Asheville-based Campaign for Southern Equality staff members meet with President Obama Friday

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Two staff members of the Campaign for Southern Equality, an Asheville-based organization working for the rights of LGBT people, will attend a June 15 reception with the president. Here’s the press release:

Two staff members of the Asheville-based Campaign for Southern Equality will attend a reception on June 15th with President Barack Obama. Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE), and Lindsey Simerly, Campaign Manager of CSE’s WE DO Campaign, will attend the annual 0
Beach-Ferrara and Simerly will also meet with the Office of Public Engagement on the same day prior to the Pride Reception, to discuss efforts to engage faith based and non-profit organizations around the country. The meeting will take place in the White House Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“I look forward to meeting with White House staff and other advocates for LGBT rights from across the country. In every Southern state, LGBT people are second-class citizens and, after the passage of Amendment One, this is a particularly critical time for LGBT people in North Carolina. We will share the reality of the day-to-day discrimination that LGBT people in the South face with national leaders and will continue to work for full federal equality as the solution to this problem,” said Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara.

The Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE) ran the third stage of the WE DO Campaign from May 9th through the 15th in eight counties across North Carolina. Through this campaign lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) couples request – and are denied – marriage licenses. The purpose of the WE DO Campaign is to call for full equality under federal law and to resist unjust state laws that prohibit marriage equality across the South. CSE launched the WE DO Campaign in Asheville, N.C., on October 3, 2011 and will continue to grow across the South until full federal equality is achieved. For more information, please see CSE’s website at www.southernequality.org and our Facebook page.