House Committee 'Recklessly Exploits' Gays and Lesbians; PFLAG Tells Musgrave to Ask the Right Questions

WASHINGTON, May 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution will hold a hearing on the Musgrave Federal Marriage Amendment and again our elected representatives will attempt to stamp our American heritage with their own prejudice and politics. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) calls on Representative Marilyn Musgrave and all members of the House to stop answering questions about marriage equality with personal religious views, misinterpretations of science and alterations to history and start asking the right questions.

"It is particularly frustrating that the Congressional committee hearings on this issue refuse to take up the most pertinent question of all -- how would extending marriage rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples either harm or help our families, communities and the nation?" said Ron Schlittler, PFLAG's director of policy. "There are facts to be presented and stories to be told that address this question, but the committee, it seems, has no interest in the answer. What is actually going on is clear: the lives and families of our loved ones are being recklessly exploited for political purposes and that is heartbreaking."

Rep. Musgrave says that marriage equality is "unsought and unwanted by the American people." Nothing could be further from the truth -- all over our nation today thousands of couples are seeking the right to marry, the right to raise a family, the right to protect their most important unions. Hundreds of thousands more moms, dads, sisters, brothers, grandparents, friends and supporters will not stand by while Representative Musgrave and her fellow legislators stamp out our loved ones' desire for equality and our nation's commitment to justice.

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) is the nation's foremost family-based organization committed to the civil rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender persons. Founded in 1973 by mothers and fathers, PFLAG has over 250,000 members and supporters in more than 500 chapters throughout the United States.