Someone forwarded me a copy of an open letter by Keith Smith, an Oklahoma lobbyist. I wrote to Keith and asked him if I could post it here on dailykos.
I am a gay man who turned 50 this month and for my present I listened to the Republican controlled Oklahoma House debate and pass the most heinous preemptive attack on my rights imaginable. For those of you who are "in the know," they passed a Colorado style amendment two, which forbids any county or city government in Oklahoma from passing legislation or policy that protects me from discrimination in employment, and in effect mandates that discrimination happen.
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You may be surprised to hear me say that it was a pretty good birthday present...........
Read Keith's entire letter, below the fold.
I am a gay man who turned 50 this month and for my present I listened to the Republican controlled Oklahoma House debate and pass the most heinous preemptive attack on my rights imaginable. For those of you who are "in the know," they passed a Colorado style amendment two, which forbids any county or city government in Oklahoma from passing legislation or policy that protects me from discrimination in employment, and in effect mandates that discrimination happen.
Imagine the feeling of having your very essence so attacked and persecuted by your own government. Imagine for a moment that legislation just passed your state house that prevents any other government entity in your state from ever supporting your dreams of equality and fairness, and your inalienable rights as an American citizen, and worse yet supported by people you work with everyday of the legislative session, many of them your friends. Imagine that the majority of your house of representatives voted to legislate away your justice, any hope you may have had that perhaps your city or county might at some time have decided you deserved protection from unfair job discrimination, and literally walled you up in world where you had no access to the American Dream.
You may be surprised to hear me say that it was a pretty good birthday present...........
For the first time in my 50 years I heard Oklahoma legislators stand up for me and my rights in debate. I heard heartfelt passion as they discussed my future, my struggle, my reality, my life. I heard great courage for the first time from the floor of The Oklahoma House and I was so moved I wept. They were tears of joy and happiness.
All of a sudden it wasn't the brave handful of women and racial and religious minorities who defended my rights to equality. These were straight, rural, white men from Oklahoma. Through my tears of joy I realized a corner had been turned. Never again would there be a 97 to 3 vote relegating me to second class status. History was indeed made tonight.
We lost 65 to 28 with 8 excused. 28 legislators for the first time voted for me, for my life, for my future.....imagine.
In all my elation I also understand that some of these courageous people may very well pay a price for their votes tonight. Some of them may get a taste of the hatred and intolerance I have experienced for 50 years. I feel no comfort in that painful reality, and I will pray that they are protected.
But I can't deny that what I do feel is great excitement about my people's struggle. Equality is on the march forward and it will not be stopped by the hatred and intolerance of the past.
"Our freedom was not won a century ago, it is not won today, but some small part of it is in our hands tonight, and we are marching no longer by ones and twos but in legions of thousands, convinced now it cannot be denied by any human force." -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"It may not be time to break out the Champagne... but we might want to put in the refrigerator." -- Keith Smith
"Tomorrow is another day." -- Scarlet O'Hara
Keith Smith, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma