Take immediate action: Support pro-equality amendment to faith-based bill

[Ian David]

From: Human Rights Campaign <[e-mail]>


Take Action on the Scott Amendment.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on H.R. 27,
"The Job Training Improvement Act" this week. This is the first
vote on the faith-based initiative and a crucial vote for the
109th congress. It would be an unjustified assault on civil
rights protections in federally funded job training programs.

Click below to tell your representative that you don't want
taxpayers to subsidize religious discrimination in
publicly-funded job training programs.

You can take action on this alert via the web at:
http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/scottamendment/37d67b4a5jnxnd

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/scottamendment/forward/37d67b4a5jnxnd

We encourage you to take action by March 31, 2005

Tell your Rep. to Support the Scott Amendment!

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:
If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this
alert by going to the following URL:

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/scottamendment/37d67b4a5jnxnd

Your letter will be addressed and sent to:
Your Congressperson

----THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT IN YOUR NAME----
Dear ,

As your constituent and someone who supports civil rights
protections, I urge support for the Scott Amendment to the Job
Training Improvement Act (HR 27) in order to protect workers
against religious discrimination in federally-funded job
training programs. This Amendment would restore current law and
continue to protect critical civil rights protections thus
prevent the alteration of a non discrimination policy that has
been in place since it was signed into law by President Ronald
Reagan. Passing this bill without such amendment will result in
religious organizations being able use federal money to
discriminate based on religion under this Act even when engaging
in purely secular job training endeavors.

Absent the adoption of a civil rights amendment on the House
floor, I urge you to vote "No" on final passage of H.R. 27.

The 1998 Workforce Investment Act consolidated earlier
job-training programs and simply recodified the
nondiscrimination provision included in the original Job
Training Partnership Act of 1982. The 1998 legislation, which
included this nondiscrimination provision, received strong
bipartisan support from both the House and Senate at the time of
its passage in the 105th Congress. Since its inclusion in the
1982 JTPA, it has enjoyed bipartisan support. This twenty-one
year old provision has worked well since the inception of this
program, allowing religious organizations to provide
government-funded services while maintaining America's bedrock
commitment to protecting both civil rights and religious
liberty.

I strongly urge you to support the Scott Amendment and oppose
the unjustified rollback of civil rights protections currently
found in H.R. 27. I believe that tax payers should never fund
discrimination and urge your support in efforts to restore these
important protections.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.

----END OF LETTER TO BE SENT----

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for
Human Rights Campaign at:

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/actioncenter/join.html?r=qda2vOE1azMwE

[peacebird]

1. done. (bump!) Thanks for the heads up and the links!

[intheflow]

2. Already signed it.

But it's definately worth a kick. :kick:

[blogactive]

3. I often wonder

I often wonder...do these things ever change votes?

[Ian David]

4. Yes, they do, actually. For better or worse

When the Mass. legislature introduced a bill to create a constitutional ban of gay marriage, some successfully introduced an amendment to that bill which would create civil unions.

This did two things:

1) It won-over politicians who thought this was a "fair compromise."

2) It caused a handful of the most anti-gay politicians to vote against it, because they didn't want even civil unions.

And now, The Human Rights Campaign wants to amend the pResident's social security plan to include SS rights for same-sex couples. If successful, this could "poison the well" for those who hate gays more than they hate social security.

We're beginning to take a page from the Repugnican play-book and add amendments to bills that the opposition finds repellent.