Press Release   Press Release   Press Release   Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday June 22, 1994
Contacts:  
KC Wildmoon 404-876-0789-day
Christina Cash  404-876-0789-day
Carl Lange  404-876-1398-day/evening
Internet: glaadatl@aol.com

COBB COMMISSION CHAIR'S LESBIAN DAUGHTER URGES REPEAL OF ANTI-GAY RESOLUTION

Atlanta, Georgia - June 22, 1994 --- Twenty-four-year-old Shannon Byrne said
she was shocked by the news that Cobb County had adopted a resolution
condemning the "gay lifestyle" last August, stunned because one of the
resolution's prime supporters - Cobb Commission Chair Bill Byrne - is her
father.

"I didn't know what to think," she said in an interview in the June 23 issue
of Southern Voice, Atlanta's lesbian and gay weekly newspaper.  "I didn't
know if the papers were right , I just couldn't believe...that my father had
done that, because he had actually been, out of all of my family members, the
most supportive."

For 10 months, Shannon Byrne watched the saga play out in the local and
national media - and finally had had enough.  She spoke to her father about
the resolution, and, having no satisfaction with the results of that
conversation, took the next step.

"I'm sorry for what my dad has done," she said.  "That's one of the reasons
I'm coming out.  I just wasn't at peace with keeping quiet.  I want to do
what I can [for Cobb County's lesbians and gay men].  I felt like I needed to
tell these Christian people that they are dead wrong.  I don't think they
have any idea about how to be Christian."

Bryne's decision to come out publicly was not an easy one, but the continued
controversy and constant wrangling over "family values" forced her to step
forward and urge the Commissioners to rescind the resolution.

"I'm tired of hearing about family values," she said.  "They're not speaking
about family values at all and I just fell I need to correct that."

The resolution "should be burned," she said.

Byrne also commented on her father's "clarifying" resolution, released to the
press last week.

"They think just because they've taken out the word 'homosexual' that it's a
better resolution," she said.  "But...they haven't taken back anything
they've said, anything they've done.  They've just reworded it.  Carefully."

SHANNON BYRNE WILL BE AVAILABLE TO SPEAK TO THE MEDIA AT 4PM, WEDNESDAY, JUNE
22 AT THE SOUTHERN VOICE OFFICES, 1189 VIRGINIA AVENUE, NE.

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