The following post updating our work in Arizona comes from Cynthia Leigh Lewis who works for the HRC Field Department in the state.
Several weeks ago, members of the HRC Arizona Steering Committee met with the Arizona Republic Editorial Board. The AZ Republic is a notoriously conservative leaning publication, however, in 2006 and 2008 they endorsed a “No” vote on the proposed marriage amendments.
Meeting with the editorial board would give us an opportunity to let them know that HRC is operating locally and importantly, this meeting would allow us to educate these journalists about the priority issues facing the LGBT community in Arizona and nationwide.
We prepared packets of information as leave-behinds, organized our talking points and who would speak to what issue, and proceeded to blow them away. They said many times how pleased they were with the organized delivery of our message, our clarity in explaining our priority issues, and what outcomes we would like to see from this meeting; specifically, for the editorial board to see HRC as the “go-to” source for information related to local and national LGBT issues.
The meeting went so well that later that same day, Linda Elliott a BOD and Public Policy Committee member received an email from one of the attendees with a request to participate in “AZ Talks” an online and published questionnaire that would provide HRC with a platform to talk about the very issues shared at the meeting that morning. Of course she said yes!!
This week, those questions and HRC’s responses were published in the Arizona Republic and are now be posted online. The editorial board printed our responses verbatim, not changing or editing a word!
This is but one of many strategies we here in Arizona are embarking on to bring a more public profile to the local work we are doing on behalf of the LGBT community. We were invited last Thursday to do an on camera interview with a local television station regarding the recent repeal of domestic partner benefits for ALL State of Arizona employees by the Governor and Republican Legislature. This interview also highlighted the current fight in the City of Mesa where the Human Relations Advisory Board simply wants to initiate a dialogue to explore the process of enacting a domestic partner registry in their city. Already fierce opposition has risen before the dialogue has even begun. We are also working with Univision and the local Hispanic media around National Coming Out Day.
![HRC-BACKSTORY [BLOG]](http://174.121.110.138/~hrcorg/hrcbackstory/images/logo/hrc-backstory.jpg){kind=logo}
