OMG! Health Care Crusaders, Are You Inspired??

It's deadline day in the New York State Senate. The debate on uncleared legislation goes into the wee hours of the morning. His fellow NY State Senators had enough votes to kill everything HIV+ Senator Tom Duane of Queens brought up, and so they did, one by one. The uncomfortable rejections are being dealt to Senator Duane's typically just-but-unpopular legislation to help unpopular kinds people live with dignity. The Senators are working deals to defeat his proposals by votes like 24 aye/23 nay/1 abstain, spreading the burden of tarnishing the voting records with advocacy groups that "rate" politicians based on their voting record. They try to go down as having been "for" something while being assured it would be defeated and they wouldn't have to face any wrath from their bigoted constituents, while minimizing wrath from advocacy groups. There is probably no bill where "voting record" maneuvering is not done. The chamber has this system going pretty well, chatting on their cell phones and joyfully dibbying up their votes and defeating everything he proposed by just so. It's July 17, 2009, and people with HIV/AIDS in New York are still denied access to low rent. His proposal to end this injustice is about to go down like all his others. But after this speech, the cell phones are put down, politics are set aside, an injustice is addressed, and he wins a vote, 49-1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyP9eLrvcAA&feature=player_embedded