The Brighton Anti-Discrimination Pledge

The Town Board, community leaders, and residents of the Town of Brighton reaffirm that the Town and its residents have the responsibility to act to ensure that every individual within the Town is afforded an equal opportunity to enjoy a full and productive life, and that the failure to provide such equal opportunity, whether because of discrimination, prejudice, intolerance or inadequate education, training, housing or health care, not only threatens the rights and proper privileges of its inhabitants, but menaces the institutions and foundations of a free democratic state and threatens the peace, order, health, safety and general welfare of the Town and its inhabitants.

The Town Board, community leaders, and residents further reaffirm that hatred, prejudice, intolerance, exclusion, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny and all other forms of discrimination have no place and are not welcome in the Town of Brighton.  We reaffirm that the strength of our community comes from our diverse backgrounds, experiences and opinions, but also reaffirm that our strength comes from a shared value of respect for all people regardless of race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or familial or military status.

In furtherance of those shared values, the Town Board, community leaders, and residents of the Town of Brighton will keep in our minds and our hearts that we have more in common than what divides us; we have more to gain together as a community when we listen to each other and much to lose when we fail to respect the opinions and personal views of others.  Harsh and false words shared between our neighbors and our friends only cause pain and division and wound all of us as a community. 

Now is the time to cast off bitterness and bigotry and instead to embrace our neighbors and get back to the pursuit of peace and inclusion to enhance our mutual wellbeing.  By signing this statement, I affirm that Brighton is a community that values diversity and inclusion, and I hereby commit to working together with all members of the Brighton community to put those values into practice.