Equality PA Touring the State for LGBT Anti-Discrimination Bill
State Representative Mike Sturla at Equality PA’s stop in Lancaster. Photo by Alexander Gell
This week Equality Pennsylvania kicked off a six-week tour across the state—from Lancaster to State College to Springfield—to drum up support for house and senate bills 300, legislation that would make it illegal to discriminate against people based on sexual orientation or identity.
The tour launch comes during an important week in LGBT history. On Monday, President Obama signed a kickass executive order that protects LGBT federal workers across the country against discrimination. It’s high time we do the same thing to all workers in Pennsylvania.
Equality PA’s Levana Layendecker tells me that the tour aims to show that “there is support all over the state for ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. (Hence the stops in small towns. Research has sown, she says that, “Once voters understand that there is legal discrimination—they want to end it. A strong majority, 68% in fact, support updating the law to make sure there is no more discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Other stops on the tour include Media, Levittown and Punxsutawney. In each location a select group of elected officials, and religious and business leaders will send a message to their respective representatives in Harrisburg, letting them know that their constituents want to see an end to LGBT discrimination across the board.
