Today is Day Five of our “7 Days to a Better Financial You” campaign that the Human Rights Campaign launched to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people take charge of their financial futures as we count down to the April 15 tax day.
On Monday, we kicked off our campaign with a media conference call to unveil a new legislative agenda – called Family Matters – to pass laws that provide equal rights and responsibilities for same sex couples and their families.
Tuesday we focused on GLBT Workplace Issues and sponsored a virtual townhall to help employers and GLBT employees learn how to maximize the value of their organization’s benefits.
Wednesday was dedicated to helping GLBT individuals and couples understand the absolute necessity of proper Estate and Retirement Planning and being proactive in determining their financial legacy. This is one topic where misconceptions abound on the need to lay out clear instructions regarding ones assets in the event of death of disability.
Thursday’s theme centered on helping the GLBT community better understanding some of the complicated Federal/State Legislative Issues they routinely encounter in trying to live financially secure lives. We brought in a team of experts to host a national webchat to answer some of the pressing financial questions from people in the GLBT community. The transcript of the live online discussion is now available at www.hrc.org/chat.
Today we’re focusing on Real People, Real Stories, Real Issues. That means we’re going to look at how unfair laws impact the lives of real people in our community. On Monday, we posted a video featuring Julie and Charlene in which they share just a few of the challenges they face as a same-sex couple raising two young children. In this new video, the Sheeleys, a Wisconsin couple who have been married for 44 years, express their hearts’ desire to have their son David, who is gay, be able to enjoy all the health and legal benefits that they and David’s siblings have enjoyed for years:
Mr. Sheeley: David is a wonderful person – as all my children are. We’re very proud of him. I think he’s entitled to every benefit that any other person has and he shouldn’t be shortchanged in any way.
Mrs. Sheeley: If David gets married, I want him to – has a partner – I want him to have the same Social Security benefits that another married couple would have. Basically, I really want him to have a happy life. I want him to have all the same things that my daughter has with her husband and all the benefits – health wise, legal wise, everything.
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