Kent County Commissioners challenged on Sheriff Department’s targeting of gay men

This morning at the Kent County Commission meeting three people addressed the commissioners on an issue that we reported on last week, the targeting of gay men in public parks.

Colette Seguin-Beighley, a member of the Board of Equality Michigan, said, “The Kent County Sheriff’s Department is targeting gay men in public parks. In our deeply conservative western Michigan culture, many gay men are still closeted. The arrests are damaging, both monetarily and socially to these men.”

Seguin-Beighley was basing her comments on both ACLU documents and a statewide report from former Judge Rudy Sera called Bag a Fag Operations in Michigan.

Bill Freeman, a minister in Holland, also addressed the commission. Bill said that it seems that gay men are being arrested for nothing more than being gay. He asked the commission to stop harassing gay men and that they needed to do something immediately to stop such a practice.

Mariam Aukerman, from ACLU West Michigan office, told us that despite the County’s non-cooperation on this issue over the past 6 months, she received a call recently from Kent County saying, “things are moving forward on this issue.” Aukerman believes that the effort to shed light on this matter is producing results and hopes that the County will take action to end these unjust practices.

In the meantime, we are encouraging people to send messages to the 19 Kent County Commissioners and demand that they take action immediately. You can find e-mails for your county commissioner or contact all of them here.