Share your COLAGE Vision for the New Administration

Share your COLAGE Vision for the New Administration
President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team are already planning for the healing and health of this country in 2009. As COLAGE members and allies, we ask you to let them know your vision for change. President-elect Obama asks “Where should we start together?” Speak OUT and tell him!

First start by introducing yourself and your family. Identify yourself as a member of COLAGE. You can congratulate the Obama-Biden team on their victory and then give a few ideas or changes you would like to see in our country that make up your vision for the next four years in the United States.
Below are some sample messages you can incorporate into your vision OR speak from your heart about the issues you care about most:
* As you plan for the economic recovery of this nation, please keep in mind that LGBTQ people and their families are disproportionately affected due to wage disparity, a lack of non-discrimination employment protections, and homophobia/transphobia in the work place.
* Please support an inclusive ENDA bill to fight workplace discrimination.
* Every adult and child in the U.S. deserves to have access to quality health care. COLAGErs and their families often do not have health coverage if their access is limited due to not having marriage equality. We need to achieve universal healthcare and it must include coverage for the full range of reproductive, transgender care and family formation health services.
* Please rebuild an educational system that provides all of our country’s youth with opportunities to learn and succeed.
*We call on you to repeal the DOMA act and create a federal system of marriage equality through which LGBTQ couples can protect themselves and their families.
* For the U.S. Supreme Court, I am counting on you to appoint justices who recognize and respect LGBTQ people’s rights. Guarantee basic human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer people, and strengthen laws banning discrimination based on race, color, gender, age or disability.
* Work with Congress to pass a Safe Schools bill that protects students from harassment and discrimination on the basis of perceived, actual or association with diverse sexual orientations or gender identities. Develop an effective Title IX equal education enforcement system for every level of education.
* Include crimes based on gender, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity as hate crimes under federal law and mandate that law enforcement collect and report data on such crimes.
* Please honor your campaign promise to end the war in Iraq and begin bringing our troops home as soon as possible. Ensure that the Veteran’s Administration has the capacity and expertise to assist the significant numbers of returning wounded, and address the special needs of military families with LGBTQ members.
* Please help bring an end to the scapegoating and targeting of immigrants in our country- both documented and undocumented immigrants. Help keep families together through support of the Permanent Partners Immigration Act and call on your administration to stop ICE raids.
After you send your message to the new administration via their website, Please email a copy of your message to Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director as we’ll be collecting them to submit to many elected officials in the new administration. We look forward as a movement to working with the Obama-Biden administration on creating real change in the United States. Let’s start articulating that vision for change together now!