On October 22 Congress approved the Hate Crimes Bill (also known as the Matthew Shepard bill). This was a huge step for LGBT rights and protection because President Barack Obama would now have a bill before him to sign, which he promised he would, protecting the LGBT community on a national level. On October 28, 2009, President Obama signed the bill into law.

While this is a tremendous occasion and deserves celebration but the work is not finished; we still have a long hard fight ahead of us. We still need to keep the pressure on Congress and the President until have equality.

On October 11, 2009 over 100,000 people marched on Washington for Equality. They peacefully let President Obama and Congress know that we are getting impatient and tired of the broken promises. The President responded by giving a speak and the HRC dinner the night before the march promising that he is working to keep his campaign promises to us (more information on the march can be found here.)

President Obama responses to pressure; we need to keep the pressure on him and on congress. What can you do? Write to your Senators, Representative and the White House and let them know you want EQUALITY. Tell them you want the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) pass. Let them know you want “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” stopped and repealed and scream that you want full marriage rights.

You can found your state Senator and your State Representative at http://directory.usayfoundation.org/
President Obama contact information can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

There has been a lot of progress made but now is not the time to sit back and look at what has been accomplished, now is the time to not only keep the pressure going but to increase that pressure.

Most of my news about the LGBT community comes from Sirius/XM OutQ radio.

Kristi
diamondtgr@comcast.net
http://diamondtgr.home.comcast.net