be able to go about our lives in peace without other folks--or discriminatory laws--interfering us or trying to remind us, for some reason, that we're not full citizens. Being barred from civil institutions is a huge barrier. We know now that gay and lesbian couples pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more in terms of taxes and penalties than an opposite-sex married couple. We know that same-sex couples aren't considered family in medical and end-of life situations, and that employment, accommodations and housing discrimination is rampant. The state of being a second-class citizen is not very pleasant.
Your laws are insinuating on my freedoms and liberty every day. My wanting to remedy that so that I can actually--for the first time in my life--feel like a real American is not interfering with ANY of your rights... except for your IMAGINED right to discriminate against others and your IMAGINED right to behave as if you are in a superior tier of citizenship and rights to others. If I'm granted Equality, that means I'm Equal to you and that's just one less person you can pretend you're better than. Is that what's really going on here? Prove me wrong.
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