Dear CSE Supporter,
We’re off the road from Stage 4 and back in the office in Asheville, N.C.
It’s been an incredible start to 2013. First of all, I want to thank you for all you did during Stage 4 of WE DO – from taking action, to sending messages of support, to digging deep to help fund this work, to hosting our team in your homes and hometowns, to amplifying the story we’re telling to reach a national audience.
I am more hopeful now than I’ve ever been about what’s possible in the next few years when it comes to achieving full federal equality for LGBT people in all spheres of life – employment, housing, health care, family rights and relationship recognition. I also know it’s going to take all we’ve got to get there.
As you may have heard, President Obama mentioned Stonewall and specifically addressed marriage equality during his Second Inaugural Address. When I heard him say the words “our gay brothers and sisters,” images of the past few weeks flooded my mind. I thought about standing alongside LGBT friends in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South and North Carolina, and Virginia this past month, as we called for federal equality and dared to express our full equality and humanity in town squares across the South. I thought about marching with many of you from Virginia into D.C. this past Thursday on the final day of Stage 4. About how we crossed into our nation’s capital and, in that instant, became equal citizens under the law, a status that you feel in your bones and yet that dissolves as soon as you recross the border into the South.
I thought about Monty and Steve, and Sheila and Susan and the friends who stood with them in their hometown of Wilson, N.C. Because of their readiness to approach the marriage license counter again and again, a new conversation about full equality is happening in Wilson.
But President Obama was saying something more yesterday, I believe. Invoking the long history of civil rights struggles in our nation, he was telling us to keep pushing, and to push even harder now. Momentum is with us nationally, and yet all across the South, LGBT people remain second-class citizens under the law. That duality is at the heart of our work together. We can’t – and won’t – stop until LGBT people in all 50 states are truly equal under federal law.
So what’s next for CSE? First, we’ll be debriefing Stage 4 of WE DO to learn everything we can from about what worked and what needs improving (check out our homepage later this week for a survey about Stage 4 – we want your feedback!). Based on those lessons, we’ll start to plan Stage 5.
Locally, we’ll continue to advocate for an inclusive non-discrimination policy in Buncombe County, N.C., where we’re based. In South Carolina, we’ll be working with Gender Benders, one of our amazing partners, to host a legal workshop focused on employment rights issues for transgender and gender queer folks, the first in our 2013 Community Law Workshop series. We’ll be supporting amazing WE DO teams in Mississippi and all across the South who are fired up and ready to keep advocating for equality. And we’ll be working with national partners like Freedom to Marry in advocating for the Respect for Marriage Act, a proposed bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
All this to say, in the words of my high school basketball coach, CSE is going to leave it all on the court. Our mission is not to build a large organization that will be around for 20 years. We’re running a fast-paced campaign and we’re trying to put ourselves out of business as quickly as possible. We’ll maintain a lean, nimble structure that can respond to a rapidly-changing landscape and that keeps us focused on what matters most: responding to the daily realities of being a LGBT person in the South and, at the same time, standing with LGBT people and allies across the region to call for federal equality, again and again until we get there.
Thank you for you support and let’s get to work,
Jasmine
Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara
Executive Director, Campaign for Southern Equality
p.s. I’m also happy to announce we have met our goal of raising $5,000 before January 31. This means a generous donor from Mississippi will match that amount with a $5,000 donation! Thank you so much for helping us get there.
