LGBTQ groups raise concerns to GLAAD over constitutional amendment support

Several LGBTQ organizations wrote a letter to GLAAD’s president urging the group to abandon public support for passing an amendment enshrining rights for women, people of color, LGBTQ Americans and people with disabilities in the Constitution.

HuffPost reported Friday that a letter signed by the Human Rights Campaign, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Center for Transgender Equality and others urges GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis to cease its support for an amendment campaign and instead engage with local advocacy groups to support their efforts.

“While we certainly believe that the challenges facing the LGBTQ community require bold action, we also believe that advancing an amendment campaign is a harmful approach to our community,” reads the letter.

{mosads}“GLAAD’s campaign has lacked meaningful engagement with the broader movement representing the LGBTQ community ― particularly state and national organizations that would be responsible for doing the work to pass such an amendment ― and presents a serious risk to the community’s work at the state and federal level,” it continued.

The letter calls an the Equal Rights Coalition’s amendment campaign an “arduous” task for which national and local LGBTQ organizations are ill-prepared.

GLAAD responded in its own lengthy statement to HuffPost, writing that the organization would consider “any option that protects LGBTQ people from the rampant discrimination that exists” in society but added that the organization had no plans for “public pushes around the inclusive ERA [Equal Rights Amendment].”

“Receiving this letter was surprising given that GLAAD requested to speak with the organizations on the letter about the inclusive ERA multiple times over the last year and since we learned more about it,” GLAAD responded. A spokesperson for the organization noted in a phone call to The Hill that the group had attempted to contact many of the groups over the past year, but had mostly not received responses.

“We see validity in a number of points in the letter and look forward to continuing dialogue with those on the letter as well as other social justice leaders about ways to stand united against the growing discrimination that marginalized communities face today,” GLAAD added.

A spokesperson for GLAAD also noted to The Hill that the efforts to draft and ratify an inclusive Equal Rights Amendment are larger than GLAAD and that the organization had reached out to multiple organizations urging them to discuss the issue’s growing national prominence.

Ellis also responded in an email to the groups, urging them to discuss with GLAAD and other supporters of an inclusive ERA the growing national conversation around passing an amendment.

“We, as leaders of the LGBTQ movement, need to urgently discuss how to best address the growing visibility of an inclusive Equal Rights Amendment,” she wrote, according to HuffPost.

This article was updated at 4:35 p.m.