Despite being under siege from the media, Heather Unruh is standing firm in her support for us and our human rights event and we couldn’t be prouder of her and her strength. She is not letting social media bullies deter her.
We Stand With Heather Unruh - Caroline Hart, Heather Unruh & Laurie Hart
Last week, our close friend Heather Unruh hit the headlines, as she spoke out on behalf of her son and his allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of actor Kevin Spacey. As my wife Laurie and I watched Heather at the press conference we cried, feeling her real agony, you never want to see anyone go through that.
Since that controversial press conference last week so much has been said, we have kept in touch with Heather and it has hurt us deeply seeing any negative comments about her and her family. We have even had negative comments directed at us and we want to put the record straight, as her friendship means the world to us.
Heather has been an incredible ally of ours, when we were fighting for marriage equality as a bi-national lesbian couple, she stepped forward and threw her support 100 percent behind us, both privately and publicly. She has been a tremendous advocate for the LGBTQ community and always offered us help in any way she could. So, when Laurie and I set upon our idea of writing a screenplay, HART, about our human rights story, the only person we wanted to portray the reporter, outside of the Supreme Court Of The United States, was Heather Unruh. In what is a climactic scene of HART as the ruling is made on the repeal of DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act) we were adamant, we had to have a true ally speaking the groundbreaking news. We literally wrote her name into our script and when it was complete we sent it to her for consideration, immediately she said YES. She wanted to be a part of what is an important human rights story and to support us, as we continue to advocate for equal rights.
Heather Unruh - Message Of Support For Caroline and Laurie Hart
Laurie Hart says “As I sat with tears streaming down, watching the live press conference, it wasn’t the former news anchor I was listening to, as I often had, but my dear friend Heather. A courageous mother defending her son. This hit me hard and my natural response was to stand by Heather and her family at such a difficult time, the same as she has done for me. Not only has Heather been a true ally in our fight for equality but a friend to speak to when my father was dying of brain cancer.” Laurie continues “Not long after the press conference, Heather Unruh was trending on Twitter with the backlash from Spacey fans attacking her and her family. Reading such horrible messages brought me back to when Caroline and I were fighting for Marriage Equality and all the hateful messages we received from faceless bullies. I knew at this point I had to make a public stand for my friend. After I tweeted #IStandWithHeatherUnruh the positive comments were setting my Twitter notifications a blaze all hours of the night, I too Stand with Heather Unruh. So, this proved to me once again that LOVE does win!”
Laurie says “As a writer and producer of HART, I applaud Netflix and Sony for dropping Kevin Spacey. Hollywood needs more companies like this to stand up and do what’s right.”
Heather Unruh - Calling Out Keyboard Cowards
It is totally abhorrent to us that people are attacking Heather for coming forward on behalf of her son and insinuating she and us are using it to gain attention for our film and fundraising event. This could not be further from the truth. We have been working years advocating for LGBTQ equal rights and Heather has been right alongside of us, every step of the way.
It is totally unfair for people to shame the victims of sexual abuse, or their support systems, ugly accusers hide behind their keyboards and are almost always faceless, only showing profile images of cats or the like. People need to use their time more wisely, rather than reacting to matters they know nothing about and passing down their distasteful and unwarranted judgments.
All I know is it takes incredible strength and courage to come forward and publicly announce to the world about sexual abuse and no one should ever feel ashamed. I am proud of Heather, her son and all those strong enough to make a stand and help towards ending what has been brushed under the rug for far too long. Heather could have so easily decided that she would no longer host our fundraising event “HART – A Night Of Inspiration” following all the social media attention, but she was stronger than those throwing their shade at her and she knew she didn’t want to let us down. We have been working years to reach this point in our advocacy and we know 100 percent that Heather has always got our backs!