Taylor Swift is making headlines not for a new album this time of year, but for her support of the Equality Act. She wrote a letter to her senator expressing her support and urged her fans to do the same.
What is the Equality Act? It is an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act which passed in the House of Representatives last month. The bill addresses discrimination of LGBTQ+ community members and protects them from being unfairly treated based on their sexual orientation or gender identity when it comes to the housing, public accommodations, and the workplace.
Now that it passed the House of Representatives, it needs to pass the Senate. Swift is all for it, creating a Change.org petition and urging her fans to get Congress to recognize the need in passing the bill.
In a thought-out Instagram post, Swift outlines the reasons it’s so essential for the bill to pass.
“Our country’s lack of protection for its own citizens ensures that LGBTQ people must live in fear that their lives could be turned upside down by an employer or landlord who is homophobic or transphobic. The fact that, legally, some people are completely at the mercy of the hatred and bigotry of others is disgusting and unacceptable.”
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Signing the petition is only a small step toward the change she’s looking to make. She’s urging her supporters to also write to their senators in support of the Equality Act. In her own letter to Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Swift aptly mentions the hindering effect on the economy when these protections aren’t in place for the LGBTQ+ community. She specifically talks about how big tech companies, like Amazon, are turned off by areas with a “Slate of Hate” — anti-LGBTQ+ bills state legislators have proposed. As a result, these communities lose access to thousands of potential jobs that could revitalize the area.
She’s no stranger to supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Earlier this year, Swift donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
