On a Saturday night that featured a number of college football games, including the so-called “game of the century” featuring LSU and Alabama, a number of folks decided to forgo an evening of beer drinking and college football to attend one of the most important causes of the year.
Equality Florida held its Greater Orlando Gala tonight at the Orlando Museum of Art in an effort to raise funds to fight for the civil rights of not just the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community but for all Floridians. They also gave awards, or their “Voice for Equality” honorees, to Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell and Kissimmee City Commissioner Cheryl Greib for their great work as advocates for the LGBT community.
This great event raised over $100,000 dollars and that money will aid this organization’s efforts to continue to make inroads in the fight against discrimination toward the LGBT community.
Equality Florida has a great team of people including its fabulous director Ms. Nadine Smith. She has been the executive director of Equality Florida since its creation almost 15 years ago. During her time as director, Equality Florida has fought to end the ban on anti-gay adoptions, pushed legislation for anti-bullying against LGBT students and was instrumental in adding diversity to Florida’s political arena as the state has over 20 LGBT elected officials.
This organization does great work in the community and the state and through Nadine’s authentic, pure leadership, Equality Florida will continue to grow.
But their work isn’t done.
Michael Farmer, one of the organization’s field directors, talked a little about Equality’s political focus heading into the 2012 Florida legislative session.
“Our biggest focus is the Competitive Workforce Act, which will make it illegal to fire someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity in the state of Florida. Right now you can be fired if you live in Seminole County if you have a picture of your partner on your desk. This will create a statewide law that will prohibit that.” said Farmer.
What’s also important regarding the work that Equality does politically is that by crafting legislation that stamps out discrimination and working for the rights of all, this only strengthens our business community and workforce. The state of Florida has an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent and if we add workforce multiplicity our employment force will grow and add to our financial base.
To cap the night off Nadine made a few great points during her “State of the State” speech. She said that this fight for the basic civil rights of the LGBT community is the “defining moment of this generation” and she made mention of a famous quote by a famous American.
“An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I believe that’s a fight we should all get involved in.
-JH
