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Chris Hartman is the executive director of the Fairness Campaign
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and a good friend, longtime neighbor and buddy, and we've
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kind of walked the same academic path. It's good to
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see you again.
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I love you. Won't love you again.
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I love you. Won't you be my neighbor? Except you
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were a better student than I.
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Don't know. We'd have to ask Missus Colbyn if she
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was sure. Here God rest her soul.
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Did I ever tell you? They asked me in business
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first years ago to pick a teacher. They were doing
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a profile about people in town and their teachers, and
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I picked Missus Colbyn. And so they met us at
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Saint Stephen Marty, our school, and I sat in a
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desk and she stood behind me, and I was scared
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to death.
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You may not know. I asked her to be my
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confirmation sponsor when I was confirmed. I think it was
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her first year of retirement, and she came and did it,
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and I was also a little a little nervous.
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Once they're the principal, they have that authority, and they
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never really released and she seemed nice. Yeah, she was wonderful,
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but I was still a little bit scared. Our photo
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what is a cute photo. That's how that goes. Well, Chris,
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welcome in again. I haven't seen you for a while,
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so I'm just glad you're happy Pride Pride Month, you
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bet you. I did see some news on the Metro
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Council someone had proposed a designation for the City of
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Loyla had to do with transgender youth, something about using
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the phrase safe haven. So I thought I'd ask you
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what does this mean? What do you know about this?
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Sure, it's a complicated situation because on the surface, the
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Fairness Campaign, which has been around since nineteen ninety one,
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thirty five years this year, working to advance LGBTQ rights
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in our community, working to advance the rights of trans
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folks and transgender youth and adults in our community. You'd
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think on the surface that that's something that the Fairness
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Campaign would be behind, would be working on. But in reality,
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this particular ordinance that came up before the Metro Council
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Public Safety Committee yesterday, we've had some concerns about, and
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we've shared those concerns with the council member that introduce
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We've shared our concerns with the folks who have been
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sort of pushing the ordinance. You know, we want to
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make real change and offer solid protections, material protections for
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the LGBTQ plus community, and that's what the Fairness Ordinance
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did twenty seven years ago. We've had we were the
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first city in Kentucky to protect LGBTQ folks from discrimination. Unfortunately,
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this ordinance that got proposed, it sort of sold a
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false bill of goods. It purported to do more than
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it actually was written to do. Parts of it just
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kind of repeated the Fairness Ordinance protections and those are
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already on the books. They are strong. Transgender people are
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protected from discrimination in the City of Louisville and have
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been since nineteen ninety nine. And the other parts of
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this ordinance kind of purported to preempt state and federal
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laws that don't currently exist right now. And so we
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told the folks who were proponents of it, you know,
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rather than putting a target on Louisville's back, and we
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know how shaky things are in the state legislature for
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LGBTQ folks. We've had five years of dozens of bills
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targeting particularly the transgender community, and we've done hard work
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to build relationships on all sides of the Aisle in Frankfort,
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and to incredible success. This year, we stopped more than
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a dozen anti LGBTQ bills that were proposed in the
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Kentucky General Assembly. Not a single one of them made
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it to Governor Basher's desk, And we said, rather than
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put a target on Louisville's back right now by passing
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an ordinance that really materially doesn't expand protections in any way,
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why
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aren't we focusing on some of the gaps that
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actually exist for our community right now? There's so many
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ways in which the city could be supporting the trans community,
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deeper funding for unhoused populations of which the trans community
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and LGBTQ folks are disproportionately a large portion of. And so,
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you know, unfortunately, we showed up yesterday along with lots
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of other groups, the seel You of Kentucky, the Metro
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United Way, Planned Parenthood, Kentucky Health Justice Network, to say, look,
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we've got some real concrete concerns around this, and you know,
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I think those concerns resonated. The ordinance failed in committee
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six to one. It'll still go before the full Metro
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Council next week, but you know, we don't expect it
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to do any better there.
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But it fails in committee, why does it go before
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the four?
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That is a great question. I'm gonna be honest with you.
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It's been so long since we've sort of had to
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follow legislation closely or ordinances closely in the Louisville Metro Council.
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You know, in Frankfort, if it fails in committee, it's.
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It's almost done.
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In the Louisville Metro Council, everything that fails moves forward regardless.
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It's like in a monster movie, it keeps coming back.
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So you know, whether it comes out favorably or unfavorably,
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it's still going to the full Metro Council for a
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vote next Thursday.
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How do you feel that Kentucky is standing up though
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compared to other states or in this region in terms
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of protections.
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Look, it's it's still rough out there, but we are
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have become a beacon of hope nationwide. Kentucky and Georgia
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are the two Southern states this year so far that
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have defeated every bill that's been targeting the LGBTQ plus community.
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And in a sea of red in terms of not
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red in terms of political affiliation. But where we look
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at states that are becoming more hostile for LGBTQ folks,
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for particularly our trans community. If you look at a
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heat map from the Movement Advancement Project, they're the national
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experts on this, and they do a heat map. They
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go from green to red. Green is most supportive of
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LGBTQ folks. Red is the least supportive. Kentucky is hanging
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on as an orange state surrounded by red states. West Virginia, Tennessee,
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certainly Alabama. Almost all of the states farther south than
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us are incredibly hostile in terms of policy and law.
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Right now.
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What kind of legislation are you swatting away?
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Boy? You name it, and we're swatting at it. There
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are all these attempts to either ban drag performances or
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even jail drag performers, which, regardless of the LGBTQ issues,
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that is a First Amendment issue right there. They're completely
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unconstitutional on their face. And so we face those bills
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each year, really broad healthcare discrimination bills. This is one
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bill that's been coming back. You say, this is a
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Franken build that keeps rising from the over and over
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and over again for nearly twelve years that would allow
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any healthcare worker to discriminate against patients based on not
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just a religious belief, but also a moral or a
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belief of conscience. That could be literally anything.
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You let somebody die in front of you because you
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said it's morally objecting you.
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Yeah, I mean literally anything, and not just the doctors
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and nurses, but the people checking you in at reception
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could refuse to check in somebody that they don't agree with.
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It's a different religious background or different color of their skin,
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I mean, really anything. So we've swatted that one away.
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For years.
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There were bills again targeting the healthcare that transgender adults
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are able to access.
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And again let's clarify that you said adults, because people
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will immediately say when they listen to this, they'll say
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that the people are targeting children, and they're saying that
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children should be allowed to get surgeries and this or that.
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So what's say.
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Well, first, I'll say nobody was ever advocating for children
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under the age of eighteen getting surgical interventions, but there
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were medications that can help trans youth. In consultation with
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their mental health care providers, with their physicians, they're pediatrician
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with their parents that would help transgender youth. Unfortunately, Kentucky
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banned those therapies in twenty twenty three with cinepill one fifty. So,
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regardless of where the Fairness campaign was on that issue,
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all forms of gender affirming healthcare for transgender youth, just
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healthcare for trans youth, is prohibited in the Commonwealth of
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Kentucky as.
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It is, So you would need a change in the
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makeup of the state legislation, sure too, And he left.
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A change, she says, as if it were that easy. Look,
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let me just tell you where we are in the
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Kentucky General Assembly right now, you know. And I don't
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want to impune them, because again we made it out
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of this legislative session without any bad but they didn't
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engage in any of the culture.
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And I know that you have a lot of friends,
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ye over. The thing is that we.
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Can work with anybody who's willing to have a reasonable
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conversation on these issues, and even where we disagree, we
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can sit down and have a respectful conversation about the
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realities that LGBTQ people live and experience on a daily basis.
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And I think just making that human connection is what
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is giving us some degree of success in what would
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otherwise be considered a really hostile environment for LGBTQ communities
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and rights.
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Well, I appreciate the update. I just wonder what was
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going on with the Metro Council because I saw that,
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and I know you would be fully aware of that. Sure,
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and there you are, You're saying, very happy, be self
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out there, still messaging people and making friends. You make
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friends wherever you go.
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Seventeen and a half years, I'm still doing this and
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it's because truly the people are great. I couldn't keep
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doing this if we didn't have incredible support in the community,
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if I didn't continue to see it grow. Even while
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it feels like we're under attack right now, we're only
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under attack because we are winning. There are more LGBTQ
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people who are living out and proud and loud right
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now than ever before. There are more families and communities
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and churches and spiritual groups that are surrounding them and
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supporting them. We're gonna live to see a day where
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acceptance maybe is not complete, but where we have widespread
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acceptance and support for our LGBTQ plus community.
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Chris Hartman, he's executive director of the Fairness Campaign. I
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love your friend, Terry Miners.
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He's my favorite.
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I love you. We're neighborhood kids, except you're right exactly
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say be your daddy.
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Every just turned forty this year. If you all didn't know,
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he's been on the radio since.
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You're a neighborhood kid.
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I know you.
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Get off my lawn.
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I'll see you soon.
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Back in a minute on news Radio eight forty. Whas