Aqua Ally Awards

Get your tickets now for Aqua Ally Awards! On Friday, February 10th from 6-9 PM we will be celebrating those who stand with us in the fight for equality. Our honorees this year are Patricia Ireland, former President of NOW, and Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida.

Don’t miss coming out to the beautiful 15th floor of the Bacardi building at 2701 Le Jeune Road in Coral Gables for this spectacular event!

Parking is free at this event.

We are honoring Patricia Ireland, former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), who cut her teeth as an activist when she was a flight attendant and discovered that her husband wasn’t covered under her insurance but male employees spouses were. Her local NOW chapter advised her to go to court, where she won, and she then began pursuing a career in law, graduating with her J.D. from University of Miami. She continued her involvement with NOW as chair of the lesbian rights task force and went on to become President, where she spearheaded the clinic escort program and made lesbian rights one of NOW’s top priorities. During her tenure she also was deeply involved in organizing and speaking at the 1993 march on Washington for LGBT rights. Ireland now has an active law practice in Miami and focuses on labor and civil rights issues.

We are also celebrating Howard Simon, who has been a tireless defender of Civil Rights as Executive Director of the ACLU in Florida, where his office led the charge on overturning the anti-gay adoption legislation in Florida. Simon not only fought this legislation in the courts but through public education campaigns that changed the hearts and minds of the people. His dedication to our community extends back much farther than that though; in 2005 he created the ACLU of Florida LGBT Advocacy project, which has largely served as the legal arm of the LGBT movement in Florida. Since its inception, staff attorneys for the ACLU’s Project have won cases challenging official resistance to the establishment of Gay – Straight Alliances by public school officials as well as discrimination and harassment of LGBT students in public schools throughout Florida, including Nassau County north of Jacksonville, Okeechobee County and Holmes County in Florida’s Panhandle. Under Simon’s leadership, the Florida ACLU continues to be a champion of LGBT equality.



Posted January 20, 2012

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