Week 2

The second week at Equality Ohio was busy as usual, but was pretty fun!  I was able to finish the legislator list and the LGBT list for now, and all I have to do for those two projects is wait for updates.  It is a great feeling knowing that those two massive lists finished.  To replace that work, I have started a new project concerning particular LGBT rights and protections in different counties and cities.  Kim sent me data that showed which cities and counties protected LGBT citizens from employment, housing, and/or public accommodation discrimination, along with which ones had laws that prohibited LGBT hate crimes.  Based on this information, along with other selected characteristics, Equality Ohio was able to give the communities ratings about how LGBT friendly they were.  What I had to do was find the contact information in the city or county government for individuals who might need to report discrimination or a hate crime.  It sounds like it would be easy enough, but a lot of the cities' websites (especially the smaller cities) were very disorganized.  Some of them did not have any information on the web, in which case I had to call the city and ask them personally.  A web-design major would have plenty of work for them as a city employer in Ohio. :-)  Anyway, as of now, I have most of this information collected.  Just a few more phone calls and I'll be done.

Last week wasn't all office work, though.  On Tuesday, Kim and I went to the law school on the Ohio State campus for a talk concerning the history of gay-marriage legislation.  It was really quite interesting, especially since there were two speakers giving their own personal opinions.  What was fascinating was the emphasis on gender roles during the talk.  I have heard the gay-marriage issue described in terms in gender equality before (i.e. the fact that a man can marry a woman but a woman cannot marry a woman makes the issue a sexist one), but usually it was in the context of a Women's Studies class.  Apparently, there are some legal cases that have taken that stance!  This Tuesday (tomorrow) Kim and I will be taking another "field trip" and will be out of the office again.  I imagine it will be just as informative.

Then on Friday, Kim and I spent the day preparing for her phone banking training session that took place on Saturday.  I made the flip chart for her presentation, helped her edit the script, and helped her rehearse the introduction to the phone banking.  From what Kim said, the training was a success!  Hopefully, it is an indication for the future, since the goal is to get more Ohioans to be comfortable with phone banking.  If we can do that, then it will be a great resource for political advocacy and promoting awareness within Ohio.