Volunteers Celebrate Successful Marriage Work in Buffalo

Post by Western New York Organizer Alden Bashaw

Last week volunteers from the Pride Agenda, Human Rights Campaign, Marriage Equality New York, OutSpoken for Equality and the Stonewall Democrats of Western New York got together to celebrate the successful campaign for marriage in the Queen City at Allen Street Hardware in Buffalo. The tireless work of volunteers in Buffalo, New York State’s second largest city, helped deliver two critical votes for the Marriage Equality Act in the state senate this year: Senator Mark Grisanti and Senator Tim Kennedy. About 30 volunteers gathered to celebrate the hard work on the marriage campaign.

Over great food and a few drinks, activists reminisced about the marriage campaign and talked about the work ahead to ensure equality and justice for transgender New Yorkers. Buffalo should be famous for more than just hot wings. The fervor for justice I’ve seen from Buffalonians is about as hot as it gets! It can be expected that the diehard volunteers from Buffalo will again play a critical role in the campaign for transgender equality and justice over the coming year. I look forward to continuing to work in the vibrant and unique community of Buffalo as we continue to build partnerships and allies in our fight for LGBT equality and justice.

Friday Sweep

Recently Pride Agenda's executive director, Ross Levi, and director of governmental projects and community development, Jonathan Lang, joined other representatives from LGBT groups across the country for a briefing on the Administration's efforts to improve the way our federal government serves LGBT people, including in New York.

The U.S. Department of Justice, for one, has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of a northern New York student's anti-gay bias discrimination case.

The Troy Record gives space for a response to a downright offensive opinion piece published recently attacking both marriage equality and lesbians and gays as people.

The Western New York Stonewall Democrats have joined the Pride Agenda and other pro-LGBT groups to endorse Eric Schneiderman for Attorney General. On August 30, we'll be hosting a community dialogue in Buffalo. Join us!

The Los Angeles Times and GLAAD criticize "Dr Laura," who used the N-word on the air and called being gay a "biological error," for falsely claiming her 1st Amendment rights were violated: "The 1st Amendment is just fine: Schlessinger exercised her right to use a racial slur; offended listeners exercised their right to criticize her for it."

And recently the American Bar Association joined the New York State Bar Association to come out in support of the freedom to marry.