HRC: REPUBLICAN PLATFORM HURTS FAMILIES LIKE CHENEYS
‘Vice President Cheney must explain how he can stand behind a platform that discriminates against families like his,’ said HRC President Cheryl Jacques.


WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign condemned the Republican platform’s inclusion of support for a discriminatory amendment in the U.S. Constitution banning marriage between same-sex couples and opposing civil unions. The platform hurts real families like Vice President Cheney’s, said HRC.

“Vice President Cheney must explain how he can stand behind a platform that discriminates against families like his,” said HRC President Cheryl Jacques. “There are millions of Republican families who don’t want to see their sons and daughters discriminated against. It must be hard for these families, including the Vice President’s, to reconcile their own support for inclusion and this divisive platform.”

In response to the convention’s theme of hope and safety, Jacques added, “There’s nothing about discrimination that provides Americans with hope and safety.



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Manitoba government won't fight three same-sex marriage bids
By STEVE LAMBERT


WINNIPEG (CP) - The Manitoba government won't oppose a court bid by three same-sex couples who want to get married, saying it's a matter for Ottawa, not Winnipeg.

"We will not oppose what they are seeking," Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh said in an interview Wednesday. "We see it as an issue between applicants and the federal government and we will not be defending the federal (marriage) law. We don't have an interest in opposing legally recognized rights of Canadians."


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Just Being Anti-Bush Is Not Enough To Win
Author: Sam Webb, National Chair


It was no surprise to me that virtually everyone I met during a recent three-week trip across the Midwest was quick to remind me that this election is the most important in their lifetime. While agreeing that the overriding political task is to defeat Bush and his counterparts in Congress and elect Kerry and a more people-friendly Congress, no one reduced this to simply a contest between the Democratic and Republican parties.

This election, they told me, will continue the nearly 24-year struggle against the forces of extreme political reaction who are now entrenched in the White House, Congress and Supreme Court - but with this difference: Nov. 2 could well mark a turning point for better or worse.