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The tragic shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri has raised many questions about how law enforcement treats the very citizens it is supposed to protect, including whether local law enforcement should be armed to the teeth with military grade equipment. Could a military response happen here in Florida? It’s impossible to know right now, and we need to change that. In June, the ACLU released a national report on the militarization of local law enforcement, which documented the federal to local pipeline of war machines and weapons. There are several programs that enable even the smallest towns to obtain massive reserves of weapons.

Last week, here in Miami-Dade County, I had the privilege of being present for one significant step forward in the march for justice for the transgender community in South Florida, painful though it was at times to witness. Most folks (a supermajority) think that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression is wrong and should be prohibited, and the vast majority of people think—incorrectly—that those explicit protections exist under state law. They don’t.