Target to LGBT Community: We Won't Make it Right
After two weeks of good-faith discussions – and two tentative agreements – with Target Corporation, the company has informed the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lgbt civil rights organization, that it will take no corrective actions to repair the harm that it caused by contributing $150,000 to an organization supporting a vehemently anti-gay candidate. The gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, Tom Emmer, is closely associated with a Christian rock band that advocates death and violence to gay people.
In response, HRC announced that it will devote $150,000 of its own resources to help elect a pro-equality governor and legislature in Minnesota. The next governor will likely have the opportunity to either sign or veto marriage equality legislation in the North Star State.
“All fair-minded Americans will now rightly question Target’s commitment to equality," said HRC President Joe Solmonese in a statement. "If their initial contribution was a slap in the face, their refusal to make it right is a punch in the gut and that’s not something that we will soon forget. However, with full marriage equality hanging in the balance in Minnesota, regardless of Target, it’s important that we as a community send a message that we will work tirelessly to elect pro-equality candidates.”
Emboldened by the U.S. District Court's ruling just hours before that struck down Proposition 8, the annual Equality Federation Summer Meeting kicked off on August 4 at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor at Camden Yards. Around 100 people representing 50 state-based lgbt organizations from around the country attended the 5-day event.
August 4 may have been President Barack Obama's birthday but Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling from the bench of the U.S. Federal District Court, Northern California District, was the real present to marriage equality activists. In an historic and sweeping decision, Judge Walker, in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, declared that the amendment to the California Constitution barring marriage for same-sex couples, adopted in November 2008 as Proposition 8, violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process. It marked the first time a Federal Court took up the issue of same-sex marriage.
