Welcome to your first peak at the new Agenda. No longer content with bringing the finest analysis of the latest news in Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors, we’ve expanded the Agenda’s reach to all of Florida, with additional U.S. cities on the horizon. Our goal is to continue to provide you with cutting-edge commentary on LGBT politics in a fast-changing world.

With multiple victories over the past years in court contests dealing with same-sex marriages in America, the LGBT community is quickly losing its second-class status in this country to emerge into the mainstream as the single most coveted demographic in America. With discretionary and disposable income equal to 800 billion dollars, the homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community suddenly finds itself far from its former shunned economic status by mainstream businesses.

What critics and right-wing fanatics formerly called “pink money” is now seen as very coveted wealth. That it has all happened within the past nine months has left some of us breathless and wide-eyed. But not at the Agenda. Here, we are prepared to lead you through the maze of wannabe suitors and political mongers to a better understanding of your own potential in a world which has suddenly discovered that, like us or not, we are a very important and hard-to-reach sub-culture of creative, intellectual and powerful individuals.

Over the outcries of religious bigots and fundamental morality naysayers, we are fast becoming the darlings of mainstream media and businesses. They are tripping over themselves in an effort to reach our untouched consumer dollar. Savor the moment for it has taken several lifetimes in arrive.

Any mainstream advertising that questions the power of the LGBT community to collective flex its political and economic muscle only has to look to United Airlines to see what happens when corporate America courts and then deliberately stomps on this well-heeled minority. After wooing pink dollars in the early 1990s with one of the first advertising campaigns directed toward the gay community, UAL Corp. made millions. For years, it found out just how loyal LGBTs can be.

Then, in one of the most visible anti-gay judgment calls by an American corporation, the United Airlines openly fought with the city of San Francisco over an ordinance mandating benefits for same-sex partners of all employees of city contractors. The very same company that said we were special enough to warrant advertising directed at cajoling us to “Fly the Friendly Skies,” now painted us as non-equal. The LGBT community across America rallied in protest against what it saw as a false profit of industry.

Gays stopped flying United en masse. They sued the airline for discrimination—and won.  And in 1999, at a performance of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, its leader symbolically returned a $15,000 sponsorship check to United, while publically endorsing American Airlines as their carrier of choice. American recognized the opportunity, and formed a special marketing team devoted to gays and lesbians. That year alone, American made $193.5 million in LGBT earnings.

Now, as we enter a new period of LGBT acceptance, we are as close to total equality as we have ever been. Corporate America knows that that $800 billion in discretionary spending can be theirs for the asking. And ask they will through media vehicles such as the Agenda as we begin to take this newspaper nationwide. As gay marketer Charles Zukow, of San Francisco’s Browne Zukow Associates said: “We support those who support us.”

Just as predictable however is the LGBT community’s ability to turn its collective back on those who do not treat us well. We welcome you, mainstream America. We’re the LGBT community, it’s true. But tread lightly. We are strong. We are real. And we never forget.