![[WWP web page]](../home.gif){kind=small}
![[News]](../news.gif){kind=small}
![[Subscribe]](../free.gif){kind=small}
![[Vote WWP]](../vote.gif){kind=small}
![[Join us!]](../join.gif){kind=small}
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Sept. 19, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Most of the news coverage about the Senate debates focused on Sen. Edward Kennedy as the champion of gay rights. Actually, however, for many years Kennedy held back on this issue. Now, when his party is in the minority, he takes a stand.
Over the years, the most consistent support for gay rights in Congress has come from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The issue of gay marriage is no exception.
On Sept. 10 Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, the only African American in the Senate, compared the "Defense of Marriage" Act to the old laws prohibiting marriage between whites and people of color.
"That kind of restriction may seem unbelievable today," she said. "But it was a reality of life not too many decades ago. Here we are faced with the exact same arguments against domestic relations of another order."
Rep. John Lewis of Georgia was a young leader of the civil-rights movement who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. When the House debated DOMA in July, Lewis said the bill "denies gay men and women the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"Marriage is a basic human right. You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriage, and I quote: `Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married.'"
Lewis challenged the bigots, asking: "Why do you not want your fellow men and women to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts?
"Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their longings, their aspirations? We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love. They have done no wrong. ...
"I have known racism. I have known bigotry. This bill stinks of the same fear, hatred and intolerance."
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)