The latest Color of Change email reminds me that the sixth anniversary of Trayvon Martin's death at the hands of wannabe cop George Zimmerman passed last week -- which in turn reminds me that the Sanford, FL police were all set to do nothing about it, until Mr. Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, started a petition on Change.org. Fast-forward over 2.2 million signatures, and Mr. Zimmerman stood trial for Mr. Martin's murder, and though he got off, countless black kids caught in future "wrong" neighborhoods who might have died will now live, as future wannabe cops decide taking the law into their own hands isn't worth becoming the next Most Hated Man in America. Now imagine how difficult it would have been for Ms. Fulton's petition to get traction if your ISP could simply block it, or slow it down, or bombard you with junk news pop-ups before signing it. Well, the FCC's recent anti-net neutrality rule allows your ISP to do all that now. Hence Stop the FCC helps you tell your Congressfolk to vote for H.J.Res. 129/S.J.Res. 52, the "resolution of disapproval" that would overturn the FCC's recent anti-net neutrality rule.
Meanwhile, H.R. 2282, the Equality Act, would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to extend its protections against discrimination to gays and transgenders. That would not only make it illegal to fire good folks or deny them access to credit or housing just because they're gay, but it'd also nullify, in one fell swoop, all those noxious state "religious freedom" laws that allow folks to discriminate because they think their Jesus told them to. So Roots Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to support equality for gays by supporting H.R. 2282. And to those friends or relatives of yours who whine DONT TEH RELIJUZ HAVEZ TEH RIGHTZ TOOZ!!!!!, remind them that your rights don't include running roughshod over other people's rights, and that a Jesus who cares only about making sure you don't get gay cooties on you is no Jesus worth knowing. Of course, the Jesus I know is worth knowing -- and couldn't possibly favor discriminating against folks who are gay because God made them that way.
Finally, the President's arbitrary deadline for ending protections for certain immigrants brought here as children under the DACA program officially passed two days ago. Two federal courts have issued injunctions preventing the Administration from ending DACA, and the Supreme Court has lately decided to let those injunctions stand, but that doesn't mean the Administration hasn't done these immigrants any harm -- some 20,000 DACA recipients have already lost their protections and can't get them back, and many of the rest are understandably hesitant about going through the process again when they can't be sure it'll do them any good. Just to review: this isn't about "chain migration," yet another formerly innocuous term right-wingers have tried to turn into a cuss word merely by repeating it with a sneer -- this is about not being cruel to people who had literally no choice in coming to America, and who wouldn't recognize the country to which we'd deport them back. Hence the Friends Committee on National Legislation helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 3440/S. 1615, the DREAM Act.
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