(GayWebSource.com – Gay News & Press Network) – Posted by Michael Lamb – Echelon Magazine

GetEQUAL Calls on President Obama to Create a Roadmap for Full Equality Instead of a Study

Yesterday afternoon, GetEQUAL — a national grassroots social justice organization working toward the full equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals — launched an online petition demanding that President Barack Obama create a roadmap to end legal discrimination against LGBTQ people. This call came after the White House announced that the Department of the Interior would be holding an event on Friday, May 30, at the Stonewall Inn — widely-recognized as the birthplace of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — to launch a study of LGBTQ history in the U.S.

GetEQUAL will also be gathering members of the LGBTQ community and allies outside the Stonewall Inn (53 Christopher Street, NY, NY) on Friday morning at 11am to demand more from the White House than simply a study of our history.

Currently, LGBTQ people are not protected against discrimination at the federal level in housing, public accommodations, schools, employment, immigration, marriage, and many other areas. A study of LGBTQ history does not move the ball forward on ending this legal discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

GetEQUAL issued the following statement on this study:

“While LGBTQ people are still facing harsh realities created by discrimination, President Obama’s administration has responded by unveiling a plan to study the history of the community. This is far less than what LGBTQ people need and deserve in order to have an equal seat at the American table.

The cost of inequality is too high and too heavy for our community to face alone. We call on President Obama to send Congress a bill that would ensure that LGBTQ individuals in the U.S. have access to all of the opportunities and protections promised under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

We know our history — we need President Obama to better understand our present:

Though LGBTQ youth make up about 10% of the overall youth population, they make up 40% of those experiencing homelessness

Transgender individuals are four times more likely to live below the poverty line than the overall American population
LGBTQ people only have employment protections in 18 states and DC

The United States arrests and prosecutes more people on the basis of their HIV status than the rest of the world combined

Statistically, 70 LGBTQ immigrants are deported from this country each day — many of whom are deported to countries where their lives are at risk

We call on President Obama to help us build a brighter future than we have experienced in the past and in the present. President Obama and the U.S. Congress must commit, unequivocally, to take bold action for full federal LGBTQ equality. LGBTQ Americans have lived for too long without tasting equality, and it’s time for our country to address the years of oppression we have faced. The cost of inequality is too high for us to wait any longer!”

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