This will take a few minutes of your time.

I am forwarding the note below and the attachment hoping you will respond by sending it to as many people you know who will be in sympathy with the matter at hand. It was sent to me from Ilaeka Villa who lives in Tennessee. Where she now lives, they are trying to pass local law to ban gay people from LIVING in the area!

I promised her whatever support I could lend by helping with a grassroots network of getting out the word. I gave her contact information for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

We spoke this morning and I was horrified to hear what some of the responses the community has sent to the local paper - things like, we want to live in a place without gay people, we want a Nazi like atmosphere. I am asking Ilaeka to save those pieces as I think the legal folk can use them effectively, as can the rest of us in any grassroots campaign.

It really is up to us to fight such hideous discrimination on all levels wherever it occurs. Who will be next? It is time to stop sitting back. We must take back our government and make it equitable and just as was intended by the Constitution.

I ask you to pass this along in good faith for freedom and justice. It is not a chain letter, you will not receive good luck or money for doing it.

You can make a donation, however, to IBV Consulting Inc, to help defray attorney fees. (I have advised Ilaeka to establish a separate non-profit organization, and to seek the aid of GLAD, Lambda, or etc. in doing so - hopefully then costs will be much less).

We can all help. A web site would be helpful but at the moment there is not one, if someone can set one up, please contact Ilaeka directly. Perhaps GLAD or Lambda would help there as well.

If you have no where to send this but know of a local Gay and Lesbian Community Center (and you are not Gay, Lesbian, etc.) please send me the address of the center and a contact person if you know of one, so I may contact them directly. I plan to spread this as far as I can. I need your help to do it.

If you can let me know if you send it out, via cc, it would be appreciated. Thank you.

Namaste
John Giordano

Thank you so much for your email offering support and valuable information. I would very much like to talk to you tomorrow by telephone if you have a little time. Tomorrow I plan on contacting the organizations you mentioned as well. I will try and reach you in the morning. Today I am taking a day off to work in my garden.

I feel like the lone crusader but slowly local people are coming forth. However the local gays are extremely intimidated and scared of this whole thing and think they will be shot at! I am addressing a local gay group (they meet in secret and I think I am one of the first straight people to ever know where they even meet....) at their invitation. A close friend of mine is a member.

However as you can imagine this is taking a lot of time and legal expenses will be an issue I am sure. I like your idea of a grass roots drive.

I am attaching the address I gave the County Commissioners at the Workshop meeting last Tuesday for your review. Following that address I appeared on local Chattanooga 9 television news (2 spots) and in the Chattanooga paper and the Herald paper (Dayton TN, Rhea County seat) made first page with a color photo and continued on second page article. The local paper article was very good.

I am attending next Tuesday's County Commission meeting even though they did not put me on the agenda, to pass out resignation petition flyers and speak at the "3 minute courtesy" period at the end of the meeting allowed local people. Some local people have said they will attend. I am hoping for a crowd but one never knows. Channel 9 has said they will send a tv reporter to make sure I am allowed to "sign in" for the 3 minute spot.

This is an extremely conservative area with religious groups who are very anti-gay. However I have been heartened by some of those very consertive people coming forward and thanking me for taking this on. My mission is to show the world that there are people in Rhea County who support gay rights and that elected officials need to be held responsible for their actions and uphold the laws protecting the citizens they represent.

Please feel free to forward this information to anyone you feel would be interested. I look forward to speaking with you soon. I will be 50 this summer, straight female, divorced. I spent most of my life living in San Francisco and Paris before moving back to Rhea County in 2001 to live nearer my parents. What another world!

Ilaeka
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IBV Consulting Inc.
P.O. Box 776
Spring City, TN 37381
USA
Tel: 423 365 0308 / Fax: 423 365 0301

Address to the County Commissioners of Rhea County, Workshop Meeting,

Tuesday 13, 2004

My name is Ilaeka Villa and I moved to this county in 1991 and set up my company base in Spring City. I would like to be on the agenda for the April 20th County Commissioners Meeting and am addressing this workshop in accordance with procedure.

I was surprised when last month I opened my AOL home page on the Internet to read my emails one morning and found the front-page headline stating “Rhea County Bans Gays” but I was even further shocked to learn that the article was referring to the Rhea County in Tennessee where I lived and worked. As I read Commissioner Fugate’s motion to not only ban gays from living in Rhea County but to prosecute them for crimes of nature, I was dismayed and horrified at the complete ignorance of Supreme Court rulings this motion demonstrated as well as its hateful and bigoted message. I was even further astounded to see that all county commissioners present (Mr. Fugate, Broyles, Davis, Fisher, Raper, Tallent, Tumlin, Varner, with the absence of Mr. Barnes) voted 8-0 in favor of Mr. Fugate’s motion. I understand that homosexuality is an issue that we all may not agree on, but what seems straightforward to me is that elected officials have a right to uphold the law and respect those protected by the laws.

I attended the Call meeting held 2 days later on March 18th to see what explanation the Commissioners would have for their actions and expected that a public apology would be issued in order to try and heal some of the hurt that has been caused, not only to residents of this county, but to homosexuals and their families and friends throughout this country. I could only imagine the image sent out across the world via all the major news channels as well as the Internet, that Rhea County is a hateful and close minded place with complete disrespect of the Supreme Court laws and wondered what lawsuits would be brought against the county in this regard.

When the commissioners entered the room, voted and then left without even a short discussion or apology, it made me feel angry and betrayed, a feeling voiced by many on the courthouse lawn that night. I had heard the majority of commissioners had voted for the initial motion apparently not knowing what they were voting for, and now it appeared that they were voting for a second motion, worded completely different from the initial motion, without even discussing it. One vote, not knowing what they were voting on and another vote, held without any discussion. I wondered how the commissioners could take their civic duty so lightly. This leads me now to question if the initial motion has actually been rescinded after all, as the wording in the two meetings’ minutes are so completely different from each other. I plan to seek further understanding of this with the District Attorney.

Following the call meeting, I wrote a letter to the editor of The Herald News calling for the commissioners to resign and publicly apologize. The majority of other letters published by The Herald News and faxes, telephone calls and emails received by other County Offices and the Election Office have voiced similar opinions of outrage. To those that say this will just die down and everyone will forget, I ask them to check out the Internet and major news organization websites. This is not an issue that is going away quietly. It is growing. Last night I did a search on the internet and when I entered the words “Rhea County + Gays” into a major search engine, I was amazed to find not 50 or 100 websites covering the commissioners’ actions but over 11,000 websites in the US alone that are discussing this irresponsible act, making fun of the county and talking about possible avenues of repercussion and/or lawsuits. I cannot imagine how many tax and revenue dollars will be lost to the county due to businesses and people not moving to Rhea County. The added expenses the county will endure handling matters in this regard as well as a possible loss of business due to boycotts is a serious matter as well.

Last week I went to listen to the tape of the March 16th meeting, which is available for listening at the County Election Office and of which copies have been obtained by several news organizations. I wanted to try and understand if I could make better sense of the commissioners who somehow voted on an issue but did not understand it. What I was unprepared for, in listening to portions of the tape, was the irresponsible manner in which the Commissioners’ meeting was conducted. Not only did Mr. Fugate, who initiated the motion, and Mr. Raper who seconded the motion, laugh and joke about it, but also other commissioners were heard laughing about it in a very disrespectful tone. After listening to the tape it became very clear to me that all of the commissioners understood exactly what they were voting for, that they joked about it in a demeaning manner, that they did not care that the attorney’s office had already said the motion could not be stated in such a manner and I could only conclude that every commissioner present was responsible for his vote and the consequences this action would cause.

I therefore ask to be on the agenda for the April 20th meeting to address the commissioners and the public present during that meeting. I also ask that a copy of the March 16th tape be played so that the public is fully informed as to the manner in which the meeting was conducted. I will also call for Mr. Fugate and all Commissioners present for the vote on March 16th to resign, enabling Rhea County to begin some type of damage control counteracting the message of hate and disrespect that has bent sent across the nation and the world.

Rhea County needs to send a message to all that it is not in agreement with the actions of their elected county commissioners and the best way to do this is for the commissioners to resign and publicly apologize. I urge the Commissioners to have the courage to stand up and take responsibility for their actions, issue a full apology and resign gracefully.

Thank you.