Gay rights law needs a few heroes

[kweerwolf]

They've already proven their courage. They've sat down with an interviewer and recounted how a co-worker or a restaurant owner or a landlord made their lives miserable simply because they were perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

But for all they've already done to help keep Maine's new equal rights statute on the books come Nov. 8, the 48 victims of discrimination cited in last week's first-of-its-kind study by the University of Southern Maine's Center for the Prevention of Hate and Violence should take one more step to ensure that all of Maine feels their pain.

They should come forward. They should drop their anonymity like a piece of excess baggage, stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the microphones and explain, once and for all, what it's like to live in a state where your sexual orientation can indeed get you fired or evicted or . . . worse.

And in doing so, these 48 brave souls just might knock the evangelical wind out of The Christian Civic League of Maine's Michael Heath, who harrumphed in his daily online newspaper last week that "there is simply no evidence provided in the report that any of the claims are true."

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/nemitz/051023nemitz.shtml