By a vote of 224 – 200, the U.S. House just adopted the Samuel David Cheney gay-bashing amendment today. The Bush/Cheney administration announced that it would veto the DC appropriations bill if it did not include an amendment banning the use of federal funds for D.C.’s partner registry law (something that has never happened anyway). Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA, where else?), who is famous for challenging newly-elected Muslim-American Rep. Keith Ellison’s use of the Koran at his swearing in, took up the cause for Bush and the rightwingers. 40 Democrats voted with the gay-bashing GOP majority. 12 Republicans voted the right way. So while a number of Democrats helped the gay-bashers, it was still the Republicans who promoted this hate and who got it passed. The GOP tried to make this a debate about gay marriage, which it wasn’t. It was about more mundane and human things like letting partners make hospital visits when one is having a baby, as the vice president’s lesbian daughter Mary Cheney recently did. Then again, if we follow the GOP logic, that this was a vote on gay marriage, then the pro-marriage-equality forces got 200 votes today, including a number of Republicans. And that’s more than any federal gay-marriage vote to date.
We look forward to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid killing this amendment in conference.
