Relatively pleased about today's vote

By a vote of 237-180, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill adding lgbts to categories of protected classes under national hate crimes legislation.

President Bush has threatened to veto this bill.

I am very happy about the first situation and not at all displeased (nor rather shocked) by the second situation.

Let's be real: The only reason why so many opposed this legislation was because lgbts were included. That is the single reason for all of the controversy, opposition, and lies.

The anti-gay industry believes that anything that positvely affects gays and lesbians is something they should oppose, whether it be hate crimes legislation or gay/straight clubs in high schools.

Unfortunately there is a large group of people willing to blindly believe their accusations or pass along their lies.

This is witnessed through the flurry of last minute calls to legislative offices by people claiming that this legislation will curtail free speech, even though this notion was not true.

And let's not forget our "commander guy-in chief."

George Bush is a piss poor president who got us into a bad situation in Iraq. His approval rating is low and his administration is rife with scandal from the Attorney General to his adviser Karl Rove.

He has no choice in the matter but to act in a way that will appeal to his base.

But please note that in his statement threatening to veto the legislation, he did not mention any accusation regarding free speech, jailing pastors, weird sexual hang-ups; several things that the anti-gay industry trumpeted as an excuse to oppose hate crimes legislation.

Nor did their lies make any dent with the Congressional support that the legislation had, which means that all James Dobson, Lou Sheldon, Andrea Lafferty and company succeed in doing was to demonstrate how much they are willing to lie.

To paraphrase a character in the movie Anne of A Thousand Days, just how long can they use the "nasty, filthy, diseased homosexual" excuse before it comes a habit for them?

And seeing that their lies and hysterical attempts to stop hate crimes legislation played out to a larger audience this time, how long will it be before Americans see them as the hysterical fear mongerers that they are?

So I look at what happened today as a pivotal victory in a huge war and I would ask that those wanting lgbt equality not to get upset or frustrated at the threat of a Bush veto.

I read various anti-gay industry press releases congratulating and thanking Bush on his threat to veto the hate crimes bill. I think they are too quickly celebrating.

If Bush does veto this bill, they have won a Pyrrhic victory, that is if they want to call it a victory at all.

I say we work to give them more of these "victories."

Let's not stop pushing for what is ours.

On to the Senate hate crimes legislation and then to ENDA!