HRC Sets Its Sights on the Deep South

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's most prominent LGBT rights organization, is launching an $8.5 million intiative to enhance its presence in states that offer no protections for its LGBT citizens.

Called Project One America, the initiative will establish offices in the Deep South states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas (coincidentally or not, HRC president Chad Griffin hails from Arkansas). The impetus is to address the serious inequalities in the South, where there is not only a lack of marriage equality, but also no basic protections in housing and employment for LGBTs.

"Right now, this country is deeply divided into two Americas, one where LGBT equality is nearly a reality and the other where LGBT people lack the most fundamental measures of equal citizenship," Griffin said in a statement reported by USA Today. "Project One America is an unparalleled effort to close that gap, and it opens up a bold, new chapter in the civil-rights movement of this generation. In this grand struggle for equality, we can't write off anyone, anywhere."