CPR Scholars Call for 'Vigilant Advocacy' to Protect LGBTQ Gains
The Center for Progressive Reform stands with all who are working to advance equity and equality for LGBTQ Americans. To commemorate Pride Month, we asked three CPR leaders to weigh in on progress in this area. Below, Board Member Laurie Ristino and Member Scholars Victor Flatt and Steph Tai offer their perspectives on progress made and work to do, as well as misperceptions about the LGBTQ community and lessons learned from past victories.
Laurie Ristino
“Over the last several decades, LGBTQ rights have made serious progress, gains that require vigilant advocacy to retain and further equal justice for all LGBTQ people.
“At the same time, the struggle for BIPOC rights continues. In America, we have simply failed to address racial injustice and inequity. What can we learn from the advocacy successes of the LGBTQ experience to move the dial forward so all Americans may enjoy the same rights, protections, and considerations?”
Ristino is a CPR Board member and Member Scholar. She is also founder of Strategies for a Sustainable Future, an environmental consulting firm.
Victor Flatt
“The rights of LGBTQ folks have come further and faster in the last 10 years than I could have anticipated in the late ‘80s …
Until this week, laws in a majority of U.S. states permitted some form of employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. That was no oversight on the part of state legislatures or the U.S. Congress. It was instead the product of virulent right-wing opposition to the recognition of the fundamental rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community. Not only did they oppose laws to protect against discrimination, they raised untold millions of dollars over the years boasting about it and used anti-gay ballot initiatives as a tool to inflame passions and draw out arch-conservative voters.
On Monday, the law changed – dramatically, sweepingly, historically – when the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that in this respect the 1964 Civil Rights Act's anti-employment discrimination provisions mean exactly what they say. The Court's ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia makes clear that it is illegal …
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