Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley (pictured), made a set of ugly, divisive anti-gay comments on the floor of the Senate on Monday."Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural creative order, and it is an offense to God," Renfroe is quoted as saying. "When we create laws that go against what biblically we are supposed to stand for, I think we are allowing to go forward a sin that should not be treated by government as something that is legal. We are taking sins and making them legally OK."
According to The Denver Post, Renfroe also equated loving, committed relationships of gay and lesbian couples with murder and adultery, and suggested that there is Biblical support for executing people for being gay. Read the full article here.
By the nature of their positions, elected officials have access to high-profile platforms to share their messages, and in many cases those statements – like Renfroe's – garner media attention. That is why such divisive and ugly attacks as Renfroe's must not go unchallenged. Senator Renfroe represents Greeley, Colorado, where last year a young transgender woman named Angie Zapata was violently beaten to death with a fire extinguisher because she was transgender. Senator Renfroe's defamatory attack reinforces the kind of hostile climate that can put real people in harm's way. He is wrong in his assertions, and Coloradans need to stand up and remind him of that.
Please write a letter to the editor explaining why these types of ugly, hurtful attacks have no place in civil dialogue around LGBT issues.
To contact The Denver Post, include your full name, hometown and daytime telephone number: openforum@denverpost.com
To contact the Greeley Tribune, visit this website: apps.greeleytribune.com/utils/forms/index.php?formId=lettertoeditor
For tips on writing letters to the editor, see GLAAD's Media Essentials Training Manual:
www.glaad.org/media/media_essentials/07_mediaessentials_toolkit.php.
