The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
In February, you made a powerful statement about the law.
Invoking guarantees enshrined in the Constitution, you and the Attorney General determined that federal discrimination against gay and lesbian couples in marriage is unconstitutional. Thank you for taking a principled stance and an important step toward equal protection under the law for all Americans.
Today we ask you to take the next step and join the majority of Americans who support allowing loving and committed gay and lesbian couples to legally marry.
Mr. President, marriage matters. In law, in love, in life, marriage says “we are family” in a way that nothing else does. Marriage is the coming together of two lives, marked by a public promise of love and responsibility in front of friends and family. And marriage brings not only public respect and personal significance, but also a safety net of legal protections, rights, and responsibilities for which there is no substitute.
Like so many Americans, you have spoken of your personal journey toward support for the freedom to marry. You have talked about the gay and lesbian people in your life, their commitment to each other and care for their kids, and their families that aren’t so different from any other family.
We ask you now for your leadership on ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, an exclusion that harms millions of Americans each day. Whether to end discrimination in marriage is a question America has faced before, and faces again today. With so many Americans talking it through in heartfelt conversations, it is a question that calls for clarity from the President.
You can offer hope to millions of young gay and lesbian Americans who are facing discrimination. You can tell them that their future is bright, that they, too, will be able to grow up and marry the person that they love, that the pursuit of happiness truly belongs to all of us. You can put government on the side of those seeking to care for their loved ones, instead of those standing in their way. You can affirm that for all of us, gay or non-gay, love is love and commitment counts – and that we Americans should treat others as we all want to be treated.
Mr. President, the time to end exclusion from marriage is now. We ask you to complete your journey and join us and the majority of Americans who support the freedom to marry.
Sincerely,
Brendon Ayanbadejo
Julian Bond
Helen Fabela Chavez
Ellen & Portia DeGeneres
Jack Dorsey
Melissa Etheridge
Scott Fujita
David Geffen
Anne Hathaway
Chris Hughes & Sean Eldridge
Tony Kushner & Mark Harris
Jane Lynch & Lara Embry
Eric McCormack
Rev. Peter Morales
Mya
Sean Parker
Mark Pincus
Frank Selvaggi & Bill Shea
Martin Sheen
Rev. William Sinkford
Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner
Zach Wahls
Rufus Wainwright
Evan Wolfson
Bob & Suzanne Wright
(http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pages/letter)
NEW YORK — Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, NFL stars, and business, clergy and civil rights leaders launched Freedom to Marry‘s “Say I Do” campaign today urging President Obama to support the freedom to marry for gay and lesbian couples.
“My wife and I were married in May of 2010, and I can say without a doubt that marriage matters,” Emmy Award winning actor Jane Lynch said. “As President Obama continues his journey toward recognizing our right to equal taxation, protection and dignity under the law, I encourage him to listen to gay and lesbian couples and families so he can better understand how marriage equality affects us all.”
Freedom to Marry’s “Say I Do” campaign kicks off with a letter to the president signed by a diverse set of VIPs and open to Americans from every walk of life to sign. The letter calls for “clarity from the President” and urges him to “join us and the majority of Americans who support the freedom to marry.”
The letter will be delivered to the White House by same-sex couples and families later this spring.
“Freedom to Marry is proud that such a diverse and talented group of people is joining us to ask the President to ‘Say I Do’ to loving, committed gay and lesbian couples who want to marry,” said Marc Solomon, National Campaign Director for Freedom to Marry.
“We appreciate the President’s journey towards supporting the freedom to marry and the concrete steps he’s taken along the way. Now we call on him to complete that journey on the side of fairness for gay and lesbian Americans and their families.”
Signers to the letter include actors Anne Hathaway, Jane Lynch, Eric McCormack, Martin Sheen and Lily Tomlin; television host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia DeGeneres; musicians Melissa Etheridge, Mya, and Rufus Wainwright.
Also, high-tech entrepreneurs Jack Dorsey (creator of Twitter), Chris Hughes (co-founder of Facebook), Sean Parker (co-founder of Napster), and Mark Pincus (co-founder of Zynga); media/entertainment execs David Geffen (co-founder of Dreamworks SKG) and Bob Wright (former chairman and CEO of NBC Universal).
Also signing were NFL players Brendon Ayanbadejo and Scott Fujita; playwright Tony Kushner; civil rights icons Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus, NAACP, and Helen Fabela Chavez (widow of Cesar Chavez and founder of Cesar E. Chavez Foundation); and the Rev. Peter Morales (president, Unitarian Universalist Association).
To see this article visit:http://sdgln.com/news/2011/03/14/hollywood-stars-silicon-valley-execs-nfl-stars-urge-president-support-gay-marriage
From this link you will be able to link through to sign the letter as well.
This blogger loves all the people coming together to STAND UP STRONG because these courageous people are making the world a better place for my child and so many LGBT kids like him!
Standing Up Strong 