|
|||||
  My friends at the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco are moving on up… 5th Annual California Transgender Leadership Summit and 1st California Transgender Advocacy Day Friday, May 14th-Sunday, May 16th, 2010 Monday, May 17th, 2010 Interested in sponsoring the summit? Contact Paige at paige@transgenderlawcenter.org or (415) 865-0176. BLOG for equality now, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, TAKE ACTION for equality now
The most effective way to promote equality is to show legislators that their constituents care about what bills get passed or defeated. Nothing speaks to them louder than an in person meeting. Below are face-to-face lobby days scheduled by national and state LGBT organizations to make it easy for you to do that. In almost every case, you should register in advance with the organization and attend their training sessions. They will walk you through what to expect, how to effectively tell your own personal story, and provide a supportive environment. Afterwords, they may de-brief you to try to understand how much progress was achieved. If you are speaking members of the US Senate and House, Act On Principles provides you with a mechanism to report back what they told you about how they intend to vote. We provide handy forms for both the House and the Senate (http://www.actonprinciples.org/?s=form) that they can help you fill out at the end of the meeting, so that their opinions on all the relevant LGBT bills are recorded accurately. Then report back to the world via our Public Whip Count, so that those who come after you will know which legislators to push harder to solidify their support for LGBT equality. Check Out the following website for the lobbying grid. http://www.actonprinciples.org/lobbydays/ If you know of additional lobby days, please Submit an Action (http://www.actonprinciples.org/add-actions/) so that everyone can know that it has been scheduled. If you find errors in this post, please email editors at actonprinciples dot org . What would an LGBT equality conference in Dallas be without a discussion of the Dallas Principles, and its call for full immediate civil rights for LGBT Americans? Several Dallas Principles authors and champions will be on hand to introduce the Principles and demonstrate the groundbreaking online equality toolset available only at ActOnPrinciples.org. Currently planning to be in attendance: John Bare, Mike Rogers, Donald Hitchcock, Mandy Carter, Todd “TIF” Fernandez, Andy Szekeres. The session will take place Friday February 5 at 4:45 PM in the Grand Hall (outside the Dallas Ballroom). If you are at Creating Change 10, please stop by. If you can’t make it to Dallas, you can still get in on the excitement by following our tweets @ActOnPrinciples . We’ll show the unique contribution that TDP and AOP make in advancing equality. We’ll also show that while there are hundreds of LGBT organizations, websites, blogs, and listserves, only Act On Principles offers a one stop shop where the entire community can share their insights, strategies, and action alerts, and have them immediately shared via twitter, Facebook, and daily email. For the first time, organizations and individuals are on a level playing field so that every voice can be heard, every idea considered, and every sleeve rolled. We’ll also demonstrate our groundbreaking whip count tools where every individual can not only look up where their representatives stand on LGBT equality bills — but even be empowered to help change their hearts and minds and share the results with the community. Act On Principles empowers citizen activists to take charge of their own personal call for full immediate civil rights and take the legislative process out of the closet — for good!
The 30 latest tweets from our folks in the Prop 8 Trial Courtroom can now be viewed here. Just keep this post open and watch the latest trial coverage roll right in. You can also follow us @ActOnPrinciples to get all of our trial and non-trial tweets delivered right to your favoirte twitter client. You can also comment on trial coverage in the comments section. We love hearing from you! A number of Act On Principles Champions will attempt to snag very limited seating to live microblog the Federal District bench trial Perry v. Schwarzenegger. The trial, started yesterday in San Francisco, has become known as the Boies/Olson Case, after the famous attorneys who are attempting to prove that California Proposition 8 and all state marriage bans, violate the United States Constitution. The attorneys will claim that marriage bans violate both the first and second clauses of the fourteenth amendment by denying LGBT citizens liberty and due process. Although U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker had ordered that the trial would be streamed live to courthouses throughout the region and uploaded periodically for delayed viewing on YouTube, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling temporarily banning such videography until it can take up the issue in a fuller hearing. Therefore, only individuals able to enter the San Francisco Federal Building can see the trial live, until at least Wednesday afternoon. Local Act On Principles Champions will attempt to gain seats in the courthouse in order to provide regular tweets. You can follow those tweets, and all Act On Principles tweets at http://twitter.com/actonprinciples/  This is from Marriage Equality USA: Federal Court Case Challenging Prop 8 Monday January 11, 2010 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Phillip Burton Federal Building Plaza 450 Golden Gate Ave in San Francisco Join Marriage Equality USA leaders Molly McKay & Davina Kotulski and Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis, PFLAG parents Sam & Julia Thoron and Helen Laird, NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell, Lambda Marriage Project Director Jenny Pizer, couples who joyfully married, couples who want to marry, clergy leaders, musical performances by Veronica Klaus, Diane Larsen, local choirs and many many more! Together we will share the spirit of courage, hope and strength that will herald in the light on this important next chapter of our civil rights movement. There will be LOTS of strong coffee provided to those willing to get up that early and join us. Perry v Schwarzenegger, the federal trial challenging Prop 8, is scheduled to begin on Monday January 11, 2010 at 8:30am in Courtroom 6 on the 17th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Ave. in SF. There will be very limited seating available in the courtroom. There will be an overflow room on the 19th floor broadcasting the proceedings and hopefully the court will decide to televise the trial as well. http://www.marriageequality.org/index.php?page=event Creating Change, the nation’s premier LGBT grassrooots training and networking event, takes place in Dallas February 3-7, 2010. However, TODAY is the deadline for early bird registration, so save yourself $50 and claim your seat at the table.
Here is some information but for the full scoop & to actually register, head over to the Task Force’s site:
Registration Rates are as follows:
http://www.thetaskforce.org/events/creating_change/10_registration (No Ratings Yet) Submitted by Tommy News I am angry. I am mad. I am sad. I am deeply ashamed of all those who -Tommy News From Equality California: Take Action Loss in Maine – Tell Obama to Act Now! The failure of President Obama and other elected leaders to actively Sign our petition to President Obama and his administration. Urge him http://www.eqca.org/site/pp.asp?c=kuLRJ9MRKrH&b=4026385 The environment following the passage of Prop 8 in California, coupled with the incredible opportunity provided by the election of a Democratic President and overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, gave birth to two ambitious ideas to advance LGBT equality: the National Equality March and the Dallas Principles. This site is directly inspired by the latter effort. Today, sad news came from the former: The co-chairs of the March have both resigned, and the parent organization is in disarray, as was reported widely ( http://www.bilerico.com/2009/11/equality_march_co-directors_resign_group_reorganiz.php ). Some of us who have championed the Principles feel a certain kinship with our young cousins, so today’s news hits hard. While in DC, I was impressed with how many of our community turned out for a march that most people probably thought could not be pulled off at all. Instead, the speeches soared, the weather cooperated, and maybe for the first time it felt as though the anger of the California defeat dissipated and was replaced with a sea of Hope. But today is a sad if not completely unexpected day. I would offer simply that co-chairs Kip Williams and Robin McGehee (and the entire team) took personal ownership of the struggle for equality and we are in a different world today as a result. And, they performed far better than any of us had a right to expect, under very intense pressure. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude, whether they were paid $9,000 or $90,000. There will be many decisions to make and lessons to learn from this effort, but one stands out for me: Whether or not Equality Across America survives, let’s not wait around for someone to form an organization to capitalize on the energy of the Marchers!! We have plenty of old organizations and plenty of newly minted ones already that could be energized by those who were inspired by NEM. This is especially important for thousands of new activists who reacted to Prop 8 by getting behind the March. If 200,000 of us can show up in DC at one time, why can’t we show up at one time at HRC, at the Task Force, at our state and local organizations, and in the offices of legislators like Barney Frank — and demand to be a part of the strategy to achieve full equality? Didn’t we learn that if we don’t show up we have no right to expect change? We need to come out and get the vote out. We need to lobby and whip. We have bills and referenda and coalitions on our plate. And, we need to pass the plate so that leaders aren’t forced into poverty to serve our community. So then, let’s honor Robin and Kip’s service by doing what they did: By taking personal ownership of the struggle for equality. (No Ratings Yet) Can a former Republican and a U.S. Senator evolve? In a piece in today’s Huffington Post, Senator Arlen Specter, wrote: The time has come to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Enacted 13 years ago when the idea of same sex marriage was struggling for acceptance, the Act is a relic of a more tradition-bound time and culture. Curious, since Specter – then a Republican – voted with his even more conservative Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum to help enact DOMA in the first place. I’m all for evolution, so this is welcome news. Will a newly minted Democrat put some muscle behind the easy breezy words of a HuffPo piece by INTRODUCING a DOMA repeal into the US Senate? I called the Senator’s office today, and asked if he will be doing just that. I’ll report back on what I learn. I LOVE that we are whipping HR 3567, Nadler’s Respect for Marriage Act. I think the AOP webmaster can make some room for Senate companion legislation, but he can’t until it is introduced. If you want to call Senator Specter to urge that he introduce a DOMA repeal, his number is 202-224-4254 . |
 | ||||
