First We Came for Dr. Laura...

Back in 2000, Paramount Television was poised to launch a syndicated TV talk show hosted by right-wing radio pundit, Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Famous for comments like, "homosexuals are biological errors," Dr. Laura became a human symbol of hatred, ignorance and intolerance toward the gay and lesbian community.

Tired of rabid conservatives like Schlessinger using the media to foment hatred and homophobia, John Aravosis (a gay activist based in Washington DC) and four of his colleagues founded Stop Dr. Laura.com.

Response to the site was immediate and enormous, with more than 50 million hits logged within the first year. Sponsors of Schlessinger's show were inundated with letters and calls threatening boycotts. One by one, they started pulling away from the hatemonger.

Within one year, Dr. Laura's television show was canceled. She stared the battle but we won the war. Overwhelmed by the success of that grass roots website, John Aravosis and friends recently launched DontAmend.com and DearMary.com Both sites have attracted massive international media attention and have roused millions of gays, lesbians and those who support us to rally against the hatred and discrimination the Bush administration and Republican legislators have directed toward us.

The DearMary.com site was created to send Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter Mary Cheney millions of e-mails asking why the self-proclaimed gay and lesbian activist has sat by in silence as her father has openly denounced equal rights for homosexuals.

DontAmend.com is a site decimated to protecting the U.S. Constitution from the right-wing's regressive, discriminatory proposed amendment to ban same sex marriage.

There is a war going on besides the debacle Bush created in Iraq. This is a civil war, and Bush started it. Bush and his crooked band of liars have stirred the issue of same sex marriage to make gays and lesbian rights a huge issue in the campaign to reelect Bush.Cowed by demands from ignorant, intolerant religious zealots and other ultra conservatives who want to swap votes and contributions in exchange for discriminatory legislation, the Bush team has seized this issue as an ideal way to deflect attention from the abysmal performance of Bush in his first term as president.

See, they figure if people are stupid enough not to notice how many ways the Bush administration has screwed America, those same stupid people are likely to embrace and endorse wholesale discrimination against those who differ from themselves.

But we queers aren't going to take it.Americans who abhor the right-wing attempt to abridge equal rights aren't going to take it, either.

Battle lines have been drawn. Like Dr. Laura, the Bush team fired the first shots when they started talking about amending the constitution specifically to deny equal rights to a large segment of the tax paying population. Like Dr. Laura, they have grossly underestimated their enemies. We queers are veterans of various battles waged against us by intolerant bigots.

Next step: outing closeted queers who work for (or are) legislators who have rallied against us. Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover may have died in their respective closets, but it's time to shine some light in the closets of those gays who've been enabling right-wing fanatics in their efforts to legislate hatred. Like Bush said in his rally against terrorists, "You're either for us or against us."

It's time to choose a side and let the battle begin.
...And we have cuter uniforms.