Ricardo Martinez, executive director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), released the following statement in response to the federal government’s lawsuit against Southern Poverty Law Center:
Civil rights organizations play a central role in moving our country closer to its foundational promise of equality for all. For more than 50 years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented hate, taken on white nationalist groups, and worked to root out violent extremism.
Civil rights advocates work so that all people can live freely, love who they love, find dignity in work, study, vote, and be themselves, free from hate and discrimination. This work has been critical in advancing the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, and our work is only possible as part of the broader fight for civil rights.
It is chilling to witness a federal Administration hold in open contempt the very idea that the Constitution’s promise belongs to all of us. This is government attempting to weaponize and rewrite civil rights history and target for destruction any organization that stands in its way. It is an Administration operating like an emboldened bully, without a moral compass, and willing to make a mockery of the rule of law to prove it.
We will not capitulate. GLAD Law is firmly with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the shared values we represent – a world in which every person, across every background, race, age, gender, ability, and experience, has the freedom to be themselves, pursue their dreams, and live a full life. An attack on any of us in the civil rights community is an attack on all of us. The civil rights movement has been around far longer than this Administration and will outlast it.
—from a GLAD Law press release
More: gladlaw.org