HRC Back Story

As Thanksgiving nears, I feel profoundly grateful to the people like you who've given their time, money, and passion to the cause of equality this year. Your energy is downright inspiring.

I also find myself uplifted by the amazing victories that we achieved on Election Day. But there is also no denying the blows we were dealt this month, with marriage bans in Arizona, Florida and California.
Historians will point to this election as a turning point in the long struggle for civil rights. Eight years of White House hostility toward LGBT Americans are finally over.

While HRC is working on many fronts to fight California's Prop. 8 and promote marriage equality across the U.S., I have a task for you today: talk to your family and tell them why marriage equality matters to you.

The conversation may be easy, or it may be hard. But in the wake of Prop. 8, a dialogue to change hearts and minds has never been more important.

If you need a place to start, we've developed four e-cards that you can send to friends and family to get the conversation going. Send e-cards now >>

You might want to talk about the person you love. Or about why it's so important for straight allies to support marriage equality. If you need more inspiration, I have a story for you.

Jan and DeAnn, who were married in California this August, had spent 8 years living next to Jon and

Brenda. They chatted about lawn care, skiing, and home repair, and DeAnn even taught their four children in spelling games and rounds of Old Maid once a week – but knowing the anti-gay stance of their neighbors' religion, Jan and DeAnn had decided never to discuss their personal life.
Brenda was in her yard when the limousine pulled up on Jan and DeAnn's wedding day. When she asked what the occasion was, they decided to tell Brenda they were getting married. They were shocked when Brenda immediately hugged them, burst into tears, and sobbed, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jan replied, "You never know if you're going to get a hug or a brick through your window." DeAnn said, "I was afraid of losing your children."

Then, Jan says, "We all cried, gave one last hug, and entered the limo with soaring spirits."
These are the stories we have to tell. This is the case we have to make: real people, real consequences. Too long, the discussion has been about the definition of marriage rather than the rights of marriage. Many people don't even realize that legally married same-sex couples are denied more than 1,000 different rights on the Federal level, including:

• visiting a partner or child in the hospital
• passing on property without taxes
• taking family leave to care for a sick child
• tax equality

One conversation at a time, America is changing and will continue to change. If we want equality to be the law of the land sooner rather than later, each one of us – LGBT or straight – must now answer the challenge by sitting down with our family and friends, educating them and listening to them in return.

Please accept my sincerest thanks for all that you have helped us accomplish this past year. And when you sit down to the Thanksgiving table tomorrow, think of all we could be celebrating in the coming years.

Warmly,

The same day a Florida circuit court ruled its ban on gay adoption unconstitutional, Candace Gingrich, HRC's youth and campus outreach senior manager, made an appearance tonight on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" to continue the dialogue on Prop 8 and the fight for marriage equality.  During her segment (#1 on the Countdown, BTW), Candace made the important point that allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry does not threaten anyone's marriage and is not something people have to fear.

Watch the video here: 

Candace also published a must-read letter to her brother Newt Gingrich that has been viewed over 260,000 times since it was posted on Huffington Post this past weekend:

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News.  I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, “There you go, again.”

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked. 

The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists.  I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as - and we embrace what it can be.   You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past. 

[...]

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions.   That’s really so ‘90s, Newt.    In this day and age, it’s embarrassing to watch you talk like that.   You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

 

Today All Children - All Families, a program of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Family Project, held a press conference at the HRC building to launch a new awareness campaign aimed at increasing LGBT foster parenting and adoption.

All Children – All Families, launched in 2007, also seeks to enhance LGBT competence among child welfare professionals and educate LGBT people about opportunities to become foster or adoptive parents to waiting children.  Thirty-four agencies from across the U.S are currently participating in the initiative, and more than a dozen agencies are close to earning the seal of recognition.  Check out www.hrc.org/acaf for more information.

Today's press conference featured Ellen Kahn, HRC Foundation Family Project director; Janice Goldwater, Adoptions Together founder and executive director; Nathan Monell, CEO of Foster Care Alumni of America; and adoptive parent Daniel McNeil.

We've uploaded video of the speakers' full remarks:

Ellen Kahn and Janice Goldwater:

Ellen: We are unveiling a recruitment campaign aimed at the LGBT community. This is an innovative campaign that will be implemented nationally over the course of the coming year. We're starting in Washington, DC and we're partnering with Adoptions Together, an agency that has indeed done the work to be ready and welcoming and to really stand behind LGBT families who come in with an interest in adopting from foster care.

...There are an estimated 2 million folks in the LGBT community who are interested in adoption...if even 10% of that 2 million took a step and started exploring in more depth the opportunities in foster care/adoption - and had agencies standing with them and believing in them - we could actually solve a problem and, a year from now, we would not have 129,000 waiting children.

Janice: I'm here today to let you know that we need the LGBT community to come forward and consider adopting a child. I know that, historically, many people have not been welcomed in the adoption community and for this, I'm really sorry....My hope is that this campaign inspires those in the LGBT community to come forward who could be a resource for a child and say, "Yes, we are here. We can take a child into our family." Please know our doors are opened; children are waiting; and we need you.

Nathan Monell:

Our organization knows firsthand what it's like for people to grow up alone in this world....For people who grow up in foster care, that sense of being alone is always with them....

People have not spent time going to the GLBT community and said, "You'd make great parents. You'd do a really good job." And we need to be doing that and I'm really proud of this project for doing that.  Our organization is unabashedly supportive of this work because we know firsthand that any qualified parent is the best parent.  It doesn't matter the sexual orientation. That shouldn't be a part of the equation.   

Daniel McNeil:

I think the biggest obstacle that prevents people from becoming families like ours is homophobia. And there's homophobia, both on the inside and on the inside.  I think the first thing parents need to do - potential parents - is look at the homophobia on the inside. I've talked to lots of potential parents. We agonize like, "How do you know if you're going to be the right type of person to be a parent?" I don't have a magic answer - and there's lots of books. But I would say the guiding principle for me is that an adoption is basically a commitment to a child. And commitment means you're going to be there to love them; a commitment means you're going to be there for the long haul. And so if you can say, "Yes, I have the capacity to love. Yes, I'm willing to do the hard work to stick with all it takes to become a family," then you've already answered the most fundamental questions and you can launch forward.

...The most loving thing I've ever done as a person is become a dad... If this program, this new initiative, can help people envision for themselves becoming a family, then I'm really excited to be a part of that and help support and encourage that.

From the Miami Herald:

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman Tuesday declared Florida's 30-year-old ban on gay adoptions unconstitutional -- a ruling state lawyers immediately said they would challenge.

The ruling sets the stage for Frank Gill, a gay man from North Miami, to adopt two foster children he has raised since 2004.

In a 53-page ruling, Judge Lederman said, ``It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent.''

Just in time for the kickoff of the holiday shopping season, today HRC Foundation released its 2009 “Buying for Equality” guide.  The guide is aimed at helping consumers businesses and brands that support the LGBT community.  The guide includes listings from a record 260 companies that received a perfect 100 percent score on our 2009 Corporate Equality Index, an annual report on company policies related to diversity & inclusion training, non-discrimination policies and access to healthcare for LGBT employees and their families.  To download or request a copy of the guide visit: www.hrc.org/buyersguide.

According to a Witeck-Combs/Market Research.com study, the buying power of the LGBT community is estimated to be $759 billion in 2009.  During difficult economic times, our nation’s businesses know that every dollar spent by consumers figures into the success of their organization. 

This is the fourth year the Human Rights Campaign has published the widely-popular “Buying for Equality” consumer guide.  The guide has been viewed and downloaded off of HRC’s website more than 275,000 times.  This year, HRC included businesses that did not respond to survey request over the past three years.  Each non-responder was provided a score of “?” and placed into the red section of the relevant buying category.  HRC looks forward to building positive, working relationships with these businesses and encourages readers of the Buyer’s Guide that contact these companies to report their responses to HRC.

Scores in the “Buying for Equality” guide are determined through scoring criteria in the HRC Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), the only nationally recognized measure of LGBT workplace equality.  The CEI is the primary method for companies to evaluate their diversity efforts toward LGBT employees, customers, and investors.  To learn more about the CEI visit: www.hrc.org/cei

Additional background information on the 2009 “Buying for Equality” Guide:

“Buying for Equality” breaks companies and their products into easily distinguishable purchasing categories.  Some categories include:
• Apparel & Accessories
• Banking & Finance
• Eating Out
• Home & Garden
• Technology

Companies/products are divided based on their CEI score into red, yellow, and green sections so that consumers can easily determine which brands support GLBT equality.   
• Green (80-100): Consumers should make every effort to support these businesses.
• Yellow (46-79): Businesses/brands that have taken steps toward a fair-minded workplace, but there is still progress to be made.
• Red (0-45): Businesses/brands that have more work to do in furthering equality. If possible, make the choice to support a fairer company.
• Red (?): Businesses/brands that have not responded to the survey despite repeated attempts and whose policies are unclear.

The Human Rights Campaign recently released a list of the businesses and organizations that supported California’s Proposition 8, the discriminatory amendment passed on Election Day that eliminates the right for same-sex couples to marry in the state.  Although several Fortune 500 companies and organizations contributed to the No on 8 Campaign, no Fortune 500 companies were found to have contributed to the Yes on 8 Campaign.   The data was searched for donations derived directly from businesses and organizations, rather than from individuals or national advocacy groups.  To view the complete list of businesses and organizations who supported Proposition 8, visit: www.hrc.org/prop8supporters.

This letter from HRC's Candace Gingrich responding to her brother Newt calling Prop 8 protestors "gay and secular fascists" is cross-posted on Huffington Post:

Dear Newt,

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News.  I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, “There you go, again.”

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked. 

The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists.  I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as - and we embrace what it can be.   You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past. 

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro.  I can understand why you’re so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign.   I can see why you’re sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country. 

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever – and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don’t roll that way.  18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.  And the numbers of  young progressive voters will only continue to grow.  According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 – the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That’s an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

These are the same people who helped elect Barack Obama and sent a decisive message to your party.  These young people are the future and their energy will continue to drive our country forward.  Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years. 

This is a movement of the people that you most fear.  It’s a movement of progress – and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes. 

Then again, we’ve seen these tactics before.  We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first.   You give a pass to a religious group – one that looks down upon minorities and women – when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us “fascists” when we fight back.   You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of “traditional” marriage.    And, of course, you’ve also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes.    I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of “historic Christianity” you claim to champion.

Again, nothing new here.  This is just more of the blatant hypocrisy we’re used to hearing.

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions.   That’s really so ‘90s, Newt.    In this day and age, it’s embarrassing to watch you talk like that.   You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

Good afternoon,

This week we observed Transgender Day of Remembrance, which provided us with a moment to stop and consider just how much this community has to fight for. Transgender members of our community are unsafe, preyed upon by ignorance and hatred. The fight for marriage equality and relationship recognition is crucially important, but until all of us can walk the streets without fear of violence, none of us are protected. I urge all of you to read the moving remarks delivered by Allyson Robinson, HRC Foundation’s Associate Director of Diversity, at a TDOR event in Orlando here.

Last weekend, hundreds of thousands in 300 cities nationwide gathered to express their hurt, anger and determination to win marriage equality in California and beyond. But to triumph against the forces of discrimination and hate, the LGBT community and its allies must continue to channel our feelings of discontent into action.

All of us struggle with disappointment over the outcome of ballot initiative fights in California, Arkansas, Arizona and Florida. We are all looking for what our next steps should be. At the Human Rights Campaign, we’re working nonstop to turn our disappointment into action by addressing the root causes of the Election Day loss and making the case for equality with people of all faiths and backgrounds.

We’re working to get our message out to living rooms across the nation. Early this week I taped an appearance on the nationally syndicated talk show Dr. Phil on the subject of same-sex marriage. The episode, which also features San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and attorney Gloria Allred, airs today. To learn more about the show and find your local listing, visit the Dr. Phil website.

This week, the California Supreme Court announced that it would take up the lawsuit to overturn the state’s discriminatory Prop 8. While we are awaiting the outcome of that lawsuit, HRC is taking a number of steps to turn the page on this situation and ensure that our community moves on to victory.

HRC has also outlined opportunities for LGBT people of faith to come out in their religious communities. To learn more, click here.

We’re encouraging our California members to help organize or and participate in town hall meetings across the state in the coming months. To get involved, click here to contact meeting organizers near you.

Building on our Election Day successes, which have opened up new doors in key states, especially the Northeast. Renewed energy and commitment from supporters of equality in the wake of our devastating losses will provide new opportunities to advance marriage equality and other recognition for committed gay and lesbian couples and their families. Click here to learn more about these hotspots.

The passage of discriminatory initiatives in California, Arkansas, Arizona and Florida has ignited the passion of thousands. Pledge to keep your anger and passion alive, and to work for justice until equality is the law of the land. And let us not stray from our own path toward justice by reducing a human rights movement to tactics of recrimination.

While major victories in the White House, Congress and state legislatures provide new opportunities, the passage of hateful ballot measures in four states makes clear the challenges ahead. Your support today will help us continue our fight to end discrimination and achieve marriage equality for all in this new environment.

Before I end today, I want to send thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the wildfires sweeping across Southern California. Please keep safe and hold your loved ones close.

Have a great weekend!

Warmly,

This article by Daryl Herrschaft, director of HRC's Workplace Project, was cross-posted on Advocate.com:

The old saying goes that every cloud has a silver lining. And on November 5, the day after California voters stripped same-sex couples of the right to marry, so many around the country were searching for one.

It is easy to get bogged down with all the negative news about California’s Proposition 8 -- the continuing bias against loving, committed gay and lesbian couples among communities of faith, who with breathtaking efficiency raised millions of dollars to enshrine discrimination into the Golden State's constitution; the now-discredited claims that people of color were the reason for the ban’s passage; and the lasting ramifications of those premature, divisive, and ultimately false assertions.

But when we brush aside that downbeat data, a strong ally to LGBT equality is there, and indeed, was there all through this fight and many others: corporate America. Although thousands of individuals, organizations, and businesses donated to the Yes on 8 campaign, not one Fortune 500 company is among those names. But on the opposite side, the side of fairness and basic rights, you’ll find some of the nation’s most successful and powerful corporate players. The popular vote was lost, but the steadfast backing of one important segment -- the nation’s largest employers -- remains.

As the author of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index and director of the Workplace Project, I have seen firsthand the business world’s expanding awareness of the unique issues facing LGBT people. I have witnessed the embrace of policies that accommodate our community’s needs. And now, I have seen corporate giants like PG&E, Apple, and Levi Strauss & Co. step into the fray around same-sex marriage in California to stand up for equal rights.

Business weighed in on this issue to an unprecedented degree. Why would these companies jump into what at first glance is an electrified cultural debate? After all, it's rare to see corporations with bottom lines at stake take an active role in such volatile political hotbeds.

The answer is one that businesses have known for decades: that LGBT equality is good for the bottom line. This is evident in edition after edition of the Corporate Equality Index. Every year, more and more businesses achieve a 100% rating based on their treatment of LGBT employees, consumers, and investors. This year, 260 businesses scored 100%. Just seven years ago, when the report was first issued, only 13 received the top rating.

Why would these companies stick their necks out for LGBT equality? Because diversity and inclusion are important aspects of the nation’s most profitable businesses’ core values. These values are critical to unleashing the power of people in order to create value for customers, employees, and shareholders. Inclusive workplace policies allow companies to attract and retain the most talented workforce possible, and the outreach they’ve done on behalf of equality throughout the years has shown that they support not only the lives of LGBT employees but also the LGBT community as a valuable and respected segment of our country.

With tools like the HRC Foundation’s Buying for Equality guide, LGBT consumers have flexed their purchasing power to reward companies that support our values and penalize companies that have failed to recognize our value and contribution to America. The development and use of these tools is even more vital in the aftermath of a devastating setback like Prop. 8. Instruments like the Buying for Equality guide help LGBT people and allies spread the message about companies that have earned our business and empower us to take a stand against those that have not.

The debate over Prop. 8 once again cemented the business world as a true ally for LGBT equality. American corporations have gone beyond the four walls of their headquarters, factories, and retail stores and made a firm commitment to equal treatment of LGBT people. The nation’s largest and most successful businesses are not just fostering inclusive and safe work environments-- they’re taking the fight for full equality to the streets and the halls of government. Though it may still be a struggle to capture 51% of the popular vote, same-sex marriage and other manifestations of equal rights have already won the vote of corporate board members and CEOs.

That is a significant accomplishment for LGBT people in the wake of a heartbreaking defeat. Moving forward, it is crucial that we build on these positive developments and further strengthen our relationships so that when the next Prop. 8 rears its ugly head, we can continue to leverage our alliance in the fight against discrimination.

HRC will hold a media availability on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. ET to unveil an innovative adoption awareness campaign targeting the LGBT community.  November is National Adoption Month, during which attention is focused on the thousands of children waiting to be adopted by loving parents.  The campaign is part of the HRC Foundation’s “All Children – All Families” initiative, designed to find permanent families for children by promoting fairness for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender foster and adoptive parents.

Ellen Kahn, director of HRC Foundation's Family Project talked about the campaign today:

This awareness campaign helps make the dreams of thousands of children come true by raising the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-adoptive families and encourage prospective parents to learn more about the children waiting in foster care.  With more than a half million children in the U.S. foster care system, we can take steps to support the efforts of courts, judges, attorneys, adoption professionals, child welfare agencies and advocates to finalize adoptions and find permanent, loving homes for children, giving them the opportunity to can grow, thrive and succeed.

Of the children in the U.S. foster care system, over 120,000 are awaiting adoption by loving, permanent families.  Agencies may purposefully or inadvertently close the door to qualified families through their practices.  Few agencies recruit LGBT adoptive & foster parents, and many LGBT people feel unwelcome or discouraged.  Similarly, members of the LGBT community may not be aware of the opportunities in domestic adoption and foster care, or they may not know of agencies that welcome their families.  We are working to break down the barriers that stand between thousands of loving, qualified LGBT adoptive parents and the thousands of children who are waiting for a family.

The “All Children – All Families” initiative, launched in 2007 by the HRC Family Project, works to ensure that all qualified prospective parents who wish to open their homes and hearts to children and youth have the opportunity to do so, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  The program seeks to enhance LGBT competence among child welfare professionals and educate LGBT people about opportunities to become foster or adoptive parents to waiting children.  Thirty-four agencies from across the U.S are currently participating, and more than a dozen agencies are close to earning the seal of recognition.  More information about the initiative can be found at www.hrc.org/acaf.

WHAT:  HRC to unveil the “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Family” adoption awareness campaign

WHEN:  Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. ET

WHERE: Human Rights Campaign Headquarters, 1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.  Washington, D.C.  20036

WHO:  Ellen Kahn, director for HRC Family Project;  Janice Goldwater, executive director for Adoptions Together, member of “All Children – All Families” advisory board.  Adoptions Together, a Silver Spring, Md. based adoption agency, is a local partner in All Children-All Families.

Allyson Robinson, our associate director of diversity (pictured below), is in Orlando tonight to speak and take part in the National Transgender Day of Remembrance.  I thought I would post her prepared remarks for delivery:

As a minister for nearly a decade, I have stood over more caskets than I have the strength to recall at even my strongest moments.  I have stood over the caskets of people who had lived long, full lives that they devoted to the service of others, and over those of people who were cut down before their potential had begun to blossom.  I have stood before families and friends who were grieving parents, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, infant children.  My task at those moments, and my calling, were to speak—to say something that would honor the lives of the people in the caskets and allow healing to begin in the lives of those who had gathered to mourn and to listen. 

But that experience taught me the truth: words do not assuage grief, and cannot possibly do justice to the life and memory of a loved one lost.  It was, at times, almost painfully frustrating.  I have felt that same frustration as I have prepared to share this Transgender Day of Remembrance with you.  What can I possibly say that will help, or that will reverence our dead as they truly deserve?  The only words that arise naturally in my mind are questions.  Why do these things continue to happen?  When will it end?  How many more have to die at the hands of hate?  Questions, and an offering of profound, piercing regret:  I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry.  I’m sorry I didn’t come out sooner.  I’m sorry I didn’t speak out louder.  I’m sorry for all the things I could have done to make you safer, but didn’t. 

The Day of Remembrance reminds me that I’m one of the lucky ones, one of the privileged few in our community.  I have a wife and children and parents and friends who love, support, and encourage me.  I have meaningful work that allows me to preserve my sense of human dignity.  I have a roof over my head and I enjoy three square meals a day; I haven’t had to sell my body or my soul to obtain or preserve them.  I live in one of the few places in America where I can dine in a restaurant, shop in a store, or take my children to a public restroom without fear of being kicked out or having police summoned.  I have a community of faith that embraces me, values my gifts, and is fighting for my rights.  All of these things are blessings most people in America take for granted, but which no transgender person can. 

And yet despite my good fortune, like many of you, I’m afraid.  With the faces of those whose lives we commemorate tonight, and the sheer inhuman brutality they faced constantly in my mind, I look at strangers on the street differently.  I worry when I notice someone staring at me on the subway.  I get scared when I hear footsteps behind me in a dark parking lot.  I hug my wife and children tight when I get home each night and thank God I’ve made it.  The Day of Remembrance reminds me that in spite of the privilege that I have been given, I could be next.  This is the world in which we live.  But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

This moment, this very day, is one of the most crucial our community has ever faced, and how we live into this moment will determine the way of life for future generations of transgender people.  For some, it will make the difference between life and death.  But we stand at this crossroads not because of the path that lies before us, but because of the path that lies behind us.  We’re not here because for the first time in our history, legal protection against hate crimes and employment discrimination are within our grasp, or because someone who is not ashamed or afraid to speak our name is about to move into the White House.  We stand at this crucial juncture because of the people whom we memorialize tonight.  We stand here because of their integrity to embody the truth of who they were despite years of harsh social conditioning that told them to deny it.  We stand here because of their courage to live out that truth in full view of a world that is largely hostile to it, a world that at best doesn’t understand it and at worst doesn’t want to.  We have been given this opportunity by virtue of the lives they lived, and by virtue of the deaths they died.  History will judge us by our stewardship of the legacy they have entrusted to us. 

Tonight, let us recommit ourselves to that legacy.  Tonight, I recommit myself to it.  I will live more boldly and speak more loudly.  I will not allow myself or my community to be marginalized—dehumanized—by those who don’t understand us or don’t want to.  I will not allow hate to go unchallenged or ignorance to go uncorrected.  I will admonish allies should they waver and hold elected officials accountable to their commitments and to justice.  I will not allow myself to be distracted, deterred, co-opted, or deferred.  I will settle for nothing less than a country and a world in which our right to exist and our human dignity are enshrined in the law and respected in the public square.  And I will not rest until I can close my eyes, see the faces of Lawrence and Angie and Duanna and Lloyd and the others, and hear them whisper from somewhere beyond this world, “Well done.”