Voice for Equality: Mary Kay Henry

By support
Sep 11, 2009 at 02:17 pm

Mary Kay Henry has devoted her life to helping America's health caregivers form unions, improve their jobs and the quality of care, and advocate for a more rational and humane health care system.

During her 25 years as an organizer and leader in the nation's largest health care union, she has played a major role in helping more than half a million health care workers join together in SEIU, negotiate for better working and patient care conditions, and actively shape health care policy at the state and federal levels.

Mary Kay is also an active champion of health care reform, immigration reform, and gay and lesbian rights, and a founding member of SEIU's gay and lesbian Lavender Caucus. She and her partner, Paula Macchello, have been together for almost 20 years, and Mary Kay has been a guest blogger on Freedom to Marry's website. In May 2009, after the California Supreme Court announced its decision to uphold Proposition 8, she issued the following statement:
Equality is a value dear to our union's members. We opposed Prop 8 and the forces of division and discrimination who produced it. This ruling merely delays the day of regaining an important aspect of equality in California. It does not diminish the dignity of our members and their relationships or our determination to win equality in this country. Learn more [Link]
Freedom to Marry salutes Mary Kay Henry as a Voice for Equality!

**Make your NOMINATION for a Voice for Equality today!