Today, Georgia Equality joined the Equality and Fairness for All Americans Coalition (EQFFAA) as a founding member to advance federal protections for LGBTQ Americans in employment, housing, credit, education, jury service, and public accommodations.  The nationwide coalition is composed of bipartisan and diverse stakeholders from the LGBTQ, faith and business communities.

The Coalition aims to end the partisan gridlock that has stalled equality efforts in Congress. The Coalition’s goal is to gain bipartisan support for federal legislation that can unite all Americans around our nation’s core values of freedom, fairness, and opportunity to make lasting and impactful change.

We strongly believe that even in these divisive times, we still have more in common than not, and that through dialogue, collaboration and compromise there is a path forward to advance federal protections to millions of Americans in employment, housing, and public accommodations. By supporting policies that value diversity and inclusion, we will be poised to identify the solutions we will need to address the most complex challenges of our time. Particularly at a time when so many are struggling, we believe updating our nation’s non-discrimination policies to protect all Americans will position us to sustain our economy and retain and build our workforce.

Support for LGBTQ non-discrimination protections has continued to grow in recent years across religious and political affiliations. Over 94% of Fortune 500 companies have non-discrimination policies that include gender identity and/or sexual orientation. Additionally, a 2020 poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that seventy-six percent of Americans favor laws that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

The Equality and Fairness for All Americans Coalition supports the following principles:

• Protecting all Americans in employment, education, housing, credit, jury service and public accommodations, including members of the LGBTQ community.

• Banning conversion therapy, protecting millions of LGBTQ Americans, from harm. This universally damaging practice has been condemned by every major medical association.

• Reducing the minimum number of employees needed for protections from fifteen (15) to zero (0), which would drastically expand the number of Americans protected against employment discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, color, creed, national origin, and religion.

• Allowing religious institutions to continue to receive federal dollars for social services and education.

Georgia Equality is excited to join and support the efforts of the Equality and Fairness for All Americans Coalition. We hope you will consider joining this effort as well.