June | The annual Rainbow Families Conference is just one of the ways the Family Equality Council rallies the LGBT community around issues important to families, from changing public policy to advancing social justice. | |
| The Family Equality Council envisions a future where all families, no matter how they were created or what their composition, can live in communities that recognize, respect, protect, and celebrate them. Toward that goal, the council works at all levels of government to advance full social and legal equality on behalf of the approximately 1 million LGBT families in the United States raising 2 million children. Some of the many issues being worked on include parenting protections, adoption, repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, health insurance reform, immigration reform, safe schools, and workplace equality. Building community, changing hearts and minds, and advancing social justice are at the core of the group's mission.
The organization's history began in 1979, when a group of gay fathers got together and formed the group that would eventually become the Family Equality Council. The original group, called the Gay Fathers Coalition, was committed to finding other gay dads and forming a network of support. In 1986, the group expanded to include lesbian moms, thereby becoming the Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International (GLPCI). This was a volunteer, grassroots, chapter-based organization. The group continued to grow and change to better capture the full breadth and scope of its vision of a world that treats all loving families equally. In 1998, the group changed its name to the Family Pride Coalition in order to be more inclusive of bisexual and transgender parents. In 2007, the current name was adopted, which reinforces the mission to work across communities to create meaningful change for all loving families.
A Midwest office opened in June 2008 when Rainbow Families, an LGBT family organization based in Minnesota, merged with the Family Equality Council. Since the merger, the Family Equality Council has preserved and continued to offer many of the great events that the Minnesota community has come to know and love.
You can learn more about the Family Equality Council programs and individual families at www.familyequality.org. |
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| |  | | Who's Who | in the 2012 Honoring Differences
Diversity Calendar? | | |
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