Southern Poverty Law Center Urges Lawmakers To Boycott Values Voter Summit

By Janie Amaya

Mark Potok, the Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, gave a news conference Friday urging public figures to boycott this weekends Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., saying sponsors of the event continue to disgrace the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

“What we’re trying to do is bring attention to the fact that both the host of this Values Voter Summit  of the Family Research Council, and one of it’s major co-sponsors, an organization called the American Family Association, regularly lie about (LGBT) people in this country,” Potok told TRNS.

He said these organization don’t simply disagree with homosexuality but rather say things, that he explained, are entirely wrong according to researchers at the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

“Probably the best single example of that is the claim, which these groups repeatedly make, that gay men molest children at rates vastly higher than their heterosexual counterparts,” Potok said.

Potok added that this kind of rhetoric creates an atmosphere in which violence is inevitable in the LGBT community making it the most targeted group for hate violence.

“Public officials ought not to legitimize these groups,” Potok said.

LGBT families get their golden egg at White House Easter Egg Roll

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico


Since 1878, families have participated in the official White House Easter Egg Roll event, but this year another community of families were invited.

Some 30,000 guests were expected to attend the event and this is the first time in Egg Roll history that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) families have been invited.

Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director of the Family Equality Council, said she was thrilled when she received the invitation from the White House.  

“The outreach on President Obama and First Lady Obama’s behalf to gay and lesbian families was very meaningful and very important symbolism of this White House and its belief that all kinds of families should be valued in this country... We are very, very grateful,” Chrisler said. “We as parents, as gay parents, do all the same things that other parents do. We worry about getting our kids to school safely, about being good participants in our community, paying our taxes and to have a president that actually affirms us as families really helps when we face those hurdles that we face from time to time," Chrisler said.

Cathy Renna, a member of the Family Equality Council, said she has been going to this event for several years but that this year it felt different. The FEC works to ensure equality for LGBT families by building community, changing hearts and minds, and advancing social justice for all families.

“It looked a lot more like America this year,” said Renna. “This represents a shift both symbolically and hopefully in a policy way in the way that will be treated in this country. There’s clearly a tremendous amount of hope that we’ll pass hate crimes legislation, that we’ll pass employment non-discrimination legislation at the federal level.... There’s just a very different sense of dialogue and relationship that we haven’t had in a very long time,” said Renna.