Well, the Republicans failed to pass the anti-marriage amendment to the United States Constitution today, but just barely, and they got a good number of right wing Democrats, including Tennessee’s aspiring Senate candidate, Harold Ford Jr., to help them out. We’ll focus on those 34 turncoat Democrats later, but for now I want to provide an update on what I reported this morning - an ideological link between support for Jim Crow laws and support for the Republicans’ anti-marriage amendment to the Constitution.

As I wrote this morning, 82 percent of the Republican representatives who voted in opposition to the renewal of the Voting Rights Act (without which the Jim Crow oppression of African-Americans in the South would still be intact) also co-sponsored the right wing amendment to restrict marriage rights across the United States. Well, with the actual vote now recorded, that link is even stronger. 93.9 percent of those who voted against the Voting Rights Act also voted in favor of the Republican anti-marriage amendment.

Only two of the anti-Voting Rights Act representatives didn’t vote for this gay bashing amendment, and one of them, Sam Johnson, simply failed to show up. Of this pro-Jim Crow group, only Representative Ron Paul bucked the trend and voted against the amendment to kill all hopes of marriage equality.

The link between racism and bigotry based on sexual orientation is firm. Find yourself a racist and chances are that you will have found someone who hates gays, lesbians and bisexuals too.