R002478
Wednesday, March 20, 2002 2:02 PM
I hope you feel good about yourselves
To whom it may concern:
It has recently come to my attention that in your eyes, my natural-born
citizenship in this country means less to you than that of a fetus or an
illegal alien. Your blatant and horrendous discrimination of the LGBT
community in regards to your fund benefits both outrage and appall me.
It's nice to know you're perfectly willing to overlook federal law and
provide benefits to families of illegal aliens without punishing them,
nor fining their employers for illegally employing them, yet you refuse
to compensate the families and partners of gay and lesbian victims,
people who were damaged emotionally and economically every bit as much
as the many other victims of the tragedy. Above all, lesbians and gays
are humans, something you're very quick to forget.
It is clear you have not considered all of the heroes of the terrible
9-11 attacks. For example, consider , a gay man who was
among the small group to bring down United Flight 93 over Pennsylvania.
Without this group and this man who happened to be gay, that plane would
have crashed somewhere even more devastating, thought to be the US
Capitol building, killing countless more innocent people. Also, consider
, also a gay
man. While others fled, donned his helmet and raced towards
the burning towers to give last rites to already-downed firemen. , killed by a piece of falling debris, also gave his life to aid
others. Perhaps you might also take into account the countless other gay
victims of the attacks, such as the of the plane that crashed
into the .
However, you have obviously not taken these heroes and victims into
consideration, as your staunch anti-gay bias prevails. You remain
unwilling to acknowledge lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other
such minority Americans. You deny the existence of the pain these
victims families are feeling by refusing to compensate their partners,
lowering them to less than human status. Kenneth Feinberg implied on NBC
that it's really a legal issue, stating, "I can't get into that local
battle." This, however, is an obvious lie. Kenneth Feinberg and Attorney
General John Ashcroft have already made it clear law does not matter
regarding this fund, whether federal or state, by providing benefits to
families of illegal aliens and not fining their employers. While I
applaud this generous decision, I lambaste and condemn your bigotry,
hypocrisy, and lies.
How can you in good conscience be so prejudiced in light of such a
terrible disaster? Your narrow-mindedness absolutely astounds me. Hasn't
this country already seen what poor treatment of others leads to? Hasn't
this country had enough hatred already, even from September 11th alone?
Why must you continue promoting hatred and bigotry while ironically
trying to heal the wounds opened by the very same? It is times like this
and people like you that are prone to making me ashamed to be an
American. Congratulations on being ignorant, bigoted hatemongers. I hope
you feel good about yourselves and the intolerance you spread, not even
having the decency to halt your prejudice for the victims of a national
tragedy. I am disgusted and revolted by your attitude and your actions.
Sincerely,
Individual Comment
Rochester, NY