Meister, activists launch new gay-rights group

Meister, activists launch new gay-rights group
by Mason Harrison
Copyright by The Windy City Times
2010-06-23
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=26992


A crowd of luminaries in the struggle for LGBT equality gathered June 17 at Cocktail bar in the Lakeview neighborhood to celebrate the launching of a new statewide civil-rights organization headed and founded by former U.S. Senate candidate Jacob Meister.

The Civil Rights Agenda, as the new organization is known, will address three areas of concern: LGBT voter mobilization, equal treatment at the workplace and legal protections for those who face discrimination. The three areas—known as the Voter Project, Workplace Project and Law Project—make up the group's mission.

Meister said that after touring the state during the lead-up to the 2010 Senate primary, he decided in November or December of last year that he and others were "in a position to make a difference." Meister reminisced about the numbers of gay and lesbian couples—some of whom would drive for miles, he said—who would attend his events in downstate Illinois and state that they wanted to meet him after learning about his campaign. Meister called these moments "touching."

He hopes that same hunger and excitement can be parlayed into activism, particularly in the area of voter mobilization, as the new organization gets off the ground. "The gay community doesn't exercise its full power at the ballot box," he noted, adding, "It's time to get people who are LGBT who have fallen off the voter rolls back on them."

In order to do that, TCRA's staff will be "reaching way beyond Chicago" in its efforts to identify LGBT Illinoisans and their allies, according to Lowell Jaffe, a member of the group's board of directors. "We want this to be a state organization. We're using micro-targeting to reach LGBT families and their supporters. Currently, we've identified about 200,000 people."

Information about the organization and its projects is available by visiting www.jointcra.org or texting "jointcra" to 66937.