No matter what one thinks of his presidency otherwise, Obama has been a groundbreaking president on gay rights. He told The New Yorker that gay marriage is a constitutional right that should be available in all 50 states.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/10/21/Obama-b … 413873162/
Small Towns, Small Hearts
The Battle for Gay Rights in Rural America
By SILAS HOUSE OCT. 22, 2014
BEREA, Ky. — I WAS raised amid the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, but I was always drawn to nearby Berea. The hamlet, tucked into the lush green hills on the western side of the Appalachians, has a long legacy of equality and free inquiry — among other things, it’s home to Berea College, the first integrated and coeducational college in the South.
There are lots of folks like me in Berea, who came here for its professed openness and diversity. But we had a rude shock last week, when the City Council voted 5 to 3 against an ordinance to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The vote illuminates a new reality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. The equality divide we face is no longer between red and blue states, but between urban and rural America. Even as we celebrate victories like this month’s Supreme Court order on same-sex marriage, the real front in the battle for equality remains the small towns that dot America’s landscape.
Until a decade or so ago, few gay people would have considered moving to Kentucky; as recently as 1992 consensual sex between two people of the same gender was a criminal offense punishable by law. But Louisville and other cities have since attracted a sizable gay population and a new generation of leaders who are more open and progressive in their social views.
But step outside the cities and the picture changes, just as in most states. Kentucky is one of 29 states where it is perfectly legal to refuse service to anyone even perceived as being gay or transgender, and protections vary locally. Once we enter small towns we can be kicked out of restaurants, refused places to rent or fired from our jobs just because of who we are.
Kentucky’s equality activists, under the banner of the Fairness Campaign, have worked hard to spread those patches of acceptance beyond the big cities; in recent years they have won local ordinances in seven jurisdictions, including the tiny town of Vicco, population 334. Yet Vicco remains the exception instead of the rule.
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Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/opinion/the-bat … ef=opinion