Arizona’s political home for LGBTQ+ people and our allies — since 1992.
Overview
Equality Arizona is the state’s oldest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. For more than three decades, we have advocated at city halls, at the Arizona Legislature, and in Congress; educated Arizonans about their LGBTQ+ neighbors; and helped voters of every party elect leaders committed to equality and pluralism.
We believe equality is a majority value in Arizona. Our neighbors don’t have to live like one another to value one another’s contributions and treat one another with dignity and respect. Our work is to make that shared value the law and lived reality of our state.
Equality Arizona is one movement made up of three legal entities. Together, they let us do everything from classroom education to candidate endorsements — with each activity housed where the law puts it.
We operate under the collective name Equality Arizona as the advocacy and political representative of LGBTQ+ Arizona. Throughout this site, you’ll see content attributed to the entity responsible for it.
Equality Arizona Foundation
501(c)(3) nonprofit
Educates. The Foundation produces nonpartisan voter education, community programming, research, and resources like our newsletter and podcasts. Donations are tax-deductible.
Equality Arizona
501(c)(4) nonprofit
Advocates. Equality Arizona lobbies for pro-equality legislation at the local, state, and federal levels and takes positions on ballot measures. Donations are not tax-deductible.
Equality Arizona PAC
Political action committee
Elects. The PAC endorses and supports pro-equality candidates for office in Arizona. Contributions are subject to campaign finance law.
Our Mission
Equality Arizona builds the political and cultural power of LGBTQ+ Arizonans — advocating for pro-equality policy at every level of government, electing candidates committed to equality, and teaching Arizonans why policy and elections matter for equal rights — all grounded in research.
Our Vision
We envision an Arizona and United States where everyone — including LGBTQ+ people — is equally protected under the law, with equal opportunity to live, thrive, and be treated with the dignity all human beings deserve; and where neighbors who live differently from one another still treat each other with respect, because that is how a free and pluralist society works.
Our Values
Equality Arizona’s values guide our work — both what we do and how we do it. Our goal in stating these values is to cultivate integrity and accountability for our work and how we do that work.
Justice
Human beings are capable of and responsible for creating a fair society for all people.
authenticity
Every person is free to live and fully be themselves. In return, we respect how
others live — even people whose lives, beliefs, and choices are very different from our own. Freedom and respect are two halves of the same bargain.
pluralism
A free society is full of people who live, believe, and vote differently from one another. Learning to live alongside real difference doesn’t weaken us — it makes us more tolerant, more respectful, and more capable of the shared work of democracy.
Generosity of Spirit
Assume good intent and treat others and ourselves with respect and dignity. If we are to create real and enduring community, we must cultivate a culture of radical hospitality — not a culture of judgment, of in-groups and out-groups, of right vs. wrong.
Service to Others
Our community is bound together by a commitment to one another through service. We lift each other up and work to help those in need.
knowledge & understanding
Change begins with knowledge. We work to educate Arizonans about the LGBTQ+ community and our needs — to help them come to know and better understand their LGBTQ+ neighbors.
Courage
We live as LGBTQ+ people, even when we are rejected, discriminated against, and even criminalized because of who we are. We believe that all people have a right to live asfull human beings. This is courage in action, every day.
We believe government exists to treat everyone equally: to guarantee every Arizonan and every American — including LGBTQ+ people — equal treatment, equal opportunity, and equal protection under the law. And we believe the work of respect belongs to us: it is the responsibility of individuals and communities, not government, to decide how we treat neighbors who live differently than we do. We choose respect. A society that learns to live with real difference becomes more tolerant, more decent, and more capable of self-government.
Our team
Equality Arizona’s work is carried out by our staff, governed by a Board of Directors, and guided by a Community Advisory Board — a team drawn from every corner of Arizona’s LGBTQ+ community and its allies: organizers, scholars, filmmakers, parents, people of faith, and community builders.
Staff
Board of Directors
Community Advisory Board
Lend your voice to the work
The Community Advisory Board keeps Equality Arizona grounded in the lived experience of LGBTQ+ Arizonans and our allies. Advisors bring perspective from their communities, professions, and regions of the state — helping shape our priorities, programs, and public voice.
We’re always looking for advisors who reflect the full diversity of Arizona: rural and urban, every faith and no faith, every party and no party, every generation.
Our History
1992
Founded in crisis, built on courage
Equality Arizona was founded at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to fight for the rights of people living with AIDS and for the decriminalization of LGBTQ+ lives. Our founders were lovingly called “the Bills” — because all six of these men were named Bill. Every LGBTQ+ Arizonan who came after them owes a debt of gratitude to these brave men, who stood up as out gay men and openly advocated for legal protections at a time when being out was not what it is today.
Late 1990s–2000s
Repealing unjust laws
We fought for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the archaic laws that criminalized LGBTQ+ relationships, challenged efforts to define marriage as “one man and one woman,” and campaigned to win marriage equality for the entire community.
2000s–2010s
Building the case for equality
We worked for marriage equality in Arizona and nationally, secured adoption and foster care rights for LGBTQ+ families, and won nondiscrimination protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations — winning ordinances city after city and laying the groundwork for statewide protections alongside a coalition of statewide LGBTQ+ organizations.
Late 2010s–2020s
Winning at scale
With our coalition partners, we won nondiscrimination ordinances in 11 Arizona cities, covering more than half the state’s population, and secured the first-ever legislative hearing on a statewide nondiscrimination bill. We co-founded a national coalition with ONE Community supporting LGBTQ+ civil rights work in red states — and through that coalition played a crucial role supporting Arizona’s senior U.S. Senator in the effort that codified the first federal LGBTQ+ civil rights law, the Respect for Marriage Act.
Today
A political home for LGBTQ+ Arizona