From the Director's Desk

Christina Gilgor, Executive Director

Last week Arizona voters made history by becoming the first to defeat an anti-marriage equality amendment at the polls. And although such amendments carried in seven other states last Tuesday, the margins have shrunk considerably since the ballot measures of 2004.

The tide of anti-fairness extremism is turning.

Separate polls conducted in the past 2 weeks by the New York Times/CBS News and Fox News/Opinion Dynamics found a majority of respondents to favor legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples. Full marriage equality still doesn’t have majority support, but these numbers paint a starkly different picture from two years ago.

Here in Kentucky, three-quarters of our neighbors say it’s wrong for people to lose their jobs because of their sexual orientation. But Kentucky’s human rights code not only excludes sexual orientation and gender identity, but some legislators consistently introduce bills that would take those protections away from residents of Covington, Louisville, and Lexington!

In battling the anti-fairness industry’s persistent attacks on our families we look everywhere for inspiration. Arizona’s lesson for Kentucky is that fairness can win tough challenges when we turn straight people into stakeholders. I believe we can build on that strategy to defeat Rep. Stan Lee’s proposed ban on equal employment benefits.

Arizona Together campaign chair and State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema pointed out that Arizona has 112,000 unmarried couples and only 18,000 of them are same-sex couples. Of nearly a million coupled households in Kentucky, more than 70,000 are unmarried. Just over 7,100 of those are same-sex couples. Plus, Kentucky has 51,000 kids growing up in unmarried partner households.

Recognizing that these families need and deserve protection, the University of Louisville moved to create a fairer work environment and improve the quality of employees' lives. The anti-fairness industry wants to make it harder for those folks to get along, by banning our state universities from providing equal access to employment benefits. People in Kentucky—gay and straight—can see this is wrong.

We founded Friends & Family one year ago as a way to engage straight allies and turn them into fairness stakeholders. And you know what? It's working. Since day one about half our Friends & Family rolls have been made up of straight people. They’ve invested in a fair Kentucky for everyone. Will you?