GAY ACTIVIST/SENATE CANDIDATE CHALLENGES HAROLD FORD JR. TO DEBATE

Dear Rep. Harold Ford Jr:

Like many of your former supporters, I’ve been dismayed by your recent attacks on the civil rights of gays and lesbians, and I have a few questions I would like for you to answer in a public forum to explain your position of the rights of LGBT people.

(1.) Do you believe that gays and lesbians should have ALL of the SAME civil rights as every American?

(2.) Do you agree with civil rights leaders Rep. John Lewis, Rev. Joseph Lowery, and Coretta Scott King, among many others, that marriage is a civil right and that gays and lesbians should have all the rights of civil marriage?

(3.) Do you agree with the Platform of the Democratic Party that:

"We Support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families."

“We repudiate Bush's divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing the "Federal Marriage Amendment."

(4.) Why did you cross party lines in 2004 and 2006 to vote with REPUBLICANS and GEORGE BUSH to write discrimination against gays and lesbians into the U.S. Constitution, when the Democratic Party Presidential Nominees were campaigning AGAINST this anti-marriage Republican Amendment?

(5.) Do you agree with these statements from Howard Dean, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee:
“As Democrats, we believe that every American has a right to equal protection under the law and to live in dignity. And we respect the right of every family to live in dignity with equal rights, responsibilities and protections under the law.”
“The Constitution was written to guarantee basic rights to all Americans, not deny them to some...The GOP touts “family values,” Democrats value all families.”

(6.) Do you take a more conservative position than Republican Sen. John McCain, who does not support the Federal Marriage Amendment on the grounds that it infringes on “states rights”? If a conservative Republican can be opposed to “gay marriage” and the FMA, why can’t you? Why are you going to the RIGHT of John McCain?

(7.) Since civil marriage is a legal institution, and separate from the religious institution of marriage and religious beliefs about marrage, please specify why gay and lesbian couple should be denied the same legal rights of civil marriage as heterosexual couples WITHOUT REFERING TO RELIGION, GOD OR THE BIBLE.