wingnuts go after AFL-CIO

It seems that a large coalition of right wing hate-mongersa group of "pro family activists" has decided to threaten the AFL-CIO for the Fed's support of gay rights. The Letter (pdf) addressed to John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO, repeats the standard stuff about polls showing that 130% of all Americans would rather be nibbled to death by hamsters than support gay marriage, and so on. It goes on to say the assorted wingnut grpups will "To the best of our ability and resources, inform and educate union members all across America regarding" the various legal ways to get the benefits of union organizing without having to pay union dues, presumably assuming that the AFL-CIO will rescind their anti-hate March 3 resolution of "Support for the Full Inclusion and Equal Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People in the Workplace".

What the wingnuts are ignoring is that the unions have finally begun to take the "An injury to one is an injury to all" slogan seriously.

The AFL-CIO recognizes that families come in all shapes and sizes. As our families change, our union contracts also change. For more than a generation, unions have negotiated domestic partner benefits for the workers they represent, which provide crucial access to health care, family and medical leave, and other benefits for our heterosexual families and seniors as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families.

The Federal Marriage Act and its state counterparts threaten the rights of working people by creating an environment across the nation that is hostile to the rights of domestic partners, regardless of their sexual orientation. Unions will have an increasingly difficult time making gains in domestic partner benefits, and preserving those benefits that they have already won at the table.

Ironically, despite the sturm und drang about the AFL-CIO's support for gay marriage, the resolution (which is on the last two pages of the PDF linked above) never actually says "we oppose the FMA".

Frankly, to a movement that fights the world's biggest corporations on a daily basis, the temper tantrum of a few wanna-be theocrats does not seem like much of a threat.

(Via Americablog)