Great news! Local leaders in Statesboro, Georgia just passed an ordinance protecting residents from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and public spaces like restaurants and businesses, and more.
Author: Wes Sanders
Only You Can Save Healthcare.gov – Submit Your Comment Today!
For the last year and a half, Georgia Equality has been advocating around the Governor’s Healthcare Waivers. While waivers have the potential to improve our health system and expand access to healthcare for hundreds of thousands of Georgians, too often the Governor’s plan has been insufficient to meet Georgia’s needs, and in some cases have been downright harmful. Through our participation in public comments, we have ensured that Georgia Insurance Plans will continue to cover the 10 Essential Benefits, saved the requirement that Mental Healthcare copays and premiums cost the same as other comparable health services, and protected the right of eligible Georgians to receive government subsidies to purchase health insurance.
It’s Time! Census 2020: Deadline September 30th
The new census deadline is quickly approaching, 
leaving us just one month to secure an accurate count of our community. Every 10 years, the federal government tries to count every person living in the United States. This count directly affects you and our democracy. But many marginalized communities go under counted or not counted at all . Transgender and queer folx, LGB communities, black people and other people of color, people in rural areas, immigrants, people experiencing homelessness, people who have low incomes, renters, people with young children, and people with limited English proficiency , have been historically under counted, shifting federal resources away from the communities that rely on them the most. Continue reading
Georgia Equality partners to offer LGBTQ Law & Policy Series
On August 20, 2020, the LGBTQ Law & Policy Series
launched. The series is hosted by Equal Footing LLC and Transformation Journeys Worldwide along with Georgia Equality and Lambda Legal, and focuses on laws and policies currently impacting companies, their
LGBTQ employees (and their families) and their communities. Leaders and employees from a wide range of industries around the nation attended.
Sponsored by UPS, the first event’s discussion was held by Georgia Equality’s Deputy Director Eric Paulk and Lambda Legal’s Michael Shutt unpacking the local and national impact of the June SCOTUS decision regarding gender identity and sexual orientation under Title VII. Sandy Mollett, of Equal Footing LLC, hosted along with Gabrielle Claiborne and Linda Herzer of Transformation Journeys Worldwide, navigating the discussion to cover important take-aways for each organization: Continue reading
LGBTQ Organizations Urge Supreme Court Not to Upend Settled and Vital Nondiscrimination Protections
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, joined by 
Georgia Equality and 26 other national, regional and state LGBTQ advocacy organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief August 20 urging the U.S. Supreme Court not to create a broad Constitutional exemption to nondiscrimination laws that would undermine equal protection guarantees and introduce a dangerous and unworkable scheme into local, state and federal lawmaking.
The brief was filed in support of the City of Philadelphia in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In 2018, the city suspended a contract with Catholic Social Services (“CSS”) to provide foster care placement services because the agency refused to work with married same-sex couples and unmarried couples in violation of Philadelphia’s nondiscrimination ordinance. CSS filed suit, asserting that the requirement to comply with the nondiscrimination law violated its religious liberty rights and seeking an injunction ordering the city to grant CSS a contract in accordance with the terms CSS desired. Lower courts denied the request for an injunction, ruling that the city was within its rights to require any agency with which it contracts to comply with the law. Continue reading