Latino/a leaders speak out during nationwide radio tour in honor of 9th annual Freedom to Marry Week

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2006

PRESS CONTACT
Samiya Bashir
Tel: 212-851-8418 x6, Mobile: 917-617-8660
Email: samiya@freedomtomarry.org

NEW YORK, February 8, 2006 — Freedom to Marry Day, Sunday, February 12th, is a day to share personal stories, and ask others to push past discomfort and embrace fairness and marriage equality. Freedom to Marry Week, February 12-18, 2006, helps Americans get to know the real faces behind this civil rights movement. Every year, around President Lincoln's Birthday and Valentine's Day, gay and non-gay people gather in living rooms, rectories, parks, civic halls and statehouse steps to celebrate the values of equality and love, and call for an end to discrimination in marriage.

"Freedom to Marry Week will engage the diverse voices who speak out in favor of ending discrimination in marriage," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality and Gay People's Right to Marry. "Now is the time when gay couples, their families, friends and allies to address people's concerns and discomfort, answer questions, and give them the time and information they need to rise to fairness."

Throughout Freedom to Marry Week, Latino/a members of Freedom to Marry's Voices of Equality will be speaking out in support of winning and defending equal marriage rights in coast-to-coast radio interviews as part of a Freedom to Marry Week Spanish Language Radio Tour.

Participants include, Dolores Huerta, co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, and President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, Christine Chavez, Southern California political director for the United Farm Workers of America and the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, Rev. Carlos Aranda, Pastor of Cristo Rey Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Nila Marrone, Professor Emeritus, University of Connecticut, and Director of PFLAG Latino NYC, Carolina Cordero Dyer, Associate Executive Director of The Osborne Association.

"Every child has the right to grow up in a family that is honored by society; to reach their full potential; to love and share their lives with the person they choose," said Dolores Huerta, co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, and a Freedom to Marry Voice of Equality. "This fight for marriage equality is about our families, our lives, and never allowing anyone else the right to tell us who we are and what is best for us."

For more information about events in your area, Contact Samiya Bashir at Samiya@FreedomtoMarry.org, or Pedro Julio Serrano at PedroJulio@FreedomtoMarry.org.

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Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Launched in 2003, Freedom to Marry is headed by Evan Wolfson, nationally recognized as a central "architect of the marriage equality movement." Freedom to Marry guides and focuses this social justice movement on a nationwide level, serving as a strategy and support center for national, state, and local partners, a catalyst that drives and shapes the national debate on marriage equality, and an alliance-builder fostering support from non-gay allies.