The following address to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors was given by Equality Loudoun president David Weintraub at the January 4, 2005 business meeting.
Good morning Chairman York and honorable members of the Board. I’m speaking to you this morning as the president of Equality Loudoun.
As you are aware, your colleague Mr. Delgaudio has decided that he needs to interfere with the efforts of the professionals in our public schools to combat the bullying that the students themselves have identified as a major problem. He has now enlisted the executive director of the Council for National Policy to defend him.
The two of them, working in concert, have made statements that have not only put some students at risk, but also threaten the safety of my family and other Loudoun families. They have tried to create the conditions for a witch hunt in our public schools by falsely claiming that anyone who opposes their views is a “homosexual activist.” They have made inaccurate and libelous statements about an entire community of people who live in Loudoun, work in Loudoun, pay taxes and send their children to our public schools, statements that invite violence against our families.
We all have freedom of speech. This is America, and citizens have the right to believe anything they like, no matter how much at variance from reality. However, Mr. Delgaudio is a public official of this county, and the county assumes liability for his statements and actions, and anything that might result from them.
Last month a young man hanged himself because of exactly the kind of bullying that Mr. Delgaudio and his new friend say shouldn’t be combated in our schools. That young man could just as easily have been the child of one of his Sterling constituents.
Because of Mr. Delgaudio’s obvious inability to represent people he believes shouldn’t exist, because there is no longer any meaningful distinction between his work as a public official and his work as executive director of an anti-gay advocacy group, and because he selectively excludes those he believes to be his opponents from the email lists through which he conducts constituent services, in the interests of the community I represent and in the interest of my own familys’ safety, I hereby submit a request under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act for all correspondence to and from Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio regarding the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
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