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Human Rights Campaign rating is more than a Cape Coral issue

2 min read

To the editor:

It’s not only about Cape Coral, it is about Lee County government who does not have protections for their own LGBT employees or its own citizens.

None of the cities located within the County of Lee have protections for the LGBT community. Our conservative county has not moved to at least create non discrimination policies for their own LGBT employees even though each of their commissioners were personally made aware they have no protections. They told me they were not aware of this discriminatory issue and would look into it. Look into it? I think not; nothing has changed since they were made aware of the lack of protections for these law abiding citizens residing in Lee County some months ago. That is except John Manning, who refused to meet with me to discuss this issue.

If Lee County would take on the very important issue of mandating all persons residing in Lee County Florida be equally protected, Cape Coral would not have a 25 percent rating from HRC. Lee County got off easy as the only city reviewed located in Lee County was Cape Coral. Had HRC rated the county, including all its cities, it would have been a major embarrassment for the elected officials who have done absolutely nothing to correct this ongoing disparity to LGBT citizens residing in their county.

Arlene Goldberg

Fort Myers