Following last night’s successful Florida primary training session, Trevor Thomas, our deputy communications director, relayed an update to us this morning:
Floridians are mobilizing. Last night in Ft. Lauderdale, roughly 30 more people committed and signed up for shifts to volunteer at the polls and engage primary day voters by educating them on the harmful marriage amendment that we expect on the statewide ballot this November.
On our side, we’ve teamed with Florida Red and Blue, the statewide coalition working to defeat the ballot proposal. We’ve also sent staff and additional support to help with the grassroots campaign underway right now.
I’m traveling with Joe Solmonese who arrived in Florida Tuesday to kickoff a series of trainings across the state. Joe spoke at both the first session was in Orlando and the second meeting in Ft. Lauderdale last night.
People are truly excited to get involved. They’ve been hearing about the signatures being gathered by the far-right for a more than a year now. They’ve been waiting to fight back and this is their opportunity to take action. And, quite frankly, it’s difficult for them to tell Toby (our field whiz in this area) “no” or “Ill get back to you.” He’s rather persistent and once he has your name you’re pretty much off to the polls!
Not only are we working to help on a field level, but we’re amassing quite a list of contacts for future communications with local media. There are 11 media markets in Florida – it’s like a small country! We’ve been able to identify reporters, background them, and make sure they understand this amendment will hurt ALL Floridians, gay and straight. Gay marriage is already illegal. This amendment will make civil unions impossible and restrict many benefits between unmarried couples. It will write discrimination into the state’s constitution and that is why we’re here.
If you’re up for helping us out – even if you’re not from Florida – let us know. We still have trainings planned for Palm Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Gainesville and Pensacola. A Miami training is also being planned by the GLBT group, SAVE Dade, for January 17.
Let this be our moment to show the power of the GLBT movement. We’ve witnessed the use of wedge politics and amendment initiatives in the past, let it end here with us. Let’s make Florida an example of equality in action.
[Photo: Trevor meets with Toby Quaranta at Toby's "office" in Ft. Lauderdale, a Panera on Route 1]
![HRC-BACKSTORY [BLOG]](http://174.121.110.138/~hrcorg/hrcbackstory/images/logo/hrc-backstory.jpg){kind=logo}
