Have You Heard? Can You Name the First Government Agency on the First Coast to Ban Discrimination Against Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Employees?

Answer: The Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County (AMCD), by unanimous vote at their October 15, 2009 meeting, voted to ban discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation." The vote was 5-0.

Kudos to AMCD Chair Janice Bequette and Commissioners John Sundeman, Jeanne Moeller, Vivian Browning and Ronnie Radford for supporting the policy change. I salute them.

I am proud of our AMCD for supporting equality and I call upon every other governnental and private employer in St. Johns County to follow their example.

I was proud to help pass a resolution in the American Bar Association House of Delegates in Denver in February 1989 calling for such changes. My mentor, the Honorable Nahum Litt, who was then Chief Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor, was a member of the ABA House of Delegates and he helped lobby fellow judges and delegates to support the resolution, which twice before had been defeated. Numerous states and cities now ban such discrimination. Our Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama has called for ending anti-gay discrimination in the military.

Perspicacity and perseverance always work -- so does optimism.

It is reported by "Out in America" that "since 1990, seven counties and ten cities in Florida have amended their fair employment and housing laws to cover sexual orientation, and/or gender identity or expression. Such laws are in effect in Broward, Leon, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Orange, Palm Beach and Pinellas counties, as well as in the cities of Gulfport, Gainesville, Key West, Lake Worth, Miami Beach, Orlando, Sarasota, St. Petersburg, Tampa and West Palm Beach."

Thus, AMCD is the first governmental agency in the First Coast to respect Gay rights. It will not be the last.

As playwright Tony Kushner wrote in Angels in America, "only in politics does the miraculous occur.”