Montana Human Rights Network

The Network organizes to expand the base of support for human rights values across the state and promotes policies that recognize, respect, and fulfill every Montanan's human rights. This includes looking at the commonalities and intersections of our communities and the issues that affect our lives. There is overlap between our program areas because the reality is that these issues and the communities affected intersect and overlap. We know that we are stronger as a progressive movement when we understand that our lives and our identities don't exist in isolation of each other. We know that our members aren't just one thing at a time. Instead, all of us bring multiple identities and interests with us as we participate in our communities and in the democratic process. All of the Network's program areas are connected and aim to recognize the intersections and overlap of all of our experiences and communities.

The Network's Equality Project seeks to secure legal protections for LGBT Montanans and their families. Over the past 20 years, we have worked at the state level to add sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression to the Montana Human Rights Act and Montana's Bias-Based Crimes statute, as well as pass policy for same-sex relationship recognition. Our goal continues to be state-level change, but for the last three years, the Network's strategy has been to run local campaigns to pass city-level non-discrimination ordinances. These ordinances protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations. Two ordinances have been passed in Missoula and Helena. We are working with membership and allies in communities around Montana on future campaigns to protect lesbian, gay, bi and transgender Montanans.

The Network was lead on the lobbying effort to pass Senate Bill 107 (Sponsored by Missoula Senator Tom Facey) during the 2013 Legislative Session, a bill to remove out-dated, hurtful and unconstitutional language from Montana code labeling gays and lesbians felons under the law. The passage marked the culmination of an almost 20 year effort by many organizations, activists and legislators -- a project the Network has been a part of since our founding in the early 1990s.

We will continue our public education, community organizing, and lobbying work at the state and local level for policies that relate to LGBT equality, including nondiscrimination protections, fairness for same-sex couples, education policies and more. Your donations help us in this work!