As your constituent I strongly urge you to oppose the Helms amendment to the Education Bill (S.1), which would deny all Federal education funding to any school that has been found to “discriminate” against the Boy Scouts or any other youth group that denies membership to gays and lesbians.
Aside from being politically divisive and unrelated to the underlying bill, the Helms amendment is completely unnecessary and is a punishment in search of a problem. The use of public school facilities is governed by the First Amendment. The Helms amendment does nothing to further the goals of improving education and serves only as an anti-gay attack. I urge you to oppose this amendment and look forward to hearing your views on this important issue.
