This unique one-day event will bring together individuals and community organizations from across the state to help chart the course for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality through keynotes and breakout sessions on key policy issues, networking opportunities, and presentation of the first Equality North Carolina Award for Legislative Leadership to Representative Rick Glazier by House Speaker Joe Hackney.
Featured Guests
North Carolina Representative Rick Glazier is presently serving his third term in the North Carolina General Assembly. He is an employment and labor law attorney with a personal background of neighborhood involvement and extensive public service. Rep. Glazier has emerged as an important and respected leader for the state, and as an eloquent and courageous spokesman for the safe schools bill that was passed by the North Carolina House this year, the first time in North Carolina history a bill protecting people based on sexual orientation and gender identity passed either chamber. He has been married to Lise for 28 years. They have two children, Philip and Megan, who are both attending NC State. The Glaziers are also proud canine parents of Zoe and Shadow.
Neil Giuliano serves as president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). GLAAD is one of the largest national LGBT organizations and the only one dedicated to ensuring fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of LGBT people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Mr. Giuliano has appeared on CNN, ABC World News Tonight, Showbiz Tonight, and Access Hollywood, and has been quoted in Newsweek, USA Today, and numerous state and regional media outlets. He is considered among the nation’s most visible and effective leaders of the movement for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender equality, earning recognition as one of Instinct Magazine’s Top 25 of 2005. Prior to his appointment as president of GLAAD, Mr. Giuliano served for ten years as the mayor of Tempe, Arizona.
Alabama Representative Patricia Todd has socially and professionally advocated for public policies relevant to social justice, HIV/AIDS, health care, and a wide range of issues affecting the entire community in Birmingham for the past twenty years. After a contentious serious of political races in 2006 that garnered state and national attention, she was elected to the Alabama Legislature as the State Representative for House District 54, making her the first elected public official who is openly gay in the history of Alabama. Rep. Todd was selected as one of the “Top 40 Under 40” by the Birmingham Business Journal in 1992, and was elected in 2004 as a delegate to the National Democratic Convention. Professionally, she is presently the associate director of AIDS Alabama in Birmingham, and resides with her partner, Jennifer Clarke, in the Crestwood Neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama.
Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors
Food Lion
Freeman Foundation
Replacements, Ltd.
Gold Sponsors
Duke Center for LGBT Life
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
Silver Sponsors
Duke OUTlaw
Duke School of Law
Haas McNeil & Associates, PA
Human Rights Campaign
Liberty Education Forum
Small Business Sponsors
Nations Alliance LLC
Open Source Leadership Strategies, Inc.
Triangle Financial Advisors
Nonprofit Sponsors
Exodus Missionary Outreach Church
NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence
NC Institute for Equal Rights
Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina
Triangle Gay Men's Chorus
Triangle Out and Equal
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh Social Action Committee
Table Sponsors
Robert Dogens
Equality Council
Equal Justice Under the Law
Food Lion
Friends of Joe Herzenberg
HRC NC Steering Committee
Individual Sponsors
Replacements, Ltd.
Skanska USA Building
Mike Nelson
Jim Penny
Jesse White
Individual Sponsors
Tim Alwran and Dennis Hayes
Ken Badgett
Coleman Billingsley
Hunter Corn
Bo Dean
John Denning
Daniel Ellison
Stan Kimer and Rich Roark
Colleen Kochanek
Aaron Lucier
Jack Nichols
Ed Ridpath
Cris Rivera and Beth Stringfield
Kimball Sargent and Geoffrey Avery-Foy
Joseph Daniel Smith
Genia Smith and Becky Burks
Josh Stein
Anna Voytek and Chanda Fausphoul
Champagne Brunch in Charlotte
