I applaud individuals like Republican DC Councilmember David Catania, and groups like the Log Cabin Republicans, for finally seeing the light about the President they supported so heartily. But I also remember their proudly laying claim to supplying the million votes that enabled the Supreme Court to elect him.

So let us not make them the heroes of our fight for civil rights just yet. I am waiting for David Catania to request the return of his money from the President and to ask those who he got to contribute the other $80,000 he raised to do the same. I am waiting for Log Cabin to start the effort to defeat Marilyn Musgrove (R-CO), who is introducing the amendment and Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) who in his leadership position is calling for the passage of this amendment. Their anger must go further and be focused on more than just the President, who has yet to even endorse the specific language they are proposing in this amendment.

It took a long time for many gay Republicans to figure out that President Bush was not going to support our fight for civil and human rights. And even worse than that, he would do everything he could to make sure we didn’t get them. They didn’t get the hint when Congressman Kolbe (R-AZ) wasn’t allowed to mention that he was gay when he spoke at the last Bush run Republican Convention. They didn’t get the hint when Bush sent to the hill candidates for federal judgeships that opposed gay rights and then named them anyway as recess appointments when he couldn’t get them through the Senate. They didn’t get the hint when he went proudly to speak at Bob Jones University during the last campaign. They didn’t get the hint when he wouldn’t speak out against Rick Santorum when he compared our relationships to incest. They didn’t get the hint when his recent appointee to head the office of U.S. Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, removed the references to sexual orientation on his office’s web site and is questioning whether federal law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in federal hiring.

I am pleased and thankful that gay Republicans will join with all decent and thoughtful people who will fight to ensure that we will never enshrine any form of discrimination in our constitution. But it is a fight we should not have to fight. We will be expending our resources and energy on fighting an issue that appalls even true conservatives. I can imagine the outrage of Barry Goldwater if he were alive today and watching his beloved Republican Party leading the fight to turn the federal government into our cultural and bedroom police force.

Our community must fight this abomination of an amendment, and all who join that fight are welcome. Our community and those who support us, is truly the big tent that both the Republican and Democratic parties claim to be. We are republican, democrat, independent, conservative, liberal, black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, bi, transgender, straight, single and now even married. We are America in its finest form of political, cultural and ethnic diversity. What we must ask of this polyglot of supporters is that each and every individual fights bigotry and hatred in all its forms and not just selectively. We may fight over what we want the term to be, marriage or civil union, but we must be united that whatever the term, it grants us all the rights and responsibilities, contained in nearly 1000 federal statutes, that are given to everyone else in a civilly recognized union. What will allow us to win this fight are the sentiments of people like James and Irene Smith of South Carolina, whose email reached the desk of Rep. Altman (R-Charleston) an opponent of gay marriage, who is in his own third marriage. "The institution of marriage doesn’t need to be protected from loving caring South Carolinians like our son and his partner, it needs protection from demagogues and hypocrites like John Graham Altman III who spew bigotry and who have more ex-spouses than they have clean underwear."

There must be no question as well, that our fight for these rights, and against what we should call "the discrimination amendment," should not keep us from fighting for all the other rights that we have yet to secure. A marriage license will not guarantee us jobs or housing, will not add sexual orientation to the hate crimes act, or guarantee our rights to adopt or fight in the military. We must ensure that we not only speak out against and defeat those who would enshrine discrimination into the constitution, but all those who would keep us from living as full and equal members of society in every way.