Thanks BTL

Dear BTL,
For many months I have had the idea of sending a brief note of appreciation for the extraordinary work you and your staff do each week in preparing and publishing Between The Lines. Your newspaper has become such an invaluable resource to the entire community in such a way that it is impossible to imagine what gay life would be like in Michigan and metro Detroit without it. Few people can imagine the incalculable effort you all devote to Between The Lines in the face of constantly breaking news, providing the public with a face for a too often invisible community, and dealing with the vital task of bringing together all the various perspectives and stories that relate to our diverse community.
With that in mind, I especially want to express my thanks to you for the support you showed your staff writers and others in backing their efforts to launch the important Town Hall series on Homophobia in Detroit. This is such a brave and essential forum for open discussion and resolution and I think your paper and the Michigan Citizen should be congratulated for helping to support its development.
I thought it was time for me to communicate my sincere appreciation for all the work that you and everyone at BTL do with such integrity, sensitivity and goodwill (not to mention incredibly long hours and hard work, I'm sure.)
Thanks again for putting a public face on our diverse GLBT community of which we can all be proud.
Sincerely,
William Colburn
Detroit