GLAAD urges all 2020 candidates to support an expanded ERA that would explicitly protect women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities

GLAAD President & CEO: “…the issue of non-discrimination has a rightful place in this week’s debate and through the campaign trail.” 

READ: Vol. 2: Covering 2020 – An Amendment for Constitutional Equality

NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today announced its second in a series of tip sheets for journalists covering the 2020 election ahead of the second Democratic Primary Debates in Detroit, Michigan. The second tip sheet, Covering 2020: An Amendment for Constitutional Equality, highlights an idea to expand the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to include explicit protections for other marginalized communities – including people of color, the disabled, and LGBTQ Americans.

The New York Times spotlighted GLAAD’s support for an Amendment for Constitutional Equality last month on the 50^thanniversary of the Stonewall Inn Riots and the start of the first presidential debates for the 2020 election cycle. During those debates, Democratic candidates like Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, and Elizabeth Warren called for policies to protect LGBTQ Americans, people of color, and women – including ratification of the original ERA.  Legal and policy experts convened by theERA Coalition have crafted draft language – The Amendment for Constitutional Equality – that meets this imperative. 

“LGBTQ issues were nearly invisible in the last Presidential election and now need to be front and center alongside issues impacting other marginalized communities,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “At a time when marginalized communities are under attack, the issue of non-discrimination has a rightful place in this week’s debate and through the campaign trail.”  

GLAAD’s “Covering 2020: An Amendment for Constitutional Equality” 

So far, the Trump Administration has been responsible for issuing more than 117 attacks against LGBTQ Americans in policy and rhetoric since 2017. The entire list of the Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ actions, which include Trump’s ban on allowing transgender Americans from enlisting in our nation’s armed forces to opposing the Equality Act, can be found by visiting GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project at www.glaad.org/trump.

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