I am Drue Mielke, Rock Island County Board Member and Republican Minority Caucus Leader on the Rock Island County Board. I wanted to show you how important this is to me by joining you all here now and I just had a few things I wanted to say.

Here in the Quad Cities, we have more that unities us than divides us. I think it needs to be known there is so much more that unities us. We work together in our organizations to fight for what’s right in our community.

I wanted to share a couple verses I found. James 1:10-20.  "Everyone should be quick to listen. Slow to speak. And slow to become angry. Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires."

We’ve seen attempts by people that want emphasize differences and create division in our America and in our community.

Proverbs 15:18 says "A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute."

I want to say that we are standing together, taking positive action and praying together against hate, is a testament to how much we care about our community. We are all God’s creation. Regardless of the division and differences,  We need to give the respect to all, recognizing that we all are God’s children, loving thy neighbor with tolerance, and embracing differences rather than hating the diversity that God created.

As a member of the community I want to tell you personally, I have been the recipient of hate. I have had slurs scrawled on my home front door. I lived briefly in Iowa that had new hate laws didn’t seem to have meaning. The hate was still there. I moved back to my home town of Coal Valley.

I have seen hostility in the workplace. I’ve seen my tires slashed because of political hatred. I’m sorry but this kind of gets to me....

But there is good. I am grateful that a fellow county board member Nick Camlin reached across party lines asking me to co-sponsor a resolution affirming the laws that protect Lesbian Gays Bi-Sexual and Transgendered Rock Island County employees in the workplace. It shows that we can join together to fight hate and not be victims.  I try to approach everything I can in the spirit of love, knowing we will be remembered on how we treat others.

We will get angry. We are human. When we allow hate to enter our lives, it controls our hearts and minds.