Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. ...

U.S. officials expressed concern in private talks that some parts of the declaration might be problematic in committing the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In numerous states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military. ...

The President (or the President-Elect) won't think you don't love him if you get out in the streets and demonstrate. Sometimes he needs that "pressure" to get Congress's attention and action. When the AFL and CIO asked Roosevelt for what became the Wagner Act, he said "Go in the streets and make me do it." And they did. When Martin Luther King asked Kennedy for the Civil Rights Act, JFK said "I have an election coming up. I can't initiate this Act. Make me do it." So King and his people went to Birmingham and got busy. We all love Obama to pieces, but he might appreciate a little heat from us now and then. Walter Ebmeyer. www.richaredifferent.wordpress.com.

Angry for a Reason

Note: This is the same article DCBlogger links to (why didn't I think of that? at least copy/paste isn't hard)

This is for the benefit of all those who don't think party platforms matter. Below is the text of Hubert Humphrey's speech to the 1948 Democratic National Convention in which he persuaded the party to put civil rights into the platform. Strom Thurmond walked out of the party and ran for President as a third party candidate on a segregationist platform.

Fifteen years later President Kennedy would sign the Civil Rights act and seventeen years later President Johnson would sign the voting rights act. The 1948 Democratic Platform was an important part that process.

Dear Congressman Artur Davis: