Nat. LGBTQ Task Force's Michael Bath Wants You to Party for a Good Cause this Weekend

EDGE: The National LGBT to Task Force describes its mission as "advancing full freedom, justice and equality for LGBTQ people." Can you say a little what that means, and how the Task Force works toward those goals?

Michael Bath: What it means is we are doing everything to make sure that every member of the LGBTQ community is able to live their full lives, and they can take their whole self anywhere that anyone else could go. It's basically having the same rights, the same freedoms, the same privileges [as everyone else does].

One of the biggest ways we do that is we have a national conference called Creating Change that happens every January. It's a convening of activists from all around the country. We're a relatively small organization, so we can't be everywhere, but if we can train people – give them the skills that they need to fundraise, to recruit volunteers, to talk to legislators, to get out the vote – if we can train them to do that in their home communities, then our reach increases exponentially. So that's part of what we do with Creating Change, we help develop and train leaders. It's an exchange of information, an exchange of ideas.

What we're trying to do is go where folks aren't already organizing and bringing people together to train them on how to effect change in their communities. We also have a policy group that is based in Washington, and they work with legislators and legislative assistants to give them intel they might not otherwise have, give them perspectives that will help guide elected officials in making decisions that will support pro-gay, and vote against anti-gay, legislation.