Regional California Faith for Equality Affiliates
Sacramento Region Faith for Equality
The Sacramento Region focuses on building strategies with our LGBTQI community partners and provides a strong presence of clergy and lay leaders at local marriage equality public events. Through a team of volunteers supported by California Faith for Equality, the Sacramento Region offers training in the
Living Lovingly curriculum developed by the California Council of Churches. Our regional webpage is currently dedicated to a list of clergy who serve congregations that are supportive of LGBT people and issues. To find out more, please contact Sacramento Region Interfaith Organizer Mary Helen Doherty,
mhdoherty@comcast.net.
More regional affiliate sites are forthcoming! To develop a page for your region To find out who is the local California Faith for Equality organizer in your region, please contact Interfaith Organizing Director Kerry Chaplin.
National Organizations
Freedom to Marry
Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Headed by Evan Wolfson, one of America's leading civil rights advocates and lawyers, Freedom to Marry brings new resources and a renewed context of urgency and opportunity to this social justice movement. Freedom to Marry brings the work of its partner organizations and their many approaches litigation, legislation, direct action, and public education into a larger whole, a shared civil rights campaign that fosters heightened outreach to non-gay allies.
Human Rights Campaign, Religion and Faith Program
The Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith Programs mission is to change the conversation about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and faith. Because of the pioneering efforts of brave religious people speaking out for equality, a new movement for change is emerging that embraces a culture of welcome, compassion, and hospitality, values that are at the heart of all our faith traditions.
National Black Justice Coalition
The National Black Justice Coalition is a civil rights organization dedicated to empowering Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Our mission is to end racism and homophobia.
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The mission of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is to build the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. We do this by training activists, equipping state and local organizations with the skills needed to organize broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, and building the organizational capacity of our movement.
The Task Force organizes, convenes and staffs the
National Religious Leadership Roundtable (NRLR), a network of leaders from pro-LGBT faith, spiritual and religious organizations, and runs the
Institute for Welcoming Resources (IWR), which works with the welcoming church movement in eight mainline Protestant denominations
California Organizations
Equality California
EQCA works to achieve equality and secure legal protections for LGBT people. To improve the lives of LGBT Californians, EQCA sponsors legislation and coordinates efforts to ensure its passage, lobbies legislators and other policy makers, builds coalitions, develops community strength and empowers individuals and other organizations to engage in the political process.
The Equality For All Campaign
The Equality for All campaign is a large and diverse coalition of civil rights, faith, choice, labor and community of color organizations working to stop and defeat any ballot measure that has the intent to discriminate against LGBT Californians and deny gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.
Jews for Marriage Equality
The mission of Jews for Marriage Equality is to educate the Jewish community of California of the importance of equal civil marriage rights for gay and lesbian people.
Let California Ring
Let California Ring is a public education campaign to open hearts and minds about the freedom to marry and the respect, support, protections, and responsibilities that come with marriage.
Let California Ring is a project of Equality California Institute, working in a diverse coalition of over 60 national, state and local organizations.
Marriage Equality USA, California Chapter
Marriage Equality USA (MEUSA) understands how critical it is for a greater number of voices to be heard and often works in tandem with other state and national organizations. With greater numbers of people working together towards ending discrimination in civil marriage, MEUSA hopes to accomplish in the foreseeable future what truly is the inevitable: civil marriages for same-sex couples.
Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry
UULM California is a statewide justice ministry that serves to empower the moral voice of Unitarian Universalist values in the public arena. Guided by Unitarian Universalist principles, the Ministry seeks to develop the skills of civic engagement that we may educate, organize, and advocate for public policies that:
uphold the worth and dignity of every person
further justice, equity, and compassion in human relations
ensure use of the democratic process
protect religious freedom
promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence
Bay Area Organizations
API Equality
API Equality is committed to working in the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community in California and nationally for equal marriage rights, fair treatment, and overall acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies in Religion and Ministry
The Center is dedicated to the encouragement of new, creative scholarship on the interrelations of religion and sexuality / sexual orientation; to the production and dissemination of innovative resources for the academy, faith communities, and the general public; to the development of enlightened leadership around issues of religion and sexuality through education; and to presenting a new public voice in the debate over sexual identity through media outreach and coalition building.
Los Angeles Organizations
Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition
The mission of the Barbara Jordan / Bayard Rustin Coalition is to empower Black same-gender loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and families in Greater Los Angeles, to promote equal marriage rights and to advocate for fair treatment of everyone without regard to race, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
API Equality Los Angeles
API Equality-LA is a coalition of organizations and individuals working in the local Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community to build support for the right of same-sex couples to marry. From its founding in 2005, API Equality-LA has uniquely bridged the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community with the civil rights and other social justice communities, united by a common understanding of the parallels between past anti-miscegenation and current marriage equality struggles.
Vote for Equality
Vote For Equality is Southern California's leading campaign to educate voters to speak out at the ballot box in support of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equality.
Other Affiliates
Pacific School of Religion
Pacific School of Religion is committed to serving God by equipping historic and emerging faith communities for ministries of compassion and justice in a changing world. We affirm our historic mission to educate men and women for ministry and other forms of religious leadership and to be a center and resource for Christian thought in an interfaith and pluralistic context. We affirm our ecumenical and Christian heritage and commitment as an open and affirming community that honors diversity and presses toward racial, gender, sexual orientation, and economic justice.
Network on Religion and Justice for Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender People
The Network on Religion and Justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (NRJ-API-LGBT) is a coalition of organizations and individuals affirming the dignity and spiritual wholeness of API LGBT people of faith. We work to create visibility and connection, to educate and advocate, and to transform both our faith communities and our larger world.
Network on Religion and Justice for Asian Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender People
The Network on Religion and Justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (NRJ-API-LGBT) is a coalition of organizations and individuals affirming the dignity and spiritual wholeness of API LGBT people of faith. We work to create visibility and connection, to educate and advocate, and to transform both our faith communities and our larger world.
Funders
Arcus Foundation
The mission of the Arcus Foundation is to achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race, and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes.
Liberty Hill Foundation
Liberty Hill is first to identify community leaders at the frontlines of change. We invest in changemakers and equip them with the skills and relationships they need to build power and advance social justice. After more than 30 years, Liberty Hill is uniquely positioned to bring together forces for change and forge a common agenda for equality and opportunity in Los Angeles. Liberty Hill is
Change. Not Charity.
