Welcoming Remarks for GLAA 39th Anniversary Reception

Welcoming Remarks

Mitch Wood
GLAA President

GLAA 39th Anniversary Reception
Washington Plaza Hotel
Tuesday, April 20, 2010


Good evening and welcome. I am Mitch Wood, President of GLAA. It has been a landmark year since our last anniversary.

GLAA championed the careful strategy that won passage of marriage equality. We are also the ones who in 1978 asked a candidate for D.C. Council Chair to pass a law barring ballot measures that authorize discrimination. After taking office in 1979, Arrington Dixon did just that. Thank you, Arrington. The most beautiful thing about the marriage victory is that it was a broad coalition effort. Our community came together in one of its finest moments.

In addition to the big push for marriage, GLAA worked with the DC Trans Coalition to press the city to respect D.C. Human Rights Act protections for transgender people. We worked with GLOV to defend the Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit and press for the proper charging of hate crimes. We fought against giving public funds to sectarian schools that teach discrimination. We worked with the Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs while preserving our independent voice. With the help of our technical guru Charlie Watson, we enhanced our informative website at GLAA dot org, and launched a new blog at GLAA Forum dot org. Thanks to our secretary Miguel Tuason, we submitted an entry in the online Out History contest.

In the year ahead, GLAA will continue working with our allies to defend marriage equality, and we’ll continue our advocacy and vigilance on a range of other issues. This is an election year, so we’ll prepare a comprehensive policy paper, “Agenda: 2010,” and we’ll give our usual fair, non-partisan ratings to candidates for Mayor and D.C. Council. We will continue sharing our expertise with the public and cultivating productive relationships with public officials.

GLAA is all-volunteer. We pay no staff. We rent no office space. Your donations support our no-frills activism. Because you cover the costs of copying, postage, advertising and website maintenance, we can spend more of our volunteer time on our advocacy. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We have a number of illustrious guests with us this evening....

We are pleased this evening to honor a variety of individuals and groups for their service to the GLBT community. But first let me welcome members of the D.C. Council for a ceremonial resolution.


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