Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 17:35:30 -0500 From: Maggie Heineman Subject: Discrimination Study Press Conference 3/11/97 - Harrisburgh This notice is from Rita Addessa Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force. Press Conference. Tuesday, March 11, 9:30 am sharp Main Capitol Building Media Center, East Wing Harrisburg, PA Larry Gross, Ph.D., CoChair [Snow date: Wednesday, March 12] Pennsylvania Legislators Join the Task Force in the Presentation of the Pennsylvania-wide Study of Discrimination and Violence Against Lesbian and Gay People On Tuesday, March 11, 1997 at 9:30 am sharp to 10:30 am sharp, Larry Gross, Ph.D. will present the findings of the Task Force's Pennsylvania-wide study to Pennsylvania legislators, government officials, and media. Carrie Jacobs, Ph.D. will address education equity issues, followed by Rita Addessa who will close the presentation with specific recommendations and remedies to address the continuing epidemic of anti-gay and anti-lesbian discrimination and violence. Briefing Cosponsors include: Pennsylvania Representatives Louise Bishop, Lita Cohen, Mark Cohen, Ivan Itkin, Harold James, Kathy Manderino, James Roebuck, W. Curtis Thomas, and LeAnna Washington together with Senator Allyson Schwartz [n-10]. Cosponsors and participants will be recognized at the beginning and end of the presentation. The objectives of the briefing are twofold: first, to share critical information with public officials sworn to protect the public health, safety, and welfare; and secondly, to discuss a range of recommendations to address, meaningfully and substantively, the underlying causes of the prevailing pattern of hate-based discrimination and violence at the local, state, and federal levels. In a prepared press release, Professor Larry Gross, CoChair of the Task Force, noted: "Gay men and lesbian women in Pennsylvania are one and one-half to three and one- half times more likely to experience violence than USA adults, generally. Over a lifetime, more than half of the respondents reported discrimination in employment, housing and/or in public accommodations. Family and school victimization levels remain high: more than half of the gay men and nearly a third of the lesbian women reported harassment in school settings; a third of the lesbian women and a quarter of the gay men reported family harassment on the basis of sexual orientation... "...These statistics and the human tragedy they represent persist because of policymakers' failure to act expeditiously and aggressively to protect and affirm the human rights of our community, most particularly in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodations, and education... "...Last year, to its shame, the Legislature adopted a bigoted statute intended to consign lesbian and gay citizens to second class status by denying us the right to have our long-term relationships accorded the civil status of marriage, with all of the significant benefits that this entails. My lover and I, after more than twenty-one years together, have fewer rights and privileges than a heterosexual couple who were married this morning. This same Legislature has consistently failed to adopt a symbolically useful, though practically limited, amendment to the Commonwealth's Bias Crime statute that increases penalties for hate-based crimes... "...Today we are calling upon our elected representatives to fulfill their sworn duty to defend the rights of all citizens of the Commonwealth by supporting the introduction and adoption of comprehensive legislation to protect gay and lesbian Pennsylvanians against discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and education. Only with the enactment of such civil rights protection will we truly be able to dismantle the edifice of bias that permits discrimination, encourages violence and impoverishes education. Pennsylvania likes to refer to itself as the Cradle of Liberty, but this slogan rings hollow when the Commonwealth has been unwilling - to date - to defend the basic rights of all of its citizens."