gays and lesbians are second-class citizens.

In a 20-14 vote - closer than New York’s, but still definitive - the New Jersey State Senate denied full citizenship to its GLBT residents on Thursday, January 7.

See the New York Times article HERE.

Evidently, even to state senators in the “liberal” Northeast, Constitutional guarantees of equal protection no longer apply to those whose love interests offend the sensibilities of the religious right and traditional religious institutions like the Roman Catholic Church. (After all... re-election is very expensive, and those institutions have deep pockets.)

Despite the fact that the promise of equality is the guiding principle of America, and that separation of Church and State is encapsulated within our most sacred documents, GLBT Americans are evidently subject to a religious test for citizenship. When did we become a theocracy?

It wasn’t all that long ago - I remember clearly - when black Americans were denied basic rights of citizenship; it took the courts, and a principled stand by national leadership, to ensure their right to stand free (and sit wherever they want) among their fellow citizens. Note that it took the threat of economic boycotts to engage lawmakers... and overturn centuries of prejudice, including religious views of those who cited the Bible’s chronicle of slave-holding, before the guarantee of equal protection applied to citizens of color.

The time is right for GLBT Americans to provide proof of our economic clout, by STRIKING NOW and withholding our talents, time and energy from those who seek to exploit us while denying us the compensation of citizenship.

I urge my fellow GLBTs to join in a nationwide boycott of all institutions that deny our rights. STONEWALL AMERICA.