President Clinton met with 11 openly-gay elected leaders yesterday at the White House. Attendees included City Council member Dan Baker of Long Beach, CA; Arizona state Rep. Ken Cheuvront; New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick; Massachusetts state Rep. Liz Malia; Connecticut state Rep. Evelyn Mantilla; Mike Nelson, Mayor of Carrboro, NC; San Francisco Board of Education President Juanita Owens; Nevada State Assemblyman David Parks; Minnesota State Senate President Alan Spear; Missouri State Rep. Tim Van Zandt and Atlanta City Council member Cathy Wollard.
Meeting attendees hoped to draw attention to two bills that are currently before Congress — a bill which would ban job discrimination based on sexual orientation and a bill which would broaden the scope of hate crimes protections to include individuals who are targeted because of their sexual orientation.
