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While much attention has been focused on the Supreme Court’s consideration of California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense Against Marriage Act, the struggle for LGBT rights extends beyond the right to marry. Currently, twenty-nine states do not prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and thirty-four states do not protect transgender workers.

The protections are sorely needed, as members of the LGBT community, particularly LGBT people of color, face alarmingly high rates of employment discrimination. Studies show that up to 42 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and an astonishing 90 percent of transgender people, have experienced employment discrimination on the job or felt the need to hide their identity to avoid it.

TO DO

Introduced but never passed in nearly every Congress since 1994, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would prohibit discrimination in hiring, compensation, promotion or firing on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Contact your representative and tell them it’s time to pass this much-needed law.

TO READ

In a recent piece in The Washington Post, Jamelle Bouie argues that politicians touting their support for marriage equality need to do far more, including pass ENDA, if they want to fully champion LGBT rights.

TO WATCH

In June of 2012, Kylar Broadus, the founder of the Trans People of Color Coalition and the first openly transgender witness to testify before Congress, spoke about the need to pass ENDA and to ensure it was inclusive of transgender people. In his testimony, he details his own experience with employment discrimination, including the loss of his job and his development of post-traumatic stress disorder due to harassment.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, a war, which Jonathan Schell recently wrote, that created a dangerous precedent, a “change from diplomacy and agreements to force as the means for achieving nonproliferation.” This is, of course, beyond the massive loss of Iraqi and American lives.

The United States’s current bellicosity toward Iran reflects this dangerous change and threatens to repeat the previous deceptions of the rush to war on Iraq, as we’re told about fictitious Iranian weapons of mass destruction—stories just like the ones that led us into Iraq. Most recently, Senators Lindsay Graham and Robert Menendez introduced Senate Resolution 65, which lays the groundwork for the US to offer military aid to Israel in the event of a pre-emptive strike on Iran.

TO DO

Ten years after the United States’ invasion of Iraq, it is imperative that we learn the lessons of the war that lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and 4,483 US soldiers. On the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, join Schell and The Nation in imploring President Obama and Congress to avoid what would be the catastrophic mistake of a war with Iran. Then lend your support to Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War and United for Peace and Justice, organizations that have proven to be vital in shedding light on the horrific cost and futility of the war.

TO READ

The Nation’s Open Letter to Congress, published in the fall of 2002 amid the rush to war in Iraq, was sadly prescient in anticipating the lethal precedents of the Iraq invasion.

TO WATCH

In today’s episode of Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses the legacy of the invasion for the people living in Iraq today.

In early March, student workers from Asia and Latin America launched a surprise strike against their employer, a McDonald’s in central Pennsylvania. The students, who paid between $3,000 to $5,000 to come to the United States as part of the J-1 cultural exchange visa program, alleged that they were assigned shifts of up to twenty-five consecutive hours, were paid less than the minimum wage, lived in substandard employer-owned housing and faced retaliation when they raised objections. Hours after the students began their work stoppage, they found themselves locked out of the employer-owned basement where they lived.

TO DO

The student strikers are demanding a meaningful meeting with appropriate McDonald’s executives. Join The Nation’s call imploring McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson to meet directly with the students. Then head to the National Guestworker Alliance and join the students’ campaign.

TO READ

In this latest in his series of reports on the McDonald guest-worker campaign, Josh Eidelson details the workers demands and expectations.

TO WATCH

McDonalds workers mic check at Times Square New York City Franchise on March 14.

On March 7, 2013—the day before International Women’s Day—President Obama signed into law the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), this time with added protections for the LGBT community and immigrant and Native American women. However, budget cuts implemented as part of Congress’s sequestration deal threaten to underfund the program. If the cuts go forward as planned, programs funded by VAWA could lose more than $20 million, potentially leaving 35,927 victims without access to much-needed services.

TO DO

Reports indicate that President Obama and Congress may be working out a deal to end the sequester. This International Women’s Day, tell your representatives that domestic violence victims cannot be used as bargaining chips. Demand that any deal to avert the sequester restores full funding to VAWA programs.

TO READ

This history of IWD in words and images shows the struggles that went into establishing the holiday and how the day has helped galvanize support for a long-term feminist agenda.

TO WATCH

This video captures the journey of women’s rights from 1911 to the present, and key moments of the women’s movements globally.