URGENT Action! Any GLBT folks from West Virginia

[theHandpuppet]

Please pass the word!

From the Human Rights Campaign

Urgent action needed on State Senate Bill 600
to move West Virginia in the direction of Equality for All!

Last week, State Senator Brooks McCabe, (D) Kanawha and the entire West Virginia State Senate courageously passed Senate Bill 600. This bill will amend the current West Virginia Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in our state. This piece of legislation will bar discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in all of West Virginia.

Now that the bill has passed in the Senate we need you to take action today to help secure the bill's passage in the House.

We need you to email your Delegate and urge them to support Senate Bill 600, so Governor Manchin can sign it into law.

NOTE: Today, right wing groups pressed for a hearing to try and kill the bill. The hearing has been granted for 8:30 am on Tuesday, March 4th in the House Chamber, Charleston, WV. It is urgent that our side show up and express our support for equality. If you can attend, please contact Charlie Rouse at 304-546-6368.
Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
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If you are a current member of HRC, thank you. To help HRC fund the Action Center and support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality, please join HRC or renew your membership today. Visit our membership page at http://www.hrc.org/joinus.

Thank you for taking action and for supporting HRC.

This e-mail communication is provided to users of HRC's Online Action Center to keep you informed of breaking news, legislative developments, and when you should take action. To comment on this service please e-mail us at [e-mail].


Human Rights Campaign
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[davidinalameda]

1. did you cross-post this in the WV forum?

I don't understand how this sailed through the state senate?

obviously some of the repugs and the more conservative democrats were asleep when this passed

[theHandpuppet]

2. Yep, I cross-posted

Even though I live in WV, I'm much too far away to drive to Charleston tomorrow, especially since we're supposed to get some really nasty weather. (You have to be familiar with WV geography to understand there's no easy route to Charleston unless I take a really long, convoluted route north or south over the mountains.)

[Lyric]

3. What part of WV are you from, handPuppet?

My domestic partner and I are in Morgantown; I'm a native, she's a North Carolina transplant, but we're both WVU students. :hi:

[theHandpuppet]

4. Eastern Panhandle

Berkeley County. Can't say I'm particularly fond of this part if the state -- the rest is so much more beautiful! The eastern panhandle has become little more than a D.C. bedroom community.

My mother's ancestors -- Scottish covenanters who were shipped here in chains -- were part of the old Scots-Irish settlement in Augusta Co. VA and were in Greenbrier County by the latter half of the 18th century. So though I was born and raised in Scioto Co., Ohio my WV roots run deep.

:hi:

[Lyric]

5. Awesome :)

My Mom's ancestors came here as Pennsylvania-Dutch Protestant settlers in PA, and gradually moved south into Western Maryland, Preston Co. WV and Monongalia County, WV. My Dad's folks were more recent immigrants; Jewish people leaving Central Europe and moving to Point Marion, PA, and then down here to Monongalia County.

I was born and raised here in Morgantown, but I lived for almost 8 years as a late teen/early adult in Rockingham County, VA. I've been through Berkeley County *many* times on the drive between Morgantown and Harrisonburg--we know 5 or 6 different routes, and we like to take different ones each time for variety's sake. Martinsburg was always one of our favorite little pit-stops for food and bathroom breaks when we went that way. :hi: