Cynthia Love is an American human rights advocate, executive, author, public speaker,entrepreneur and businessperson. She is former executive of publicly traded TORO, academic administrator, and retired ordained minister who started eight companies, several non profits and served for four years as the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Community Church and three years as ED of Soulforce
During her tenure as MCC's chief operating officer and business manager, Love played a role in the advocacy for human rights around the world. She developed the Woukd Jesus Discriminate Campaign in partnership with then Jesus MCC in Indianapolis and its pastor, Rev Jeff Miner and Mitchell Gold’s Faith in America team. She has also served on the Faith and Religion Council for the Human Rights Campaign. [1] She was awarded[ when? ] the Bohnett Fellowship and attended an executive education program for local and state officials at Harvard's Kennedy School.
A native of Abilene, Texas, [2] Love holds a Master of Arts from Louisiana Tech, and a doctorate in educational administration from Texas Tech University. [2] She applied her educational training to using technology in the classroom and to forming community-school partnerships; her efforts were recognized by the Texas legislature and by Governor Ann Richards. [2] She was later named the Executive Dean of Brookhaven College in Dallas, Texas. [3]
Love also spent many years in the business sector, founding such companies as Ecommune, [4] a business intended for advising Fortune 500 companies and technology ventures in Israel, School Vision of Texas, INC 500 member C.H. Love & Co., [4] which was later bought by New Mexico Information Systems, and ICSS, Inc., which was acquired by The Toro Company, for which she guided a project that created a worldwide Intranet network, [5] and served as both director of customer service systems and manager of global customer information systems. [4] [6]
From Toro, Love moved to other projects, including being the CEO of Friendly Robotics. [7] [8] Her experience with technology was also called upon by NASA and by the Texas legislature. [2] For her business work, she was named one of the "Top 50 Entrepreneurs" in North America by Inc. Magazine, MIT and YEO in 1990. [2] She has served on numerous not-for-profit boards and committees for educational, business, and LGBT interests. [2]
Love has been the CEO and founder of a number of other corporations, including School Vision of Texas, Network in a Box, Apple Education Assistance Network, New Mexico Information Systems, and Integration Control Systems & Services. [2] [9]
Love grew up in the Church of Christ, was active in citywide ministry programs from a young age, married a minister from the church, but transferred to a Southern Baptist church after her divorce. [2] She was also active in local advocacy groups on issues regarding rehabilitation and disability services, workplace discrimination and HIV/AIDS issues; for instance, she was a long-time director of one of the West Texas Rehabilitation Center's advocacy programs, and she and her spouse later founded the Abilene Community Advocacy Program. [4] She later founded FAMLO, a non-profit organization addressing health issues around drug addiction and HIV/AIDS. [10] and most recently they founded Uncommon Tribe, a non-profit located in Abilene, Texas.
After leaving Toro and while working at Brookhaven, Love began serving on the MCC Board of Administrators; during this time, she completed her credentials for ordination in the denomination and took an interim post at MCC of Greater Dallas. [2] Between January 2005 and May 2009, Love served as the Executive Director for the MCC denomination. [1] Love was appointed executive director of the liberally-oriented (although still based on the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds [11] ) Metropolitan Community Church in January 2005.
Love is also the author of Would Jesus Discriminate? The 21st Century Question. [1] This book is part of a broader campaign to prompt churches to consider the ways that religious attitudes against homosexuality may contribute to wider discrimination against gays and lesbians. [12] Although the campaign began in 2006, it continues to influence the discussion. News articles from 2009 show that churches are still hosting "town halls" on the issue in places like Anchorage, Alaska, [13] and that people are still using the slogan at marriage-equality rallies in Bloomington, Indiana [14] and in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. [15]
Love has two children from her first marriage. [2] In 2005 she married Sue Jennings in Canada after the country introduced legislation permitting same-sex marriages. [16] They later announced plans to marry under Californian law at a ceremony to be conducted in Los Angeles on June 24, 2008. [17]
The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), is an international LGBT-affirming mainline Protestant Christian denomination. There are 222 member congregations in 37 countries, and the fellowship has a specific outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender families and communities.
PFLAG is the United States' largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people and those who love them. PFLAG National is the national organization, which provides support to the PFLAG network of local chapters. PFLAG has nearly 400 chapters across the United States, with more than 350,000 members and supporters.
Troy Deroy Perry Jr is an American cleric and the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, with a ministry with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, in Los Angeles on October 6, 1968.
Nancy L. Wilson is an American cleric who served as the moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. Under Wilson's leadership, the denomination became known as "The Human Rights Church" in many parts of the world for its commitment to same-sex marriage, employment and housing non-discrimination laws.
In the United States, public opinion and jurisprudence on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights have developed significantly since the late 1980s.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Kenya face significant challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Sodomy is a felony per Section 162 of the Kenyan Penal Code, punishable by 21 years' imprisonment, and any sexual practices are a felony under section 165 of the same statute, punishable by 5 years' imprisonment. On 24 May 2019, the High Court of Kenya refused an order to declare sections 162 and 165 unconstitutional. The state does not recognise any relationships between persons of the same sex; same-sex marriage is banned under the Kenyan Constitution since 2010. There are no explicit protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Adoption is restricted to heterosexual couples only.
Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) is a community activist organisation founded in 1999. It is based in Sydney, Australia and aimed to eliminate homophobia and promote equality for queer people.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) in the Philippines face legal challenges not faced by non-LGBT people, with numerous anti-discrimination legislations, bills and laws that are struggling to be passed on a national level to protect LGBT rights nationwide, with some parts of the country only existing on a local government level. LGBT individuals in the Philippines are often faced with disadvantages and difficulties in acquiring equal rights within the country. They also have a higher rate of suicide and suicide ideation compared to their heterosexual counterparts.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in the Philippines have a distinctive culture in society, and also have limited legal rights. Gays and lesbians are more tolerated than accepted in Filipino society. Despite recent events that have promoted the rights, general acceptance, and empowerment of the Filipino LGBT community, discrimination remains. Homosexuals in the Philippines are known as "bakla", though there are other terms to describe them. According to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey, 11 percent of sexually active Filipinos between the ages of 15 and 24 have had sex with someone of the same sex. According to Filipino poet and critic Lilia Quindoza Santiago, Filipino culture may have a more flexible concept of gender. Kasarian is defined in less binary terms than the English word; kasarian means "kind, species, or genus".
Save Our Children, Inc. was an American political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation. The coalition was publicly headed by celebrity singer Anita Bryant, who claimed the ordinance discriminated against her right to teach her children biblical morality because the ordinance specifically required parochial Christian schools, like the one her children attended, to hire openly homosexual teachers. It was a well-organized campaign that initiated a bitter political fight between gay activists and Christian fundamentalists. When the repeal of the ordinance went to a vote, it attracted the largest response of any special election in Dade County's history, passing by a more than 2-to-1 margin. In response to this vote, a group of gay and lesbian community members formed Pride South Florida, now known as Pride Fort Lauderdale, an organization whose mission was to fight for the rights of the gay and lesbian community in South Florida.
Many views are held or have been expressed by religious organisation in relation to same-sex marriage. Arguments both in favor of and in opposition to same-sex marriage are often made on religious grounds and/or formulated in terms of religious doctrine. Although many of the world's religions are opposed to same-sex marriage, the number of religious denominations that are conducting same-sex marriages have been increasing since 2010. Religious views on same-sex marriage are closely related to religious views on homosexuality.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the U.S. state of Michigan enjoy the same rights as non-LGBT people. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Michigan under the US Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, although the state legislature has not repealed its sodomy law. Same-sex marriage is legal. Discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity is unlawful since July 2022, was re-affirmed by the Michigan Supreme Court - under and by a 1976 statewide law, that explicitly bans discrimination "on the basis of sex". The Michigan Civil Rights Commission have also ensured that members of the LGBT community are not discriminated against and are protected in the eyes of the law since 2018 and also legally upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court in 2022. In March 2023, a bill passed the Michigan Legislature by a majority vote - to formally codify both "sexual orientation and gender identity" anti-discrimination protections embedded within Michigan legislation. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill on March 16, 2023.
Minerva Garza Carcaño is the first Hispanic woman to be elected to the episcopacy of The United Methodist Church (UMC), the second-largest Protestant denomination in the United States. She was elected in 2004. Her first assignment was as Bishop of the Phoenix Episcopal Area of Desert Southwest Conference of the UMC. She was then appointed as Bishop of the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the UMC in 2012, and currently serves as Bishop of the California-Nevada Annual Conference of the UMC. She also serves as the leader of the United Methodist Church's Immigration Task Force.
Queer Liberaction (QL) is a Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas-based grassroots organization advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The group was founded in November 2008 following the international attention surrounding California's Proposition 8, which changed that state's Constitution to deny marriage rights to any LGBT couples who are not defined as "a man and a woman", passed by a slight majority. The organization is a proponent of same-sex marriage rights for LGBT couples, considering civil unions and domestic partnerships as less than full equality.
In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights have evolved substantially in recent years. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 1985. The region also provides explicit legal protections against discrimination for LGBT residents since December 2022. Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which found the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples unconstitutional, same-sex marriage became legal in the islands.
Throughout Dallas–Fort Worth, there is a large lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Since 2005, DFW has constituted one of the largest LGBT communities in Texas.
Anne Stanback is an American activist for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage.
Marge Ragona is a religious leader and LGBT rights activist.
Cecilia Eggleston is a Reverend and elder within the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). She was the first woman and first lay person to be elected as District Coordinator in the European District of MCC. She is currently the CEO and Chief of Staff of MCC worldwide.
The topic for discussion is "Would Jesus Discriminate?"
Rev. Evan McMahon was on hand at Thursday's rally, holding a sign that asked, "Would Jesus Discriminate?"
People shouted, "End discrimination now." A little girl held a sign, "My 2 Mommies Deserve Equal Rights."' A man held a sign, "Would Jesus Discriminate?"