With so many important contests on this year's ballot, I would like to highlight one at the top of the ballot and three at the bottom of the ballot. 

With a U.S. Supreme Court now solidly controlled by a conservative majority, some of whom oppose the right of same-sex couples to marry, it is important that LGBT voters and their allies bolster legislative defenses at the federal, state and local levels.

As many are now aware, the current occupant of the 16th Congressional district of Florida seat — Vern Buchanan — has opposed the expansion of civil rights for his LGBT constituents. Just last year the Congressman voted against the Equality Act which, if signed into law, would "prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in a wide variety of areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system."

Additionally, the Congressman, according to the Human Rights Campaign, opposes a federal ban on gay conversion therapy. 

Locally, two City of Sarasota Commissioners — Willie Charles Shaw who is running for a third term and Shelli Freeland Eddie who has elected to leave the Commission after one term — voted against drafting an ordinance banning gay conversion therapy performed on minors. Further confirming my suspicions that Sarasota's LGBT community does not have a friend in Commissioner Shaw was his immediate reluctance to include LGBT as a category of small business owners who could participate in the City's Diversity Procurement Program. As a gay man, I have been taken aback by these revelations. 

I encourage fellow city voters to cast their ballots for four Equality Florida-endorsed candidates: please send state Representative Margaret Good to Washington, Kyle Scott Battie for District 1, Commissioner Liz Alpert for District 2 and Dan Clermont for District 3.

Gabriel Hament is a Sarasota native. He managed Alpert's 2015 city campaign and has volunteered for Good, Battie and Clermont.