The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights’ director says protecting against sexual orientation discrimination is the next step in the civil rights campaign. John J. Johnson says the commission has been focused in recent years on extending fairness ordinances in local communities throughout the commonwealth.
“We live in a reasonably conservative state," Johnson said. "We’re not saying one should encourage or discourage sexual orientation, we’re saying people should not be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. These people have a right to live and coexist, have a job, rent an apartment, buy a home, just like you or I or the next person should.”
Murray is among other communities debating extending its 45-year old fairness ordinance to LGBT groups, making it the first in western Kentucky to do so.
Johnson has been the executive director of the commission since 2007. He began his leadership in civil rights at the age of 18 when he became the youngest president of any NAACP chapter.
Johnson remembers when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and says his death is something that’s still difficult to understand today.
“It was a time when people were being assassinated in our country and you couldn’t figure out the rationale of what in the world, it just seemed, at least at that time and even today that King was more like a prophet if you will, in my mind, and it’s almost like this servant of God, how in the world could you kill a man who was speaking just truth?"