Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 December 2003 — Page 7

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2003

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE A7

By JAY LINDSAY

Comparisons between civil rights, gay marriage upset some Blacks

BOSTON (AP) — Conservative Blacks in the United States are objecting to recent comparisons between the gay marriage and the 1960s civil rights movement, which fought segregation against Blacks, arguing that sexual orientation is a choice. Links between the two struggles have been made since Massachusetts’ highest court ruled last week that the state constitution guarantees gay couples the right to marry. The court cited landmark laws that struck bans on interracial marriage.

But the Rev. Talbert Swan II marriage, said the two struggles are not simi- When asked if they favored lar because Blacks were lynched, legal agreements with many of denied property rights and de- the same rights as marriage, 51 dared inhuman. percent of Blacks were op“Homosexuality is a chosen posed, lifestyle,” he said. “I could not Michael Adams, an attorney choose the color of my skin.... For with the gay advocacy legal group me to ride down the street and get Lambda Legal, said polls show profiled just because of my skin Blacks support gays in other arcolor is something a homosexual eas > suc h as workplace equality, will never go through.” Strong conservative religious valA poll released by the Pew ues that predominate in the Black Research Center for the People community may explain the divide the Press on Nov. 18, the sion, hesaid. day of the ruling, indicated 60 He added there are key difpercent of Blacks opposed gay ferences in the two movements,

including slavery ami forced segregation, which ga\s never experienced. But the groups have seen similar discrimination based on deeply held

prejudices, he said.

Mychal Massie, a conservative columnist and member of Pro ject 21, a Washington-based political alliance of conservative Blacks, said the comparisons aren't valid. “It is an outrage to align something so offensive as this with the struggle of a fallen man, a great man such its Martin Luther King," said Massie, who writes for

WorldNetDailv.com.

''The whole thing bespeaks of something much deeper and more insidious than we just want to get married," he said. “They want to change the entire social order." Alvin Williams, president and CKO of the conservative. Wash-ington-based Black America’s Political Action Committee, said the gay marriage issue looks like an equal rights issue at first, but becomes a 'special rights" issue after closer examination because it’s about behavior, not ethnicity. Not everyone objects to the. comparison, however. In a recent

Democratic presidential debate. Black candidates Carol Moseley Braun and the Rev. Al Sharpton declared support for gay marriage. Bothcomparcd it to past discrimination against Blacks. The Rev. William Sinkford, a Black man who is president ofthe Unitarian Universalist Association, said the struggle for gay civil rights is this generation’s great challenge, just as equality for Blacks was the last generation’s. “I think there’s very little to be gained by trying to create a hierarchy of oppression," Sinkford said.

READERS RESPOND

Exposing the radical Republican game plan

Drniun Ufjie riflht “In many respects, House DIUVVII VIO« llljlll Bjjj 1001 and Senate Bill 1 are Mr. Amos Brown III was abso- a like, which means that Hoolutely correct when he pointed si ers can look forward to lawout the county clerk’s “ineptitude” makers enacting some propfor her position. She should re- erty tax reforms now, rather sign or be fired for her actions, than waiting until the probThe new plan was too costly. Who lems that we already have seen is going to pay for it? The taxpay- become even worse, Bauer ers said. “However, the Senate bill Pearlie L. Turner does nothing to address the problems of homeowners in general, and people who own ManKS to IhO older homes in particular. , There is nothing to help farmRarnrifor ers or sen * or citizens. IICvUlUvl “The tax restructuring enThankyouforcoveringthe 12th acted in 2002 provided around Annual Heartland Film Festival. $800 million in property tax Your support continues to help relief, with two-thirds of that Heartland fulfill its mission of amount going toward busihonoring Truly Moving Pictures nesses in Indiana, Bauer conas well as uplift the community tinued. “House Bill 1001 prowith inspiring stories of hope. v ides another $600 million in Your time, effort and enthusiasm tax relief this time, with twohave truly made a difference. I thirds of the cuts benefiting hope Heartland will continue to homeowners. Through the deprovide uplifting and entertain- ductions contained in the House ing stories for your readers. Bill, homeowners will see a Lisa Dudeck larger share of tax relief than

before.”

a « House Bill 1001 includes inMlDPOrt WaS creases in the standard homestead r deduction, creation of new deannrAriatPffl ductions to benefit owners of v wlfllvU homes that are more than SOyears Visiting Nurse Service Inc., a ^l^’ an( l *Be creation of a new nonprofit United Way health care farmstead deduction to help agency, would like to thank The owners of agricultural land. Both Recorder for the support of the H° use Bill 1001 and Senate Bill 1 2003 Bugbuster Flu and Pneu- contain provisions protecting monia Shot Campaign. renters frcSm the impact of propYour paper included the article ert y tax increases passed on by entitled “Visiting Nurse Service their landlords, but the Senate Inc. Needs Volunteers.” It takes a BiH excludes low-income rental great many volunteers to make housing relief, our clinics run smoothly, so we To Bauer and other House appreciate you getting the word Democrats, the reforms conout about this need. tained in House Bill 1001 will Again I am truly grateful to help make sure that you. homeowners get an equitable Jeannie Keating sha re of the property tax relief Media Coordinator promised by lawmakers to blunt the impact of the court-ordered

property reassessment. “If the Legislature enacts

House Bill 1001 now, that legislation will combine with the 2002 tax restructuring to re-

Whilethe IndianaSenate’sver- duce homeowners’ property sion of property tax relief does ^. axe * b y more than $636 miladdress some pressing concerns, l*°n, he added. “Businesses will Indiana House Speaker B. Patrick see their property taxes cut by Bauer, D-South Bend, said that more than $ 568 million, and the legislation fails to give the farms wi H have property taxes property tax relief demanded by reduced by nearly $100 million.

Bauer noted that both mea-

ers . sures do contain deadline exten-

Where's the help for

homeowners?

Pi

Shortly after senators passed sions that enable taxpayers to file Senate Bill 1, BaUer said the mea- fo r all deductions and credits they sure mirrored House Bill 1001, a are due - The bills also contain property tax fairness plan ap- initiatives that restrict the ability proved last week, but did not pro- °f local units to bank levies and vide similar levels of assistance employ buffers, controls that are for people who own homes and needed to prevent double-digit farms, as well as senior citizens fax increases. The House plan and renters. would enact restrictions more

quickly than the Senate. House Democratic Caucus Bush deserves to be impeached I have joined with the over 250,000 people who have called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Co. at www.VoteToImpeach.org. This campaign, initiated by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, has drafted articles of impeachment for introduction in Congress and is gaining great momentum around the U.S. President Bush lied to the people and to Congress about weapons of mass destruction and the purported “grave and imminent” threat Iraq posed to the U.S. George W. Bush, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have carried out a pre-emptive war of aggression, attacking people who did not threaten the United States and killing and maiming thousands. Their actions violate the U.S. Constitution and the U.N. Charter which prevents countries from waging attack on other countries except as an act of self-defense in response to an imminent threat. It is worth remembering historical precedent. In July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee voted for articles of impeachment for President Nixon for lying to the people and to Congress. Within a month Nixon resigned from office. Nixon’s political demise came less than two years after he won one of the largest landslide electoral victories in U.S. history. The Bush administration and Attorney General John Ashcroft have treated the Bill of Rights with contempt and have sought to roll-back decades of hard won civil rights and rights for working people. This president has claimed for himself the authority' to jail citizens and residents of the United States indefinitely, without any charge against them, without trial and without access to a lawyer. The unilateral actions of the Bush administration in waging and threatening wars of aggression do not serve the interests of the people of the U.S. The billions of dollars being spent on war, taken from the working people of the U.S., are being funneled to the big oil and corporate elite who are Bush’s true constituents. Ngone Aw Sen. Clinton was in Baghdad too Congratulations to New York’s Democratic Sen. Hillary' Clinton. Without any fanfare, she spent a , whole day in Afghanistan, ate Thanksgiving Dinner with the troops, and then traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with Musharraf; then she flew to Baghdad and spent the day touring the city, meeting with civilian leaders, military chiefs and U.S. troops. She hits already visited injured troops (the ones that are ignored by President Bush) at Walter Reed Army Hospital. What a contrast to the hoopla and publicity than accompanied Bush’s latest photo-op - 2.5 hours at the bitse at Baghdad Airport accompanied by White House spokespeople, photographers, and journalists! Angela Bradshaw

By RON WALTERS NNPA In the past, I have >v r i t t e n about the damage that radical Republican conservatives have done to Blacks. In fact, the damage is being inflicted on the democratic process itself. That’s democratic with a small “d." This was evident in the way Republicans marched forward resolutely to impeach President Bill Clinton based on consensual sex and going against broad public opinion. That kind of radicalism continues to poison not only the end product of legislation, but the process by which it is arrived at, with Republican majorities in the House and Senate and a Republican in the White House in control of the political process. This majority control of the governmental process gives awesome pow'er to the Republican Party and raises questions about whether it’s being responsibly exercised. A case in point is the way Republicans handled the passage of the recent Medicare reform legislation. Democrats were denied opportunities to propose amendments to the Medicare bill, as the Republicans met, often in secret committee sessions, to shape the legislation. Then, the bill w'as passed out of committee on a party-line vote and given a restrictive, no amendment rule for floor debate. The Republicans handed over to the Democrats the highly technical, 1,100-page bill, one hour before it was to he considered for the vote, then passed the bill with nearly all Republicans and a few Democrats supporting it. The same formula was followed in the Senate where nine Democrats voted for the bill with almost all Republicans. Traditionally, after both houses of Congress have passed a measure, there is a conference between members ofthe Senate and the House to iron out ditt’er-

ences in the two versions. The conference usually includes members of both parties, but in the case of the Medicare bill. Democrats were largely shut out ofthe process. Even Tom Daschle, Democratic majority leader in the Senate, w ho also voted for the measure, was shut out ofthe conference. The only Democrats they allowed into the conference were Sens. Max Baucus(Montana)andJohn Breaux (Louisiana), both ofwhom have frequently voted for Republican-sponsored legislation in the past. This same scenario of exclusion and changes ofthe rules has been fq]Lowed in passing the Bush tax breaks that largely benefited the rich and an earlier $66 billion appropriation for Iraq. Even on a measure as important as the energy bill, Rep. Henry Waxman of California said, ’’Republicans are talking among themselves.” Bill Wicker ofthe House Energy Committee, said that, ”it is an optical illusion that Democrats are involved.” Although the public may think the same thing happens when Democrats are in power, this is not the case; this distortion ofthe legislative process is unprecedented. Tom Mann, a Brookings Institute scholar, believes that the exclusion and tight control ofthe conference process has been deteriorating for sometime and now ’has reached the point of embarrassment.” A reason given for this is that Republicans feel that their narrow majorities in both the House and Senate forces them to exercise tight control over the process. Mann has observed ‘ the ambition, the focus, the discipline, the unity," with which Republicans have pursued their goal. YOUR VOICE

And their goal, Mann says, is to exercise this tight control over legislation in order to break up Democratic constituencies for various public policies and build Republican constituencies in their place by transferring public resources to private entities. This includes practices such as ’’outsourcing" for such entities as small businesses, providing private contracts to do things that would normally be done hy government employees. They reason that if they can control the structure that is able to privatize enough governmental resources and deliver them to voters who are conservative, suburban and largely white, they can use government to’satisfy their private interests for another generation. Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute goes one further to suggest that they can even ignore public opinion on a given issue, as we have seen, because the structure of conservative Republican government will be in place no matter what. This is a scary, straightforward nationalist project in the use of governmental power and it puts into context what Democrats must do in the coming election season to counter such a project that has long-term objectives that are bent on subordinating the interests of the party and its core constituencies. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, direetor of the African American Leadership Institute in the Academy of Leadership and professor of government and politics at the University of Man land-College Park.

How do you think the city of Indianapolis would have reacted to the recent police beating in Cincinnati?

Henry Smith

Stephen Sims

“1 think the city would go ’‘I’m sure the city would be upcrazy because it’s completely set and might have a march to wrong. If the police were beat protest the poliee brutality.” ing me I would have fought Stephen Sims, back, too." Heim Smith

Donna Proctor "1 don t think the residents of Indianapolis would do any thing. They would sit back and take it Thccity might be upset lor a w hile, but that is as far as their protesting would go Donna Proctor

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