I've run into a situation of blatant discrimination in my own home city.

While I'm not going to go into specifics about this case, the complicating factor is that it arises out of a situation that many would not consider 'politically correct', ergo, the person involved is considered by some as perhaps not deserving of support or protection.

This leads me to remember another situation some years back where a member of the community I live in was seeking support around a legal situation that was not of his making.

The problem was that because the man in question had previously been charged in a (completely unrelated) domestic violence case, some felt he was undeserving of support around this other matter.

The domestic-abuse charge had occured some time back and had presumably been dealt with. It had no bearing on this man's current situation.

Unfortunately this attitude is widely prevelant in many activist communities, resulting in much undeserved suffering and many lost opportunities.

If we were required to wait for a set of circumstances that was entirely 'pure' before feeling compelled to offer someone our solidarity or support, then we would never support one another at all. There are going to be inconsistencies, issues of morality and other considerations clouding the waters in literally every situation.  It's the inevitable consequence of our being human.

As far as I'm concerned the bottom line  is that if someone is being abused or discriminated against  then they deserve to have people come to their aid. Period. Full stop. To my mind this is the one moral imperative in any such situation.

There may well be issues arising from how/why a situation developed in the first place that need to be discussed at a later time, once any immediate crisis has been resolved - but these considerations are immaterial in terms of whether someone deserves to be protected from discrimination or other forms of attack.

Likewise, we need to avoid appointing ourselves judges of other peoples' choices as to the course their lives will take. Whether we agree or not with decisions another person makes in their own behalf, we have an obligation to respect their entitlement to make such decisions, provided no harm comes to others as a result.

Even where someone has made the kind of mistakes in the past that others may find troubling, this does not (to my mind) arbitrarily cast them as unworthy.

While such individuals may well have much hard work to do in terms of establishing (or regaining) peoples' trust, they are nonetheless elegible by definition for the same protection from bigotry or abuse as is anyone who has not made such errors. 

Sometimes an individual's  comfort levels may leave them unable to offer support to others in a situation that has painful or frightening personal associations. This is perfectly OK. No one should feel obliged to enter into any arrangement where they feel unsafe.

These are all considerations we need to take into account as we strive for a world where no one is deprived of  the community, nurturance or (when necessary) protection that, in the ideal world, would be considered the birthright of every human being.