Councilor Maureen Feeney 

Congressman Michael E. Capuano

Councilor Maura Hennigan 

Councilor Charles Yancey 

Councilor Stephen Murphy 

Councilor Felix Arroyo 

Congressman Stephen F. Lynch 

Council President Michael Flaherty 

Mayor Thomas M. Menino 

Senator Dianne Wilkerson

Senator Jack Hart 

Speaker Thomas M. Finneran 

Representative Marie St. Fleur 

Representative Martin J. Walsh 

Representative Shirley Owens-Hicks 

Dear Elected Official:

We are proud to announce the formation of DotOUT - a grassroots, political organization representing gay and lesbian voters and our allies in Dorchester.

As you know, your gay and lesbian neighbors have long been active and valued members of Dorchester's civic associations, political ward committees, business associations and other local organizations. We are often called upon to lend our support and assistance to candidates for elective office. While we look forward to continuing to make these positive, personal commitments to our neighborhood, we believe that DotOUT represents a wonderful opportunity to unite Dorchester's gay and lesbian voters and their allies in support of those elected officials and candidates who have demonstrated a commitment to us, their gay and lesbian neighbors. Many of you have been steadfast in your support of us, some of you for many, many years, some of you more recently. To each of you who have publicly and privately supported us, thank you! We are enormously grateful.

DotOUT will work very hard to project a positive image of ourselves, to shed stereotypes and, in so doing, to show our neighbors that we are more alike than different, that we care about many of the same things they do and that we, like them, want the best for ourselves, our families and our neighborhood. Already, we share a mutual respect with many in Dorchester and we feel very fortunate to live here. And, so it seemed appropriate to us that our first public appearance as a group will be to participate in the Dorchester Day Parade. Dorchester Day is a day of great local pride and the Dorchester Day Parade is certainly a wonderful showcase of our great neighborhood. We are very proud and happy to call Dorchester home and this year we look forward to joining the "mayor" of Dorchester, all the great bands, other local organizations and many of our elected officials as parade participants.

We look forward to seeing you on Dorchester Day. Please do not hesitate to call on any of us if you would like to discuss DotOUT.

Sincerely,

Ed Cook 

Dan Connor 

Dan Cushing 

Michele Gillen 

Richard O'Mara