Americans United for Separation of Church & State Orange County Chapter

AU-OC Presents: Hans Johnson, President of Progressive Victory 

What The Election Means for the LGBTQ Community

Saturday, November 21st at 2:00 pm

Join Zoom Meeting: See our Meetup page or email us at mail@au-oc.org

Meetup: Americans United for Separation of Church & State - OC

Hans Johnson leads nonprofit advocacy at the local, state, and national levels.  In 2014, after building a diverse base of outspoken leaders throughout California, he won a multi-year campaign to pass the nation's first statewide ban on polluting, single-use plastic bags.  For 25 years, he has integrated and meshed community-based and nationally supported campaigns, working closely with foundations, clergy, and interfaith, labor, LGBT, immigrant, civil-rights, reproductive justice, and environmental organizations, and socially responsible business for victories on ballot measures in more than half the states.  His commentary appears on Huffington Post and daily op-ed pages around California and throughout the country. And do check out his recent piece in the Washington Blade: https://www.washingtonblade.com/2020/09/11/lgbtq-the-letters-republicans-didnt-utter/

With increasing frequency, we are seeing individuals and institutions claiming a right to discriminate—by refusing to provide services to LGBT people and women—based on religious objections. The discrimination takes many forms, including the following:

• Religiously affiliated schools firing women because they became pregnant while not married

• Business owners refusing to provide insurance coverage for contraception for their employees

• Graduate students, training to be social workers, refusing to counsel gay people

• Pharmacies turning away women seeking to fill birth control prescriptions