Welcoming Remarks
Barrett L. Brick
GLAA President
GLAA 36th Anniversary ReceptionWashington Plaza Hotel
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Good evening, and welcome to the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance’s 36th Anniversary Reception. I am Barrett Brick, President of GLAA, and I would like to thank you all for coming out tonight to celebrate the history of GLAA and to honor our 2007 Distinguished Service awardees.
In addition to our honorees, I would like to acknowledge the presence among us tonight of former Councilmembers Betty Ann Kane and Kathy Patterson, and Councilmembers David Catania and Phil Mendelson. I’d also like to welcome the members of the media here tonight, including internationally renowned blogger Michael Petrelis, here from San Francisco.
Many of you are here for the first time, and I would like to invite you to our meetings, twice a month on Tuesday evenings, details of which can be found on our website, glaa.org . But whether this is your first time with GLAA or you are long time friends, I would like to offer just a quick recap of what we have been busy with since we last gathered to celebrate GLAA’s accomplishments.
The Human Rights Clarification Amendment Act of 2005 became law last year, making explicit the intent of the D.C. Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
We have successfully continued our incremental approach to securing equality for our families under DC law. Last year, the Domestic Partnership Equality Act of 2005 became law, adding several rights and responsibilities to domestic partners which already applied to spouses. Most recently, the Domestic Partnership Property Equity Act of 2006 and the Domestic Partnerships Joint Filing Act of 2006 became effective. This latter legislation will allow domestic partners the option, beginning next year, of filing their DC taxes jointly, as married couples may do.
Another recent success for our families has been the adoption this year of domestic partner benefit policies by both PEPCO and Washington Gas Light, after successful lobbying by GLAA in concert with the District of Columbia Council. We are particularly thankful to Councilmember Mary Cheh for her efforts toward this end.
GLAA was pleased to be invited by Mayor Adrian Fenty to participate in the community panels that interviewed applicants for the position of Fire/EMS Chief. We look forward to working with the mayor’s nominee, Dennis Rubin. GLAA has also provided testimony on the nominations of Gustavo Velasquez to head the Office of Human Rights, and Cathy Lanier to be Chief of Police.
For last year’s mayoral, DC Council, and School Board races, we continued our practice of rating candidates for office in every D.C. primary and general election since our founding in 1971. May 1’s special elections are no different. Our ratings are widely recognized as fair, objective, and thorough – “excruciatingly thorough,” as one reporter once described our evaluation process – and are designed to show whether candidates demonstrate an understanding of the complex issues facing our community.
GLAA’s concerns are not exclusively focused locally. We are actively a part of the Equality Federation, networking with leading state gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy organizations across the country, sharing ideas and information on lobbying and organizing. Just last Saturday we participated in a local vigil against hate crime, sparked by the murder of Ryan Keith Skipper in Florida.
On the international front, we participated last July in a worldwide day of vigils and demonstrations to condemn Iran’s executions of gays. In October we were part of the global letter writing campaign to urge the South African Parliament to follow the Constitutional Court’s decision and legislate a universal gender neutral Marriage Act. And they did! Last month we wrote to State Department officials urging them to press Nigeria not to pass a harsh anti-gay bill pending in that country's national assembly. More widely, for the second year in a row, we prepared an excerpt of the GLBT- and HIV/AIDS-related portions of the State Department's massive annual country-by-country human rights reports.
GLAA does not seek to be all things to all people. We could not even if we wanted to. What we do offer is the day-to-day work in the trenches of experienced, informed, and focused activism as we work with our public officials and other community leaders – supporting them in their positive efforts, educating and challenging them when necessary – all the while building constructive relationships for the betterment of our community. I am proud to be a member of GLAA, and once again I thank you for your support.
It is now my honor to introduce Councilmembers David Catania, Phil Mendelson, and Harry Thomas, Jr. to present a ceremonial resolution.
