Robert Loupo, Founder and Executive Director Emeritus, Reflects on the Passing of Ruth Shack

I first heard of Ruth Shack in 1977 when I was a frightened 26-year-old who had recently come out to himself and a few others in rural Southern Baptist South Carolina.

Ruth, then a Miami-Dade County Commissioner, spoke out passionately in support of gay people, having introduced and helped pass a county ordinance ensuring basic equal rights to gay people — then defending that ordinance from reversal by anti-gay foes led by Anita Bryant and her followers.

“Save Our Children” from “recruitment by gay teachers” was the fear-based, specious argument used by Anita Bryant and her crowd to drum up support. Ruth articulately shot holes in all their falsehoods.

She was my shero. She gave me hope.

Her courage, vision, passion, and integrity helped inspire me to speak out in support of LGBTQ students, teachers, and staff not long after I became a Miami-Dade teacher in 1985. Then in 1991, other teachers and I formed the nonprofit, which eventually became Safe Schools South Florida, to further support LGBTQ students, teachers, and staff — knowing Ruth and other South Florida citizens like her would be there for us. And she was.

Ruth later became the President of the Dade Community Foundation — now the Miami Foundation — and through grant awards to Safe Schools South Florida, I got to meet and know Ruth. What a privilege that was for me.

Her confident dynamism, eloquent speech, and unwavering vision for a better South Florida community — with LGBTQ citizens as equal and integral parts of that community — lives on and inspires me and untold thousands each and every day.

Thank you always, Ruth Shack!

— Robert Loupo