Just because you can legally get away with something doesn't mean you should. And why do you need a law to tell you to be descent and fair anyway? Shouldn't we just each try to be fair and descent because it's the right thing to do?

I've always tried to help others. It's been one of the core traits that I've brought into this lifetime: help those in need. You wouldn't have to know me very long at all to see that I'm kind, compassionate and loving. Last week, after carting all three of my children to the dentist, a woman approached me in the parking lot. She told me she was stranded and needed help. I didn't hesitate. I immediately got into my purse and gave her all the cash I had, which admittedly, wasn't much. But she left me better then when she arrived. And shouldn't we always leave better than when we arrive?

I started helping stranded/homeless people when I was a teenager and got my first job. More than half of my very first paycheck went to help a family stranded on the side of the road who held signs indicating they were hungry. I bought them lunch and dinner that day. I learned the value of a dollar - both for my life and for the life of someone who was hungry.

But now, I find myself the one needing help. And I do need it - for my family.

In 2009, we moved our family to Glen Rose, Texas for my husband to take a job at Fossil Rim wildlife preserve. I immediately fell in love with the small town and the beautiful scenery. However, some parts of Glen Rose, TX were not reciprocating that same love to me.


In 2010, I started volunteering my time offering my time, intuitive gifts, and experience to individuals who were struggling. I understood pain and and disability all too well.  I just "volunteered" my Intuitive and Minister's services for others who were ready to give up. It gave me self confidence and enough experience to hopefully, someday, be a professional Intuitive and Healer. It wasn't about money, and I didn't make any. I just wanted to help.

A few folks at Fossil Rim had issue with me and my gifts. The short version is this: The Director of Education, who had formerly been a friend, sent me a message that she could not be friends or associated with me because my "angel ministry conflicted with her faith." And immediately following that message, my husband began being regularly harassed. Every single write up and reprimand included "your wife, Leslie Draper. . "   My husband was never once reprimanded for his job performance or conduct. The ONLY marks on his record were those beginning with "Your wife, Leslie Draper. . . "

After more than a year of harassment, Scott received noticed that his "Job was in Jeopardy" (the most severe reprimand Fossil Rim has). Once again, it was because "his wife, Leslie Draper. . . " had offended the head of HR and the head of the Education Department (the former friend who had cut ties with me because of "angel ministry conflicted with her faith). And knowing Scott would soon lose his job, we loaded up our family and moved back to Oklahoma.

All you have to do is read my FB updates from that time or even read my blogs about being homeless to know what a difficult and painful experience it was for our family. We filed a Religious Discrimination Lawsuit against Fossil Rim, but they had far more money and power than we had, and when they demanded multiple things, including costly depositions from us in rapid fire order, we had no choice but to release the lawsuit. It literally came down to feeding our children or making Fossil Rim be accountable for their actions.

In what can only be determined to be one of the CRUELEST and most UNFAIR outcomes ever, Fossil Rim has asked the court to make us pay for their legal fees. So not only do they get away with harassment, hate, and discrimination, they are now going to punish us for trying to bring them to justice.

We have been ordered to pay $864 to Fossil Rim. And if we don't, this money will accumulate interest forever.

I am asking for all of my Facebook Friends, Family, Acquaintances, and Internet Connections to each send a small monetary payment to help cover the $864. Even a $1 donation will help. A $5 donation would be wonderful and a $10 to $20 donation would be immensely helpful.

If you want to mail the donation directly to Fossil Rim, you may do so via:

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center
Att: Payment for Draper's Legal Judgment  - Cause C10210
  2155 County Road 2008
  Glen Rose, Texas 76043

Please include a copy of the court order number (Cause C10210)  and PLEASE let me know of the donation, so I can have a record of it, so when they come after my family for this payment, I can account for all donations made.

OR You can Donate via Give Forward:
http://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/1p62/supportforthedraperfamily

Please know - this is not just about the money. It's about stopping Fossil Rim from hurting my family anymore. It's about having friends, family and even strangers who support religious freedom and freedom from discrimination and harassment to stand with us and say "What you did is NOT okay." And you may have been able to legally get away with it -- but it's still wrong! 

What can you do to help?
Write letters!  Get involved! Donate! And help spread this message.
And if you live in an at-will employment state, please contact your legislators and tell them that at-will employment hurts families.


Edit:
Many people have inquired how to contact the board members at Fossil Rim, and the truth is that I haven't been able to find a complete list of board members anywhere.
However, via internet search, I have found the following. You may use this information to contact these board directors.  Access to the board members is prohibited for employees.


Rob Baker
Finance Sr. Director - Nuclear Operations & Development

Dallas/Fort Worth AreaUtilities Current

1. Luminant,
2. Fossil Rim,
3. Wounded Warriors

www.linkedin.com/pub/rob-baker/7/b86/24/


Alicia Voltmer
http://www.ogletreedeakins.com/attorneys/alicia-s-voltmer#_professional-activities
Alicia Voltmer is actually Fossil Rim's attorney and a board member.


Joel Thierston
http://openaccess.unt.edu/speaker/joel-thierstein

Christine Juryzykowski
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Christine_Jurzykowski








** You can read the court order below:

I’m an opinionated girl. Always have been.  I guess you can say I was born believing there was right, and there was wrong. And the core of those beliefs have stayed the same, even though the details have undergone a fine tuning or two. 

There’s a right way to treat people, and there’s a wrong way to treat people. There’s a right way to share your beliefs and there’s a wrong way to share ‘em. And there’s a right way to bring about change and there’s a wrong one. 

Let’s start with the right way to treat people.  At the end of the day,  when you treat people right, everyone wins. You feel like you’ve been fair and  respectful, and the other person feels the same way.   When you treat people the right way, everyone is equal. The homeless guy  on the street corner has just has much respect as the CEO of the nearest Fortune  500 company. You see, when you treat people fairly, you recognize that the seed  of humanity – the very essence of who we are and why we are here – is the same  in everyone , from the billionaire to the cashier. 

There’s a right way to share your beliefs, and  that way is through honesty and fairness. If you have to put down a fellow human
to prove or justify your beliefs, then something is wrong. If your belief system   includes creating superiority based on some false measure of “goodness”, then  your belief system only exists by perpetuating a false disconnect from one man
to another.  Remember that seed of  humanity? It’s in us all. Every last one.   And that seed is all the truth we need. That seed reminds us that we are  all deeply, intimately and powerfully connected to one another. And through  God’s eyes, my unemployed neighbor is just as valuable as my neighbor on the  other side who is a medical doctor. And if you are perpetuating a belief system
that does not reflect the connectedness and love for every single human, then  you are missing the big picture. 

And those people who are so blindly hung up on straight love  versus same sex love are missing the big picture. There is only love. There is no such thing as straight love or gay love. Love is love. Period. A fundamental truth being missed here is this: Our souls do not have gender. That’s right. If you look at us on the soul level, you will see that we are beautiful spirit beings, and we simply choose a gender for this incarnation. And soul based love is beautiful. It’s powerful. It transcends all issues of gender or race. 
 
Sometimes, girls fall in love with boys, and sometimes girls fall in love with girls. It doesn’t bother me in the least. The
last time I checked, the “girls loving girls club” wasn’t out there trying to  recruit new members.  They’d  probably not even attempt to recruit me anyway, since I’ve been married to my  high school sweetheart (male, in case you were curious) for 19 years.   But as a first amendment supporter, I do  support your right to say “it’s not for me.”  I support your right to believe whatever  you feel led to believe. . . until that moment you start violating the rights of  others. Then your rights pretty much end.  It’s simple: If you have an opinion that  violates others, then keep it to yourself. (and I'm also going to recommend you start some serious soul work to try to find out why you must tear another person - or group of people - apart to feel whole within yourself. A person who feels whole and complete within himself does not need to issue edicts of right or wrong for the lives of others. That's the job of someone who is fractured. See God within everyone, and you will no longer feel the need to tear God (or that person) apart. )
 
And this falls under that “the right way to share  your beliefs” topic. You see, I don’t have a problem that Dan Cathy prefers a
  traditional man and woman marriage. I support his right to believe whatever he wants. The problem is when he operates a business on those beliefs and decides  to go public spreading hate and fear. The second he violates the rights of  others, he has crossed the line. His comments were harmful to any family that  does not fit his “Bible definition” of what a family should be. Of course,  Cathy does put his money where his mouth is, and reports indicate Chick-Fil-A has donated more than $2 Million dollars to anti-gay groups. This is a problem. The moment you realize you are donating more than $2 Million dollars not to support a group but to go against a group, that means you’ve been sharing your beliefs via fear, prejudice, and trying to harm/minimize another group of people.

 Let’s put this in a slightly different context. 

What if a powerful CEO donated $2 Million dollars to organizations whose purposes were to keep the races pure? What if these groups were purposed around ensuring white people only married white people, and brown people only married  brown people? Would it be different? Of course it would! In 2012, the very idea  that someone could attempt to legitimize racism through “keeping the races pure”  is absolutely abominable. It’s disturbing! But it wasn’t 50 years ago. Prior to  the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960’s, it was perfectly acceptable to require black people to use separate restroom facilities from white people, and for  black people to stand on the bus.  It was perfectly acceptable until 1954 to segregate public schools.  And  if we think back to what we all learned in American History, Religion was used as justification for slavery and subsequent racist policies. (Hint: Just as it’s  being used by Dan Cathy in his discrimination against any family who doesn’t fit  the “Bible” litmus test.)   Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since those days of separate but equal,  but we still have a lot of work to do –on many fronts. 
 
It is my sincerest hope that it doesn’t take 50  years to look back on this moment and find Dan Cathy’s hurtful words just as  shocking as we now find segregation.   I believe we are more evolved. We are more aware of the pain and long  lasting effects of legitimized discrimination. I am going to hold faith that we  can evolve without the violence, arrests, and anger that it took to shake the  system in the 1960’s. I do believe we can heal this injustice through love. 
 
It’s time to shake the system. It’s time to say  that we have evolved past separate but equal. We have evolved past  disconnectedness. We are capable of seeing that seed of humanity within every single person on this planet, and that seed alone means we are worthy of respect  and  love. 
 
No matter how we proceed from here, we must remember that fear  and hate cannot grow love and acceptance. We must create the change we want to  see in others.  
Namaste, 
Leslie Draper


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