When Awet Eyasu moved to the United States as a young graduate student from Eritrea in East Africa, he had never met an openly LGBTQ person and would not have considered himself an LGBTQ ally. But over time, his feelings have changed. “I was not one of those people who thought being gay was natural,” he said. “But eventually, I evolved. I came to realize that gay people are the same as people like me, just attracted to different people. They’re like me – they get angry, they get sad, they’re just the same as any other human being.”

As a City Council member in Clarkston, Georgia, Councilman Eyasu is proud to serve and support his entire community, including his LGBTQ neighbors. “I strongly believe in gay rights and human rights,” he said. “You should never tell people who to love or who to marry or how to love. Discriminating against one group for any reason is discrimination against everyone. You don’t have to agree with someone to support their rights. It’s not conservative or liberal to support LGBTQ rights. It’s just the right thing to do.”