From: WillNich@aol.com
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 10:28:25 EDT
Subject: Heartfelt Letter from a Frightened Resident of Henderson, Ky.

To the Henderson (Kentucky) Human Relations Commission

Dear Human Relations Commission Members,

Thank you for being there!

  As a gay person, I know what it is like to live as a minority.  But I have 
never felt so threatened as a minority as I did this past Monday evening at 
the Henderson Human Relations Commission meeting/American Family Association 
rally.  I had never in my life been so uncomfortable in any group of people.
  I felt verbally attacked and violated.  I felt every aspect of my identity 
as a human being dragged out in public, held up with scorn and contempt, 
misinterpreted, insulted, laughed at and condemned.  They generalized and 
attacked everything from their assumptions about my sexuality and health 
status to my spirituality, from where I live to what my income level is, from 
my choice of family to how I socialize with my friends, and more.  And the 
worse part about it was that they were all wrong!  Nothing any of them said 
correctly describes me or my long-term committed relationship, or my caring 
household and precious extended family, or my faithful friends or the loving 
church community and places of employment where I am graciously accepted for 
who I am and my God-given talents appreciated.
  Every time the crowd shouted and waved their "vote no" signs in the air, I 
felt as if they were waving them in my face and shouting "no" to me, "no" to 
my freedom, "no" to my rights to partake of the basic services and benefits 
of being a citizen of this society.  In many of their faces and words they 
were even saying "no" to my very life that as far as they were concerned, I 
should not even exist as the person I am.  In fact, a man in the crowd said 
to one of my friends there that he thought gay people should all be shot, and 
when questioned about it later, he said he was not joking (this "threat" of 
violence was reported to the proper authorities).
  Even though I was near the back of the standing-room only crowd, I found 
myself standing on tiptoes straining to see faces of some of the human 
relations commissioners, searching for a sign of compassion, a glimpse of 
hope, a facial expressing indicating rational, fair assessment of the ironies 
of that meeting.  That meeting demonstrates exactly why we have a Bill of 
Rights and civil rights ordinances and human relations commissions: to give 
hope to all minorities, and to help protect those people in our society whose 
rights would otherwise be trampled upon by the over-zealous bias of some 
within the majority.   This is exactly why we do need a fairness ordinance in 
Henderson.
  Again, thank you for being there, and for helping protect the basic rights 
of all of us.

Sincerely,

Neal Biggers