Lansing - A rally of student organizations and representatives gathered on the steps of the state Capitol on Wednesday to promote legislation and lobby for candidate support of lesbian-bi-gay and transgendered issues.
The event, “Building the Beloved Community: Michigan Students for Equality,” was sponsored by the Triangle Foundation, a Detroit-based anti-violence civil rights advocacy group.
The purpose of the event was to gain support for three bills which focus on helping promote gay and lesbian equal rights legislation and preventing gender-related hate crimes.
Michael Gibson-Faith, an intern at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center at Eastern Michigan University, said the event was held to abolish discrimination across the state - in every form.
“We wanted to gather momentum across the state for gay, straight alliances and LBGT student groups to say we need to get involved and put an end to what’s going on around the state,” he said.“We want to network with other students and get involved with local and state governments.”
Gibson-Faith said he thinks having lobby days are important for spreading awareness to students about what concerns the LBGT community.
“I would like to see it expand and include other issues,” he said. “There are a lot of important issues out there, such as racial profiling and the treatment of other oppressed individuals and women’s issues.”
And Sean Kosofsky, director of policy and victim services at the Triangle Foundation, said lobby days are important because they allow representatives to meet their constituents.
“It allows people of similar mindsets to get together and push policy and change and to get to know each other,” he said. “It’s really a moving day for a lot of people to go to the center of government and shake things up.”
Brandie Tyuse, an Eastern Michigan student, said she came to the event to gain insight into LBGT issues.
“I came to get a perspective on LBGT issues because our culture is so diverse,” she said. “I wanted to better understand because you can come in contact with any kind of person. Our legislators have to represent us as whole, not a small percentage of us.”
