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Tell your senator liberty is not just for the wealthy: Increase public defense funding

Every Montanan has a right to a fair trial with an attorney who has the ability to defend his rights but the Office of the Public Defender doesn’t have the funding necessary to uphold that right.

Montana’s public defenders are representing more defendants than is recommended by the American Bar Association, and don’t have the same access to investigators and expert witnesses that is provided to prosecutors.

When adequate counsel is not provided to poor defendants, individual liberty goes from being a right to a commodity available only to those who can afford it. There should not be two tiers of justice – one for those of means and one for those without.

Tell your senator it’s time to uphold Montana’s constitutional mandate to provide defense counsel to those who cannot afford it. Fund the Office of the Public Defender at the level it needs to do so.

Tell your representative it's time to take Montana's "deviate sexual conduct" law off books

Despite being declared unconstitutional more than a decade ago by Montana's Supreme Court, through the ACLU's 1997 case Gryczan v. Montana, and in 2003 by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the Montana law calling for gay men and lesbian women to serve 10 years in prison and pay up to $50,000 in fines has remained on the books.

It’s beyond offensive. We need you to tell your Montana representative that you won’t stand for it any longer.

The 2013 Legislature has a chance to make things right. Senate Bill 107 would revise the deviate sexual conduct law and show Montana’s gay and lesbian residents that we value them and their relationships. It's passed in the Senate. Now we must make sure it passes in the House of Representatives.

Government has absolutely no place in our bedrooms and discrimination has absolutely no place in Montana.

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