"Today, Arkansans put us another step closer to sending the next pro-equality champion to the White House," said HRC Arkansas State Director Kendra R. Johnson. "Hillary Clinton's victory today is a victory for us all. Unlike GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who has campaigned on hate and intolerance by threatening to overturn and undo every gain we've made under President Obama, Hillary Clinton’s clear, pro-equality agenda will create a better future for LGBT people across the state and across the nation. We are proud to stand with our members and supporters throughout Arkansas to fight alongside Hillary Clinton, and to ensure that she is the pro-equality champion sworn in as our next President in January.”

Secretary Clinton has made LGBT equality a pillar of her campaign and recently unveiled the most robust and ambitious LGBT plan any candidate for president has ever laid out. She has vowed to fight for the Equality Act -- a bill that would finally offer explicit, clear, and permanent non-discrimination protections for LGBT people at the federal level -- and her detailed LGBT policy platform specifically calls for dropping the ban on open transgender military service, outlawing dangerous “conversion therapy” for minors, ending the epidemic of transgender violence, and supporting HIV prevention and affordable treatment, among other proposals that would advance equality and support the LGBT community.

Meanwhile, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has doubled down on overturning nationwide marriage equality in recent weeks, telling Christian Broadcasting News that voters can ‘trust him to reverse nationwide marriage equality. In fact, he recently told Fox News Sunday that, if elected he would appoint justices who would reverse the landmark Supreme Court decision that led to marriage equality nationwide. Prior to that, Trump endorsed the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act,” a bill that risks Kim Davis-style discrimination against LGBT people nationwide.  For example, under the Trump-supported FADA proposal, an employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs could refuse to process a claim for survivor benefits for the same-sex spouse of a servicemember.

HRC has endorsed Hillary Clinton, and its members and supporters have made thousands of GOTV calls in Arkansas and other Super Tuesday states in the last week. Prior to that, HRC opened offices and sent staff to South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa to organize members and supporters on behalf of Hillary Clinton. HRC Arkansas is part of an unprecedented organizational effort to register and mobilize the nation’s pro-equality majority, and elect pro-LGBT candidates up and down the ballot.

This year, the pro-equality vote is expected to be larger, stronger, and more energized than at any point in history. Exit polls show that in 2012 at least six million LGB Americans voted in an election decided by less than five million votes. Today, in key states like Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, the population of LGBT adults is greater than the average margin of victory in the last three presidential elections.

In 2014, HRC launched Project One America, an initiative geared towards advancing social, institutional and legal equality in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. HRC Arkansas continues to work to advance equality for LGBT Arkansans who have no state level protections in housing, workplace, or public accommodations. Through HRC Arkansas, we are working toward a future of fairness every day—changing hearts, minds and laws toward achieving full equality.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. HRC envisions a world where LGBT people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

Paid for by Human Rights Campaign PAC and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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