Very Small Town in Kentucky Makes Very Big Ordinance.

Here is a down home rural story from the highly urban New York Times. The report is a poignant yet positive portrait of very small town America where the Commissioners voted in favor of a ban on discrimination against LGBT citizens of that place.

How is this possible? In Kentucky?

I think the answer is simple: friendship and familiarity. The current mayor, Johnny Cummings (photo right, from NY Times), is a gay hair dresser who has known everyone in town since he was a youngster. He did not hide his sexuality and neither did he flaunt it; he simply expressed it as it naturally emerged–and other people saw that he was as ‘normal’ as anyone else with quirks and differences.

There was nothing to attack or condemn; he was just himself going to school, training for a profession, loving his family and hanging out with friends. What else could he do other than ‘normal’ things. So when the town was urged by a Kentucky gay activist group to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance they took up the matter and saw fit to pass it.

One commissioner said “We want everyone to be treated fair and just,” and the Times reporter added “such a belief is self-evident and therefore not that big of a deal.”

What a fine model for the Supreme Court and America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/vicco-kentucky-passes-ban-on-gay-bias.html?pagewanted=2