Dear Carmen,

It’s been an exciting couple months. We’ve won marriage equality in New York, secured new protections for transgender people in Connecticut, and watched as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” crumbled into history.

Americans’ support for LGBT equality issues is at an all-time high, but there’s still a long way to go in fighting discrimination and educating the public at large.

Carmen, we are at a crossroads and we need to drive as far and as fast as we can toward fairness.

So, we’re hitting the road – and we wanted you to be one of the first to know. Ten days from now we’re launching “On the Road to Equality,” our 12-week, 15-city, nationwide bus tour to spread the message and promote equality. We’ll be working with local communities to educate the American public and empower LGBT people to become advocates for fairness all over the country.

Join us on this exciting journey. Come meet us at a stop near you or download one of our four fun “road signs for equality” to display your support everywhere you go:

This tour will bring us to the reddest of red states where legal protections for LGBT Americans are severely limited and living openly can be incredibly difficult. We’re starting it off in Salt Lake City – where less than a year ago one of the Mormon Church‘s top leaders called same-sex attraction “impure and unnatural” in the days following a rash of teenage suicides.

We’ll be traveling then to Omaha and Little Rock and Birmingham and beyond – carrying our message to states with few, if any, legal protections against discrimination. We’ll be holding workshops and forums to help local LGBT communities empower themselves even in some of the nation’s most conservative areas. Achieving equality isn’t just for LGBT people in cities or on the coasts. It’s got to be everywhere.

Even if you don’t live near a tour stop, you can still join this ride for equality by downloading and displaying these pro-equality signs in the window of your car or home.

Our bus tour launches in just 10 days and we want to see your support on display as we travel the country. You can also follow all of the action at www.hrc.org/roadtoequality. If you do join us along the way, you’ll get to visit our one-of-a-kind traveling exhibit and share your own story and experiences with our very nifty video sharing tool.

We’re excited to have you on board.

Bags packed,

Joe Solmonese
President

P.S. You can also text ONTHEROAD to 30644 to join HRC’s ever-growing Mobile Action Network. You’ll get our updates from the road and beyond.