Our Issues

• Marriage equality
• Youth and school bullying
• Adoption and foster care
• African-American community
• Bisexual community
• Civil unions
• Discrimination in New Jersey
• Faith, clergy and congregations

Above are links to Garden State Equality issue briefs on every public policy issue we work on. At times, marriage equality may appear to be our most salient issue because New Jersey is already a national leader on all other LGBT civil rights. But Garden State Equality has never been about one issue.

In fact, Garden State Equality’s work now goes beyond equality for the LGBT community. As the architect of New Jersey’s anti-bullying law – ranked as the nation’s strongest anti-bullying law by a U.S. Department of Education study and called “the nation’s toughest law against bullying and harassment in schools” by The New York Times – Garden State Equality insisted that the law protect all bullied students, not just LGBT students. To be sure, the law enumerates protection based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. But the law also protects students bullied for any other reason.

Underscoring Garden State Equality’s commitment to the universal safety and dignity of students, our Anti-Bullying Hotline handles the cases of all bullied students, not just students bullied because they are LGBT or perceived to be LGBT. To contact our Anti-Bullying Hotline, call 1 (877) NJBULLY. You may callwhether you are a bullied student, or the parent or concerned friend of a bullied student.