I dunno...did ya quote it right? You lack originality. Accompong Bill has already provided this on negril.com trying to make me look bad. I proudly stand up for equal rights/civil rights for everyone inculding the GLBT community.

It does sound right BMD...Sounds like this came from an op-ed piece I wrote dealing with a debate in Philly over equal rights. The City of Philadelphia was renting a building to the the Boy Scouts for $1 per year, the value of which was $200,000. Philadelphia is in the forefront of civil rights and have extended equal rights protection to members of the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual community, a law I agree with and support.

The Boy Scouts have a discriminatory policy against this group and were told to change the policy or lose the subsidy. They appealed to the public and the public was divided. Since I believe in Jeffersonian approcahes to equal rights, I supported the law and the gay community. As a "Socially liberal conservative I am for equal rights and liberty including gay marriage, pro-choice, anti-affirmative action and the such. If something does not set up an equal situation...I am against it. Many people were angered but as I ahve said before I don;t care what anyone thinks about me. Those who stand for the tough things usually are not liked. Oh well.

This was only one of several peices that I wrote in a back and forth with others in the paper which went on for nearly a month. Most people were for the Boy Scouts being allowed to discriminate. I vehemently opposed them and it is about the closest thing to how some of you behave here with hate and anger. I stood my ground there as I do here at Miyard.

This is the sort of thing I write about in the many op-ed pieces I have done. I pissed off a lot of my Repub friends with a piece I wrote about George Bush and how he was violating equal rights some years back. In that bush bashing I defended gay marriage, the dixie chicks, the former cat stevens, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and a number of others for Bush's attacks on their civil rights. To me civil rights and equal rights are the same thing.

I have also written about police brutality, public safety, spoken out against our district attorney's office and other issues dealing with public protection. I went up agaisnt the white FOP leadership went up against our black Democratic Mayor Public Safety Commissioner within which wre racial overtones. These pieces went back and forth for a month and I had msot cops in this city very angry with me. I wrote a piece against one of my ward's state rrepresentatives because of something he did. He is a friend of mine. But he was doing wrong things at the time in my opinion. I stood up to him in that situation. He is a good politician generally and I support him now.

I am not your "typical Republican" and Dems are not the only one's out there fighting for equal/civil rights. Myself and a great deal of Republicans don't fit the prejudicial mold that you and others portray around here. The extent to which this is done is in itself a violation of civil rights as we all have the right to free association afforded by the Constitution. This is part of what I refer to as hypocrisy witnessed here be some at Miyard.

It should always be America and our Constitution first. Party politics and all that are secondary. This is what I ahve repeatedly said.

Thanks for sharing a bit about me BMD and giving me a chance to expand on that to show how I try to improve my community.

Now, would you be so kind as to share what kinds of things you do in your community to make it better, our county better or our world better?