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Press Release

Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club Endorses Challengers Brian Sims and Fatimah Muhammad

For Immediate Release: March 29, 2012
Contact Co-chairs This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Philadelphia, PA – Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club, the premiere lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender political organization in Pennsylvania, endorsed challengers Brian Sims in the 182^nd State Legislative District and Fatimah Muhammad in the 188^th State Legislative District at their annual primary endorsement meeting held at the Gershman Y on Tuesday.

"Both Brian Sims and Fatimah Muhammad are out members of the LGBTQ community, but it's not just who they are, but what they've done and pledged to do for the LGBTQ community that won over members. Brian recently served as Board Chairperson of Equality PA, the statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, and Fatimah was co-founder of Elements, the LGBTQ womyn of color organization,” said Liberty City Co-chairs Lee Carson and Sherrie Cohen.

LibertyCity voted to endorse Sims and Muhammad in order to provide long overdue LGBTQ representation in Harrisburg. Pennsylvania is alone among the 11 states comprising the Northeast region (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania), in providing NO statewide protection against discrimination for LGBT people and NO statewide recognition of our relationships.

This is true even though polls over the past decade show that roughly 70% of Pennsylvanians support an anti-discrimination law protecting LGBT people and recent polling shows that 65% of Pennsylvanians think same sex couples should have all the legal rights of marriage.

Pennsylvaniais also one of only two states in the region (with Delaware) to never have elected an openly LGBT representative to its legislature. Many of our neighboring states have numerous out representatives; Maryland, for example, now has eight out state legislators and Massachusetts has seven.

Liberty City hopes that the addition of out and proud LGBT voices to the many strong allies of our community who are representatives in Harrisburg will help jumpstart our community’s desperately needed civil rights legislation that for too long has stalled. The organization is prepared to work hard to turn out voters for both candidates in the April 24^th Primary Election.

In the other races, former Bucks County Congressman Patrick Murphy was endorsed for Pennsylvania Attorney General, President Obama received the endorsement for reelection as president, and Eugene DePasquale received the endorsement for Pennsylvania Auditor General.

Others running for open seats who won Liberty City's endorsement include Steve McCarter for State Representative in the 154^th district and Jordan Harris in the 186^th. Challengers Malik Boyd (198^th) and Andrew Kleeman (195^th) also won the group's support.

Incumbent State Senator Larry Farnese (1^st District) was endorsed again after continuing to be a champion for the LGBT community. Incumbent State Representatives Mike O’Brien (175^th), Vanessa Lowery-Brown (190^th), Cherelle Parker (200^th) and Mark Cohen (202^nd) also received the group's support.

The co-chairs were pleased with the process. "Even in the middle of some passionate debate supporting opposing candidates, the level of civility and discourse was great to see, as always at Liberty City. We know that not all members supported every candidate that was endorsed, but that speaks strongly about the openness of the process and the diversity of opinions represented by this organization,” Carson and Cohen said in a joint statement.

The club will now begin to implement an aggressive "get-out-the-vote" operation on behalf of all Liberty City endorsed candidates.

Here is the complete slate of Liberty City endorsements for the primary election on April 24^th:

President – Barack Obama
Attorney General – Patrick Murphy
Auditor General – Eugene DePasquale
State Senate (1) – Larry Farnese
State House (154) – Steve McCarter
State House (175)-Mike O’Brien
State House (182) – Brian Sims
State House (186) – Jordan Harris
State House (188) – Fatimah Muhammad
State House (190) – Vanessa Lowery -Brown
State House (195) – Andrew Kleeman
State House (198) – Malik Boyd
State House (200) – Cherelle Parker
State House (202) – Mark Cohen

Liberty City is a progressive, membership-based, political action committee serving the greater Philadelphia region that works within the Democratic Party to achieve and sustain economic and social equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. www.libertycity.org

Liberty City Calls on Council to Pass Earned Sick Days Bill

June 14, 2011--Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club today officially joined the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces and called on Philadelphia City Council to pass earned sick days legislation Thursday, June 16th.

"Liberty City has worked tirelessly to promote policies that support LGBT residents and families and we have worked just as tirelessly to elect councilmembers who support those LGBT-friendly policies," said Lee Carson, Co-Chair of Liberty City. "The earned sick days bill is critical in supporting and protecting LGBT families and Liberty City expects LGBT-supportive councilmembers to vote for it."

"Passing the earned sick days bill is an important step forward for LGBT civil rights in Philadelphia." added Liberty City Co-Chair Adah Bush.

Liberty City joins the following LGBT Community and HIV/AIDS leadership organizations in supporting earned sick days legislation: Mazzoni Center, William Way, Action AIDS, Philadelphia AIDS Fund, Philadelphia Family Pride, AIDS Law Project, GALAEI, and Philadelphia Fight.

Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces Act (Bill 080474) would allow Philadelphia workers the opportunity to earn up to 7 days of sick time per year for a large business and up to 4 days per year for a small businesses. It was voted out of the Public Health and Human Services Committee earlier this year. The bill could affect up to 200,000 workers in Philadelphia who do not have access to paid sick days.
The earned sick day bill is LGBT-inclusive. The bill explicitly allows workers to use earned sick time to care for spouses, domestic partners or life partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, biological children, grandchildren, foster children, adopted children, stepchildren, legal wards, and children of workers who stand "in loco parentis" (this phrase covers LGBT parents who do not have a legal or biological relationship to their children).
With over 40 percent of Philadelphians lacking earned sick days, a large portion of the population cannot take the time off work to go see a doctor or obtain medical treatment - regardless of the medical coverage they have.

Employees with earned sick days are more likely to stay home when they are sick, limiting the spread of the illness and protecting co-workers, customers, or anyone else they meet during the work day. During the height of the H1N1 pandemic, people were urged to stay home if they had any signs of the flu, however, those without earned sick days were less likely to stay home because they could not afford to. As a result, nearly 8 million H1N1 cases were traced back to employees going to work while sick.

City Council is expected to vote on the bill on Thursday, June 16, 2011.

Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club works to register, educate, and mobilize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) voters, elect openly LGBT candidates for public and party office, support LGBT-friendly candidates and promote legislative issues of importance to the LGBT community.

For more information, contact Micah Mahjoubian at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .