Spirit Day 2011

Happy Spirit Day, hope you all wore purple!

Info from HRC: Human Rights Campaign:

It's more evident than ever: discrimination and hate aren't reserved for far right politicians and pastors. 

Last month at The Master's School outside Hartford, CT, a model student told school administrators she was a lesbian – and was immediately told to withdraw. 

And just last week in New Jersey, a special education teacher publicly tore into gays and lesbians in a hideous tirade on Facebook, calling homosexuality "a perverted spirit." 

It's all happened in the last few weeks around National Coming Out Day, a time to encourage openness – not intimidation, discrimination, or hatred. 

If incidents like these make you want to stand up and say "No more!" you're not alone. Since we launched our new Call it Out campaign, HRC supporters have written hundreds of thousands of letters holding people accountable for discrimination.. 

HRC has made remarkable progress together in the last few years. From repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to boosting awareness of bullying, to winning marriage equality in New York – our movement has only grown in its victories. 

But opposition to LGBT rights continues, and it isn't relegated to the far-right fringe. You and I are up against mainstream, powerful organizations like the Catholic Church, whose top U.S. bishop just sent a letter to President Obama threatening a "national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions" if he continues to stand up against the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.

We won't stand for these damaging attacks, and I know you won't either – certainly not when lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Demand school policies that protect students, just as we did this week when HRC supporters like you sent 49,619 letters to The Master's School asking that they adopt a non-discrimination policy;

Continue to push New Jersey school officials to investigate teacher Viki Knox for her anti-LGBT Facebook rant;

Mobilize red-state communities to fight for equality and help stop bullying through our "On the Road to Equality" national bus tour; and,

Grow our Welcoming Schools program, which helps school communities embrace family diversity and reject harmful bullying and name-calling.

Just some info worth thinking about...

Over and "Out" from Portsmouth, VA USA