BY MICHAEL KAY LAVERS | SPECIAL TO THE PRIDE LA VIA THE NATIONAL GAY MEDIA ASSOCIATION FROM THE WASHINGTON BLADE | PHILADELPHIA — A number of LGBT-specific events are scheduled to take place in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention.
The Philadelphia-based Equality Forum has organized a series of events that will take place alongside the convention.
Jim Obergefell, Roberta Kaplan and National Center for Lesbian Rights Litigation Director Shannon Minter are among those who are expected to take part in a legal panel on Monday. Gay Colorado Congressman Jared Polis, Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory Angelo, Gill Foundation Vice President of Public Policy Gautam Raghavan and former White House advisor Mira Patel will take part in a separate event on Tuesday.
Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, Melissa Harris-Perry of Wake Forest University’s Pro Humanitate Institute, Arcus Foundation Executive Director Kevin Jennings and former Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson on Thursday will take part in an LGBT rights movement panel that Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff will moderate on Thursday. Gay U.S. Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.,) Florida state Rep. David Richardson (D-Miami Beach) and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Wednesday will participate in a separate panel that Victory Fund President Aisha Moodie-Mills will moderate.
Equality Forum on Thursday will honor House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Obergefell at a reception before the final night of the Democratic National Convention.
Bowser to attend anti-LGBT discrimination forum
Mayors Against Discrimination, a coalition that formed earlier this year in the wake of the passage of anti-LGBT laws in North Carolina and Mississippi on Wednesday will hold a forum on the Federal Equality Act at Philadelphia City Hall. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee and gay U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) are among those who are scheduled to speak.
HRC and Everytown for Gun Safety on Wednesday will hold an event in support of gun control efforts at District N9NE in Philadelphia. The National Black Justice Coalition, the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, Unión=Fuerza Latino Institute, the Center for Black Equity and the League of United Latin American Citizens have organized a policy briefing and mixer for LGBT people of color that will take place at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Center City on Thursday.
Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black on Wednesday will speak at the unveiling of a historic marker at the Arch Street Meeting House that will commemorate the location in which 300 activists planned the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker on Tuesday will deliver the keynote address at the ceremony to unveil a second historic marker outside the Philadelphia house in which Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen lived.
