Help Spread the Message of Equality

Each Texas legislative year, organizations partner with Equality Texas to bring a message to the representatives and senators of the Texas Legislature - equality is for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.  Collin Equality Foundation has joined with many other organizations in supporting this year's Texas Lobby for Equality Day, which will be held on March 5, 2007 at the state capitol in Austin.

Lobby Day is your opportunity to join hundreds of citizens who oppose public policy discrimination against Texans and their families based upon sexual orientation, and gender identity & expression.

Register for Lobby Day and find out more information about the schedule, agenda, accommodations, and more.  If you have any general questions or concerns about Lobby Day, contact Bren Gorman at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 512.474.5475.

Visit the Alliance for Justice's website for information relating to Charitable Organizations and political activity. 

From Equality Texas:

Lobby for Equality 2007! is Monday, March 5th. Join hundreds of citizens from across the state to oppose public policy discrimination against Texans and their families based upon sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. Don't miss this opportunity to share your concerns and your lives with the Texas lawmakers elected to represent you. Lobby Day events will start on Sunday, March 4th with an Opening Reception at the host hotel, the Wyndham Garden Hotel - Austin.

Lobbying isn’t scary, or difficult—it’s a one-on-one conversation to communicate the issues that are important to you with the individuals elected to represent you, and Equality Texas will facilitate a lobby training to ensure that everyone is comfortable talking about the issues and has a working knowledge of the legislative process. Currently, there are 18 bills pending in the legislature on the Equality Texas ‘watch list’ and 6 of those are on our legislative agenda, which means we will be actively lobbying to navigate those bills through the legislature. Those bills address issues such as discrimination in employment, housing, insurance, and creating safe schools for LGBT youth and their teachers.

WE NEED YOU AT LOBBY DAY TO:

• Combat discrimination at work. It’s legal to be fired in Texas for being gay, and this reality forces our community into the closet. Transgender Texans are disproportionately affected by discrimination in the workplace. We can not allow our community to be denied the right to earn a living and provide for their families.
• Combat discrimination at school. LGBT youth are not currently covered under bullying and harassment clauses in the Texas Education code, and have a significantly increased risk of dropping out of school, lower GPAs and even suicide.

Finally, we need everyone proactively educating legislators about restrictions on LGBT parenting. Last session, eighty-one (81) state representatives voted in favor of a proposal to prohibit lesbian, gay and bisexual Texans from serving as foster parents. Many of these representatives live in suburban districts; the very same suburbs that many LGBT parents have chosen to raise their children. These lawmakers need to meet you, and they need to hear you. They need to know that attempts to redefine “family” to exclude LGBT parents are an immoral assault on the thousands of children who are being loved and raised by capable LGBT parents.

Take action to change the status quo by coming to lobby day. Please register now to attend: http://eqfed.org/eqtx/events/lobbyday07/details.tcl

The schedule for Monday, March 5th includes:

8:00 – 9:00am: Breakfast & Check-In (The Capitol Grill Extension Rm E1.002)

9:00am: Press conference on the South Steps

9:30am: Photo Opportunity on the South Steps

10:00 – 11:00am: Lobby Training (Capitol Extension Auditorium, Room E1.004)

11:00 – 12:00pm: Team Lobby Visits

12:00 – 1:00pm: Boxed-Lunch provided by Equality Texas

1:00 – 3:00pm: Finish assigned team lobby visits and visit your legislator

3:00 – 4:00pm: Thank you letters and debrief

To view our legislative agenda for the 80th Session of the Texas Legislature, go to: http://www.equalitytexas.org/issues/legislation/

For more detailed information on Lobby Day, please go to our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page: http://www.equalitytexas.org/issues/lobbyday/faq.php?source=lobbyday