Gay Today: World

ACLU Launches
a GLBT Online Action Center

Compiled By GayToday

ACLU's New Civil Rights ad campaign
Click to Photo to Enlarge

New York, New York--As momentum builds nationwide for passing civil rights laws barring discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, the American Civil Liberties Union today launched an activists' online action center highlighted in a new advertising campaign.

The Equality Toolkit (at www.aclu.org/gayrights) includes extensive practical tips on passing civil rights laws at the local and state level, as well as passing fair employment policies. It also includes in-depth background on complicated issues like balancing religious liberties with gay rights laws and including protections for transgendered people.

The ACLU's latest advertisement discusses the lack of federal laws barring anti-gay discrimination, and the fact that only 11 states currently have comprehensive civil rights laws.

"If you've been fired because you're gay the law can help," the headline declares in large type. But as the "fine print" below states, "Offer not valid in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona," and the other 36 states that currently do not bar anti-gay discrimination.

The full-page ad -- which is in the April 9 issue of The New Yorker and is slated to run in the April 8 issue of The New York Times Magazine -- refers readers to the new Equality Toolkit to help pass local, state and federal legislation.

"We want the general public to know that there are relatively few laws on the books addressing anti-gay discrimination, but we also want them to know how they can change that," said Matt Coles, Director of the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project. "That's what this multi-faceted campaign does."

As early as this week, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening plans to sign legislation barring employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Similar statewide civil rights laws in Illinois and Delaware are also moving ahead.

More than 60 years ago, the ACLU took on some of the first challenges in the nation to anti-gay discrimination, and has since helped pass more than 125 local and state nondiscrimination laws through the organization's unparalleled grassroots network. The resources and suggestions in the Equality Toolkit are based on the experiences of the ACLU and dozens of local activists, which Coles said can help others pass local, state and federal laws.

ACLU state affiliates have worked with other groups on the pending legislation in Maryland, Illinois and Delaware, as well as statewide efforts in Iowa, Nebraska, Maine and other states in this legislative session.

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:

100 Rights You Don't Have

Civil Rights and Wrongs

Sodomy Laws: Why They Should Be Our Top Priority

Related Sites:
Amercan Civil Liberties Union

GayToday does not endorse related sites.

"Usually in advertising, accuracy is everything," Coles said, "but our hope is that by the time this ad runs in The New York Times Magazine next weekend, it will already be out of date because new states will have been taken off the list that allow anti-gay discrimination."

The creative minds behind the series, DeVito/Verdi Advertising, also developed last year's ACLU advertising series, which included messages on racial profiling, juvenile justice and the death penalty. The ad on LGBT civil rights laws is at: www.aclu.org/graphics/lgbt_ad.gif.