6/29/2009
Dear President Obama,
I don't know whether you will ever know of this email. I write it with the faith that you will.
My family and I have been big supporters of yours. all, that is, except my third son who worked on Hillary's campaign. He thought that your basic positions would lead to progress in many important areas, but he cautioned us all that you were not behind gay rights as a fundamental human rights issue. He feels that for you personally, the problem of human/civil rights in America has been won, and further efforts to include everyone in America under the same tent, with the same civil rights is a risky move that you will not undertake. He feels you will make the safe political decision not to press for his civil rights. I have told him that I was sure you would not put political safety before human and civil rights. Watching the slow and agonizingly politically tinged statements and proposals out of your office concerning gay rights, I now sense a very ginger stepping around of this subject. Please help me reassure my 22 year old son that his life is seen as being as valuable as his brothers. That his God-given traits and being are his responsibility to uphold and defend as naturally as are yours and mine. He and others fighting that same hatred need your help. There is so much hate-mongering and souring of attitude in our country that it pulls us all down with it. Please help us dispel that hate by approaching this issue decisively and directly. I trust you will bring the same approach of "speaking truth to power" that you have brought to your international discourse to this scourge and source of bigotry here at home. I pray my trust is well placed.
Thank you for your service and your consideration of the great human/civil rights challenge of the present age.
Dr. Susan Peirce Ursprung
Princeton, Massachusetts