Over 145 LGBT Groups Join Forces Pushing for All-Inclusive Gay Rights Bill

Tired of having to wait years for bills to give partial rights to the LGBT community, a group of activists and organizations are launching a campaign to get Congress to draft and pass an all-inclusive bill.

Over 145 LGBT and LGBT-supportive organizations from 36 states have joined the Pledge for Full LGBT Equality campaign. The groups are calling upon the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus to file a national bill for full equality - something that would encompass, marriage, workplace protections, education, everything.

"To change course, it's important that our existing strategy of filing multiple single-issue bills not be treated as a sacrosanct pragmatic legislative strategy, because it has not worked," gay rights activist Todd Fernandez, who is working to advance the cause, wrote in a piece for The Huffington Post.

Some of the groups that have joined the effort include nationwide PFLAG groups, Equality Pennsylvania, Equality Nevada, Equality Nebraska, Equality Hawaii, Equality Illinois, and Equality Maryland. LGBT Pride committees supporting the cause include one from Jacksonville, Florida.

Progressive religious organizations are also showing their support. These include: United Church of Christ, with over 5,100 congregations, and the Unitarian Universalists Association, with over 1,100 members, among others. Some prominent figures include Richard Noble, who has walked on foot across America garnering 11 city council proclamations for such a bill.

Fernandez writes the idea is to get get 250 groups from all 50 states to take the pledge by the end of Pride Month. And they hope for passage by 2014, the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

"We need to get to the root cause faster, because mothers rejecting their own children is barbaric, and children taking their own lives must end," he wrote.