Jacob OglesJune 15, 2020
11min1190
The Supreme Court decision stops job discrimination, but other matters weren't before the court.
Tag: Nadine SmithCrowds gather to see Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. (Gabrielle Russon)
Jacob OglesJune 15, 2020
Danny McAuliffeNovember 13, 2018
5min609
Online retail giant Amazon won’t be setting up its new headquarters in any Florida city. Why? Equality Florida is pointing to the absence of statewide non-discrimination policies for the LGBTQ community. Under current state law, it’s still legal to discriminate against LGBT individuals in employment, housing and public accommodations. Statewide civil rights protections — provided […]
Peter SchorschDecember 29, 2017
16min785
‘Tis the season, and the Legislature’s dubious Christmas present this year was moving up the 2018 Legislative Session two months from its usual March start date. We will no doubt have many gifts in store, besides the inevitable policy food fights, such as perhaps seeing some lawmakers in their ugly holiday sweaters (the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts “sunny, turning warm” for […]
Drew WilsonNovember 7, 2017
3min273
St. Petersburg voters chose Tuesday to give Mayor Rick Kriseman a second term and keep City Councilmember Darden Rice in place for another four years, both of which were cheered by LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida. “Tonight the LGBTQ community in Tampa Bay saw two of its most vocal champions re-elected for a second term. […]
Mitch PerryOctober 24, 2017
2min907
Former Raymond James Board Chair and CEO Tom James, Equality Florida’s Nadine Smith and two Tampa Bay Rowdies soccer players are featured in a two-minute, forty-second video intended to woo Amazon to the Tampa Bay-area for its second headquarters. Dozens of cities across the country had a Thursday deadline to submit their bid to land the […]
Tamara LushAugust 9, 2017
7min258
When 49 people were killed at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, Gov. Rick Scott publicly offered his sympathy to the victims’ families and the LGBT community. “These are individuals. Let’s love every one of them,” he said then. Behind the scenes, gay rights advocates say his staffers went a step further, promising to […]
Mitch PerryJune 21, 2017
7min633
Equality Florida is accusing Gov. Rick Scott of breaking a promise made last year to the organization that he would issue an executive order protecting LGBTQ state employees from discrimination in hiring and contracting. Now the Florida Democratic Party is piling on. On June 28, 2016, just 16 days after the deadly attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub […]
Mitch PerryJune 12, 2017
9min262
In a statement proclaiming Monday as “Pulse Remembrance Day,” Gov. Rick Scott described the Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 49 people a year ago as “an attack on Orlando, our state, the Hispanic community and on the LGBTQ community.” Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, the leading advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in Florida, is “glad” Scott […]
Mitch PerryJanuary 4, 2017
9min695
Of the many Cabinet choices made by President-elect Donald Trump, some of the strongest opposition centers around the nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Wednesday morning in Tampa, a group of activists spoke with officials in Sen. Bill Nelson‘s district office, calling on him at the very least to call for a delay a vote […]
Mitch PerryDecember 5, 2016
3min365
Incumbent North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory conceded to Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s Attorney General, on Monday — a defeat that is being cheered on by Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBT organization. “I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken, and we now should do everything we can to support the 75th governor of […]