Gary

Dear list,

I have been unable to write about the murder of Gary and Winfield 
until today. Two weeks ago I was in Vancouver attending the annual 
meeting of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta.
I had hoped Gary would be there. Obviously he wasn't.
It was at a Pacific Regional conference of the AABGA that I first met
Gary. I wound up spending a good part of the day with him talking 
about and looking at plants, talking about issues around gay parenting
(yep,I'm one too) and about issues of civic and interpersonal politics
relating to public garden horticulture. We became friends that day.
I didn't see Gary much in person it being a long way between Oakland 
and Redding but I always knew I had a friend up north. It was a great pleasure 
to read his informative email messages on this list, and I will miss 
them. Gary was a warm, vibrant, passionate human being and I am grieving his
loss. 

What has given me hope in the face of my anger and depression is the possibility

that Gary's and Winfield's deaths may result ultimately in revealing to the
world
how inter-related are the seemingly isolated incidents of domestic terror in
this 
country. The same kinds of right-wing extremists are responsible for many
attacks on gay people, for vandalism and arson of synagogues, for torching
African-American churches, for shooting down Asians, African Americans and
Orthodox Jews in the midwest, for bombing gay bars and women's clinics,
assasinating doctors who provide abortion services at those clinics, for blowing
up the Federal building in Oklahoma. That is why I so strongly feel that it is
important to focus attention on these particular murders. If you ignore
intolerance it grows and leads ultimately to the Kosovos,the Northern Irelands,
The Middle Easts, the Central Africas, The Los Angeles
of our world. 

I am agonizingly reminded once again that the personal IS political.

best to all,

Deborah Lindsay
Oakland, California
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