Op-ed Submission by Chad Griffin

The South made me who I am. To me, growing up here will always be high school and Christmas, church and Thanksgiving, it’s the place where my journey began and it’s the place where I can always come and feel like I never left. It’s my home.

I'm especially proud to be launching the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Project One America in Montgomery and Birmingham on Wednesday. With 20 full-time staff and dedicated offices, Project One America is an unprecedented, $8.5 million effort to advance equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. It will be the largest-ever coordinated campaign for equality in the history of the South. We've got to do more than we've ever done before, because no one in this state should have to wait a single day more for equality to reach them.

Too long, the opponents of equality across the South have controlled the conversation. They’ve made the case that there’s simply nothing Southern about being gay. They’ve said that we want to destroy the family and attack faith. That we want to redefine marriage. That we want “special” rights and freedoms. And, despite the tireless work of local advocates who have spent decades here in Alabama and across the South working to change hearts and minds, they’ve largely succeeded.

The result is the creation of two distinctly different Americas. In one America, mostly on the coasts, with a few hopeful spots in the middle, full legal equality is darn near a reality. But in the other America, like right here in Alabama, even the most basic protections of the law are nonexistent. No nondiscrimination protections. No reliable access to affordable HIV care. No right to jointly adopt a child. And certainly no marriage equality.

This continued inequality is not just wrong, it doesn’t do Alabama justice. It doesn’t do the South justice. Today, too many around this country write off the South as the “finish line” for equality. I reject that characterization. It’s time that LGBT people in this state accessed the only freedom we’ve ever wanted—the freedom to say that the South is our home, too.

Project One America is not just for the South, it’s of the South and by the South. This region is home to one third of the HRC’s total membership—500,000 people. And we’re proud to be working alongside grassroots organizations that have been working on the ground for years. Especially in the South, all movements for justice are deeply connected, regardless of race, creed, age, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. HRC is well aware that we are not the first to do this work, but we’re hopeful that, together, we can all be the ones who finish this work.

From classrooms to church pews, from workplaces to hospitals, from city halls to state capitals, we’ll be sharing our lives, our hopes and our struggles with our neighbors and policy makers. The work won’t just be about changing minds, it’ll also be about changing laws and building more inclusive institutions for LGBT people.

Together we can bring about positive change. And if we can do that, right here in our own front yard, we will have sent the most important message anyone can send. A message that will reach every single LGBT person in the South and across the nation and the next generation still to come: welcome home.

Chad Griffin, a native of Arkansas, is president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest civil rights organization dedicated to LGBT equality. HRC is launching HRC Alabama in Montgomery and Birmingham on Wednesday.