Florida Agenda » U.S. Senator Bill Nelson http://floridaagenda.com Florida Agenda Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender News and Entertainment Resource Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:16:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 SAVE Dade Honors “Champions of Equality” http://floridaagenda.com/2012/05/25/save-dade-honors-%e2%80%9cchampions-of-equality%e2%80%9d/ http://floridaagenda.com/2012/05/25/save-dade-honors-%e2%80%9cchampions-of-equality%e2%80%9d/#comments Fri, 25 May 2012 10:54:24 +0000 FAdmin http://floridaagenda.com/?p=14451 MIAMI – On May 11, the LMNT gallery hosted the SAVE Dade Champions of Equality Awards Reception and Silent Auction, to honor individuals who have “significantly advanced the cause of equality for the LGBT community in Miami-Dade County.” Among this year’s honorees were U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, and the Miami office of the law firm of White and Case.

Nelson’s support in the Senate was crucial to dismantling the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell military ban, which prohibited gay Americans from serving openly in the armed forces. White and Case, a New York-based for-profit law firm, represented— pro-bono—the rights of existing and future gay service members by arguing for their client, the Log Cabin Republicans, that the federal government needed to prove the “important government interest at stake to intrude on the personal and private lives of homosexuals.”

Also honored were six popular Miami-Dade County activists, who were inducted into SAVE Dade’s Hall of Fame. They included Dennis Edwards, Mark Steinberg, Elizabeth Schwartz, Joan Schaeffer, Eric Hankin, and Richard Milstein. More than 600 guests were in attendance, including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Weston), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami), Miami- Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, and other lawmakers and officials.

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