Monday (6/20) was a huge night for the LGBT community of greater Cleveland. Lakewood City Council has unanimously passed discrimination protections that cover sexual orientation and gender identity/expression in employment, housing, and public accommodations. That’s right friends, our dignity as LGBT peoples is protected by a law - at least in one town. I can’t help indulging myself here: I wish that there were laws like this for people like me everywhere in the U.S.A.
A similar ordinance was passed in Charleston, South Carolina earlier this year regarding the bathroom rights of a transgender person. In less than a day, the South Carolina State Congress republicans were mobile to block that ordinance. In days, House Bill 2 specifically barred local governments from providing specific equal rights for their local population. Thus, a whole state of towns like Lakewood are barred from creating their own progress.
One step forward… three steps back… but we’re not giving up… “I think we’re going to win just because I think justice will prevail. Is that crazy?,” Edith Windsor (United States vs. Windsor) on repealing the federal ban on same-sex marriage.
To learn more about Edith Windsor and her fight for marriage equality, discover her story here.