I Finally Received a Reply From Joe Sestak Re: Same-Sex Marriage.

Sadly, he's riding the fence, and using the civil unions cop-out. That's a shame: I had thought he might actually be someone I could vote for. But, as I've said previously, absolutely NO more voting for people who do not believe in full equality.



July 31, 2009


Dear ,

Thank you for writing me regarding your stance on same-sex marriage. I greatly appreciate your input on this matter, and I apologize for the delay in my reply.

As a Member of Congress, it is my responsibility to represent my constituents' concerns and interests and to provide them the honorable and enthusiastic service they deserve. I truly value your thoughts and suggestions on issues before the House. In a representative government such as ours, it is essential that I know what your views are on these issues.

As you know, the issue of same sex marriage has been widely discussed in Congress, with a variety of positions and proposals on the topic. I have opposed any attempt to amend the United States Constitution to deny the right of individuals to marry whomever they choose.

My position on same-sex marriage is born out of my experience in the military. Statistics and surveys have shown that there are a certain percentage of individuals in the military who are gay. This is illustrated by the number of service members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

I have served in combat with these individuals. I have seen their dedication, their allegiance, and their sacrifices. As a result, there is absolutely no way that I can come home after going to war with these men and women, look them in the eye, and say that they do not have, nor deserve, the same equal rights as their fellow citizens.

I believe, having fought for the freedom of this nation, that every individual in this nation is created equal. Consequently, I cannot, and will not, support an amendment that would directly segregate one group of people from their constitutional rights - the very rights that this group has sacrificed greatly to uphold.

Our Constitution is the source of our freedom in this great country. For over two centuries, the Constitution - our greatest invention - has allowed our diverse people to live together, to balance our various interests, and to live prosperous, meaningful lives. It has provided each citizen with broad civil liberties and a basic sense of human dignity.

The Constitution tells us that we are free to assemble peacefully. We are free to petition our government; we are free to worship without interference; free from unlawful search and seizure; and free to choose our leaders. It secures the right and means of voting. It is these freedoms that define what it is to be an American. And again, many of these homosexual individuals have served their nation and indeed sacrificed their very lives to defense of this proposition.

For over 200 years, the Constitution has been amended only 27 times. With the exception of the Eighteenth Amendment, which was later repealed, these amendments have reaffirmed and expanded individual freedoms and the specific mechanisms that allow our self-government to function. Yet some are now calling for an amendment that would deprive gay men and women of certain freedoms. I believe this to be unconscionable and against the spirit of liberty as enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I believe marriage is a church issue. If an individual State decides to allow same sex marriage, I believe that to be within the rights of the State, but I do not believe that decision should be forced upon any church or religious institution, for I also believe in upholding the right of such institutions to exercise their own beliefs.

However, no one should be denied the opportunity to choose his or her life partner. It is a basic human right and a deeply personal decision. As a result, we should exercise every effort to guarantee and uphold this right, which includes the ability to receive the same legal rights and benefits of marriage, as in the case of civil unions.

I want to assure you that it is not my intent to define the term of marriage in any new way, but rather to insure that the rights of all citizens are equally protected, as proclaimed under the constitution. I swore to uphold the Constitution as a serviceman in the military, and I took an oath of office to do the same as your Representative in Congress. I will not violate that oath. Again, I appreciate the time you have taken to share your views. If I can be of any additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me again. I sincerely look forward to our future correspondence.

to address the attempts by republicans to amend the federal constitution a few years ago.

How long has it been since the anti-gay-marriage amendment was an issue? At least four years?

What a disappointment this man is. I actually had hopes for him.

In other words, he'd never ever vote for anything that limited the right of a state to provide full equality for its citizens. Also, the "marriage is a church issue" thing looks to me as though he supports each religious tradition's right to figure out where it stands on equal marriage on its own terms.

Were you expecting him to say that he was going to sponsor a law requiring every organization that performs marriage to extend that to every same-sex couple in the country, and to require every state to amend its laws to provide marriage equality? I really can't think of anyone who has gone that far, or anywhere near it.

Yes, it's a letter that's designed to look like it's fence-straddling. But it clearly acknowledges the committment that Americans of all sexual orientations have made to our freedom, and how they deserve the equal rights that flow from that. It would have been impossible to have seen such a letter from a politician twenty-five years ago.

In other words, I expected he'd be another chicken-shit political panderer, which, sadly, is the case. What I was HOPING he'd say is that he's for total equality, and that he will fight to ensure that same-sex marriage is the federal law of the land.

I couldn't care less that this is a letter that couldn't have been written twenty-five years ago. It is 2009. The fact that I didn't have my rights in 1964, when I was born, is outrageous enough. The fact that I don't have them NOW is inexcusable.

I am not grateful to any politician for acknowledging how rough I have it, who then proceeds to tell me that I must wait still longer. As far as I'm concerned, I was BORN with the same rights that everyone else has, and those rights are being deliberately withheld from me by cowardly politicians who bow to bigots and religious lunatics. I will not accept anything less than full equality, and I will not accept it any later than now. And there is not a single politician who does not feel EXACTLY the same way I do who will get one penny, minute, or positive word from me.

We have about half of the states that recognize first-cousin marriage, for example, and half that require the degree of consanguinity to be at least at the second-cousin level. A handful of states have community property laws at the heart of their marriage tradition, and the majority do not.

One thing that all have in common is that the Federal government recognizes whatever the states have defined as marriage. If that's what you're asking for, fair enough. I will admit that I don't see that in his letter, nor do I see any FF&C recognition there.

But I'm not surprised by this. James Carville gave a famous description of Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh on one end, Philadelphia on the other, and Alabama in the middle. Given that condition, I find this letter quite bold. Sometimes people run for office by going to the middle, then after election lead from the position their heart tells them to. This letter was written by a person with a good heart.

We have a Supreme Court that was able to toss out the handful of laws that existed and were enforced in 1967. They were able to look at the old post-Civil War laws from a century earlier, the spotty enforcement of them, and the blatant unfairness of them, especially given the evolving state of civil rights in the dozen or so years before the Loving v. Virginia decision.

If you're calling on any particular candidate to support Supreme Court confirmations for nominees who would declare that equal marriage for same-sex couples is precisely the same as equal marriage for mixed-race couples, that's fine, but I sincerely doubt that any nominee would announce such support during a confirmation hearing. On the other hand, if you're calling for a candidate to support a law or constitutional amendment that required equal marriage to be imposed on the thirty states that have recently and explicitly rejected marriage equality at the ballot box, you're asking for a level of courage that absolutely nobody I'm familiar with has given. Not from even the bluest of the blue states have I heard that from anybody running for, or in office.

I certainly wouldn't expect to see that level of commitment from a person running for a US Senate seat for the first time, especially from a state that is decidedly 'purple'. When representatives from the states that have led the way on equal marriage start making such pronouncements, I will expect progressives from other states to fall in line in reasonably short order. But I don't see that happening any time soon, even though our party is in nominal command of both houses of Congress and the White House.

I was a kid during the Sixties, and I recognize your feeling as was summed up in the chant of that day: "What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now!" Beating up on your fellow DU'ers on this thread is not going to accomplish that goal. We're on your side, and those of us taking the long view can read between the lines well enough can see in Sestak's form letter the spirit of someone who will not stand in the way of progress, even though he's not leading the charge from his white horse at this time.

That's more than you can say about Specter, or any Repuke who will challenge for the seat in Pennsylvania.

I'm aware of political reality. I'm also aware that change is never enacted by sitting around and making excuses for why change isn't being enacted. The people chanting "When do we want it? Now!" were the people who got it done, by changing the political reality until spineless politicians could no longer ignore issues.

Sestak will continue to hear from me, as will the rest of my representatives. However, they will not get any money, time, or votes from me until they say what I want to hear, and, more importantly, act on it. I expect my equality yesterday, and I will not compromise my principles to get it. People who give representatives like Sestak a pass because "his heart's in the right place" are the people who are holding back progress. We don't need to make excuses for politicians, we need to force them to do the right thing.

But as I recall, on the issue of interracial marriage, there were NO politicians out in front on that one. A Gallup Poll taken right after the 1967 decision showed about 90% of Americans against it. Frankly, interracial marriage was less politically popular forty years ago than is equal marriage today, I think that elected officials breathed a sigh of relief when the Court made its ruling. At least you can point to a handful of states where courageous people have stood up and been counted on, when it comes to the civil rights issue of our day. I truly hope that Pennsylvania joins that honored group.

What progressive politicians were out in front on during that time was equality in housing, employment, and education. Today, large swaths of our country still do not have laws protecting people of non-traditional sexual/gender orientations from being discriminated against in this fashion. I do see leadership from Sestak on this, especially the abomination known as DADT.

Let's get him elected, and then ask him to do the right thing. Making it so that Specter or a Repuke occupies that Senate seat is a huge step backwards.

Frankly, I've had quite enough of voting for a candidate in the hopes that he'll (or she'll) "do the right thing" once they get elected. I won't participate in this process anymore. I will only cast my vote for candidates who embrace progressive ideals (and they're out there), and I refuse to take any blame if my vote allows a republican into office. On the contrary, I will hold all the settlers of the status quo responsible, the ones who say they want change, but refuse to vote their conscience out of some misguided fear that their REAL candidate is "unelectable".

Until we as a society stop allowing corporations to select our candidates for us, we will continue to deserve what we have been getting for decades: more of the same. You can follow me in voting for change, or you can be responsible for reinforcing the status quo. Your choice.

My representative to the NY State Assembly has voted for marriage equality, and Governor Paterson has boldly spoken out on this issue. Only my State Senator has come out against equality, and he has an opponent who disagrees with him on this issue.

I do feel for people who are living in places where such leadership is completely absent, I can only hope that my votes and those of my neighbors lead to an emboldening spirit in the places where the sentiment can move from people's hearts' being in the right place, to their mouths saying the right things.

But that cannot happen if we have fundie GOPers or weak-willed DLCers in place when the issue finally gets raised in those jurisdictions. I have little hope for a Loving v. Virginia style victory in the current foreseeable composition of the Supreme Court, and even in the future, if there are not more than a tiny handful of states where marriage equality is practiced, we will not see such a victory even if we replace the Neanderthals in the next decade or two.

"I have taken the pledge" No support financial or ortherwise for politicians who do not support full equality. That being said; I am still on the hook for many Calif Dems who are mostly on board. Even DINO Dianne made ads against prop 8 while the others hid

only with a label that says "...BUT DIFFERENT."

I invite your attention to the Jim Webb-Macaca contest. Same deal--Jim Webb planted himself amongst the voters of Virginia as a guy who was LIKE a Republican (after all, he worked for REAGAN and used to BE one), only "different." Different in that he planned to caucus with the Dems, because the GOP had gone batshit-racist-crazy. He was also "different" in that he wasn't stupid like Macaca, but that's a story for another day!

It's rarely a SCREAMING liberal who replaces a slight-right-but-often-centrist moderate, which is what Arlen is. It's usually someone who stands just a notch over on the issues who is even competitive--and that's where Sestak is trying to position himself.

When people say they want change, the truth is, they want INCREMENTAL change. Not scary change. At least that's what the election process demonstrates, more times than not. There's always an exception to prove the rule.

All that said, I think Sestak has a very tough row to hoe. Unless something dramatic happens, like say, Arlen getting sick and dropping out, I think it will be a miracle if Sestak wins that seat. I do know he wants it--and that letter you got from him shows how carefully he is calibrating his positions to win it.

To preempt anyone who suggests I don't like the guy (because I am theorizing that he will have a hard time winning PA SENATE), all I have to say is just hush. I've met him, he's a fine fellah with a good mind. I just think he has an uphill battle, made worse because he doesn't have the backing of the party.

I'm not seeking your input on my posts.

You've pulled that "awareness" straight out of your imaginative ass, Toasterlad.

I am in favor of FULL EQUALITY for ALL CITIZENS. In fact, I'd like to see an inclusive Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution passed.

But thanks for playing. Do you feel better, now, doing that little "Hit and Snark" routine, even when your assertion is complete and total horsehit?

I really don't give a good goddamn if you're "seeking input" or not, either. You post on a public forum, you gotta take it from all comers. That's how it works.

You don't want my "input," go on and hit the IGNORE button--that solves your problem, eh? The electronic equivalent of LALALALALALALA I can't HEEEEAR YOU!!

Sheesh. Grow up. Stop being such a "fact-free" scold, "thank you."

Phase two of the "hurry up and wait" for gays.

First it was, "but it's only a hundred days." Now it's, " he has an up hill battle."

LOL.

I'm dreaming that pols will actually run on principles of right and wrong.

Let's all just call it what it is - political expediency. As predicted months ago. Now it's the mid - terms. :rofl:

edit:typo

defending discrimination due to his enlightened faith. If marriage is a church issue, why does the State remarry divorced Catholics, in defiance of the church, whose issue it is to deal with? Hypocritical fancy talking bigots are still bigots.

same old BS, but thanks for writing him

I heard him speak at Philly pride; he was very firey and loud about equality, etc., but he didn't make his position clear re: marriage. I wrote to him to give him a chance to surprise me; sadly, he did not. Such a shame; I really like him, otherwise.

I think if we needed his vote, it could be arranged. It is the only thing he could say in PA.

Then why is the government involved at all?

to duck the issue, and use religion as a cover for his own cowardice. Maybe he needs to be refreshed on the thousands of rights granted to any couple that is married in the eyes of the STATE & FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS.

Something to consider... with all due respect.

that he'd work night and day in an effort to overturn it.

Why is he repeating Repug talking points?

... that it will drive bigots absolutely fucking nuts. They need to be slapped down and their noses rubbed in it.