From The Advocate: http://www.advocate.com/politics/2013/01/25/lgbt-movement-warned-against-its-own-complacency
An annual meeting of LGBT activists, this time in Atlanta, came with celebration for all that has been accomplished with the most recent election and a warning.
BY Daniel Villarreal
January 25 2013
Coming off a string of successes, LGBT activists were warned today against complacency.
During her annual State of the Movement Address to the 3,000 attendees of the 25th National Conference on LGBT Equality in Atlanta, Georgia, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey said the 2012 elections yielded “a record number seven out members of Congress,” “beat back marriage opponents in Minnesota” and “won marriage equality in Maine, Maryland and Washington state,” she added that we must “resist the pressure to become smaller, to narrow our sights, to be lulled into thinking we are near the end of our work.”
Carey declared, “We are family, and we will not leave any of you behind!” By “family,” Carey meant the countless activists who have fought for LGBT rights over the Task Force’s 40 year history as well as the many LGBT citizens who need legal protection beyond those offered by legalized marriage equality.
“If there is one message we can take away from Election Night 2012,” Carey said, “it is that we are not alone. We are not alone as a movement, as a people, and we need to make sure no one else is alone either… We must choose as a basic moral value, never to leave any of our movement’s family behind.”
Among those still needing legal protection in our country, Carey included those who choose not to get married, schoolchildren in need of comprehensive anti-bullying policies, transgender immigrant detainees who face sexual and physical abuse in federal detention facilities, trans people who can still be refused a hotel room or hospital care without public accommodations laws, any LGBT person living in a state without marriage equality or employment protections as well as those suffering from sky-rocketing HIV rates.
Continue reading at: http://www.advocate.com/politics/2013/01/25/lgbt-movement-warned-against-its-own-complacency
