Owensboro residents in support of a countywide nondiscrimination ordinance are still going strong in their efforts to make Daviess County the 16th Kentucky location with a nondiscrimination ordinance.
Despite the County’s three commissioners who’ve voiced a lack of support for the ordinance, those who do support the ordinance — an amendment to an already existing local law that provides housing, job and public accommodation protections to members of the LGBTQ community — have gotten creative in spreading their message.
The Fairness Campaign has become involved in a local “Y’all Means All” movement that took off after owners at a downtown business, In the Groove, made and donated 200 wooden, rainbow-painted signs shaped like the state of Kentucky to the campaign. A heart is painted where Owensboro is located and the signs read “Y’all Means All.”
Members of the Fairness Campaign began asking businesses across the City and County if they’d like to hang a sign in their window in support of a nondiscrimination ordinance.
According to Fairness Campaign Chairperson Deanna Smith, every business approached about the signs was extremely supportive.
“The response has been all for it,” she said. “After one day, 100 of the signs were gone to different businesses.”
Smith said this response to the “Y’all Means All” signs made it clear that the majority of people want a nondiscrimination ordinance passed.
“People are tired of Kentucky always being backward,” Smith said, adding that viral news stories from Owensboro over the last couple years include a man who dressed as Hitler during a downtown Halloween event and even some of County Commissioner George Wathen’s comments against the ordinance.
People are ready to see change in Owensboro, Smith said, and Owner/Cinematographer of Alexander Francis Films’ Alex Clark echoed that statement.
Clark just completed filming a documentary in support of a local nondiscrimination ordinance titled “FAIRNESS.” In his documentary, Clark interviewed members of the LGBTQ community, local leaders, business owners and a local religious leader.
Clark’s documentary is in favor of the nondiscrimination ordinance, but he also inserted clips of Fiscal Court meetings where Wathen and Southside Fellowship Church Reverend John Fowler publicly speak against it.
A straight, married man, Clark said he learned so much about the local LGBTQ community and the hardships they face when he conducted his interviews for the film.
“You don’t see what people are going through until you [listen to them talk about it],” he said.
Smith herself is one of the members of the LGBTQ community who appears in the FAIRNESS documentary, and she said she mostly spoke about the logistics of the ordinance — who is and isn’t protected by it, what it all means, how it works at a governmental level.
“I’ve seen an early viewing of the documentary, and it paints Owensboro in such a good light,” she said. “Nobody opposing [the ordinance] would come forward to be in the film.”
Clark said he isn’t looking for fame or any kind of notoriety with his documentary, but that he simply wants to help Owensboro change for the better.
“I love Owensboro, and I want to see Owensboro do better, and that means being supportive of different lifestyles,” he said. “I think that’s a good thing for Owensboro and will help this City grow.”
Clark’s FAIRNESS documentary can be viewed on his personal Facebook page and on YouTube in early January.
