With 800 guests including Governor Corzine and many in the New Jersey legislature, the 2009 Legends Dinner is the largest civil rights gala in state history
SOMERSET, N.J., Feb. 27 /PRNewswire/ — Stars from Hollywood, Broadway and politics, including Governor
Jon Corzine and many in the New Jersey legislature, will attend Garden State Equality’s 2009 Legends Dinner this Saturday night, February 28th, beginning at 6:30 pm at The Palace at Somerset Park, 333 Davidson Avenue, Somerset.
The legendary actress
Fran Drescher will deliver the Legends Address and Congressman
Steve Rothman will deliver the keynote address. Governor Corzine will present the Loretta Weinberg Prize for Lifetime Achievement to
Jeannine LaRue. Other featured stars include Ugly Betty star
Judith Light, Star Trek star
George Takei with his partner
Brad Altman, Hairspray composer
Mark Shaiman, Queer as Folk star
Michelle Clunie, and New York City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn.
The evening will be emceed by the two-time Emmy Award-winning comic legend
Judy Gold. Broadway legend
Andrea McArdle, the original Annie, will perform throughout the evening.
With 800 guests, the black-tie Legends Dinner will be the largest civil rights gala in state history. Proceeds are going to Garden State Equality’s campaign to win marriage equality in New Jersey.
Honorees include Point Foundation, to which
Judith Light, a member of Point’s board of directors, will present the Visionary Award. Schering-Plough and Prudential will each receive the Corporate Equality Award. Other honorees include Democracy for
America-New Jersey; the Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County; and
Jacqui Charvet, a nationally renowned leader for transgender equality who will receive the Gibbons Prize for Law and Social Change. The award is named after the legendary Gibbons law firm, which has an extraordinary history of fighting for civil rights.
In addition to delivering the keynote, Congressman Rothman will enter the Equality Hall of Fame. Also entering the Equality Hall of Fame will be New York City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn. The Lt. Laurel Hester Prize for Citizen Courage will go to the Robbinsville Gay-Straight Alliance for fighting the anti-LGBT bigotry of a school board member, eventually getting him to resign.
The Legends Dinner began in 2007 and had 350 guests. The 2008 Legends Dinner had 500 guests. With 800 guests, this years’ Legends Dinner is 60 percent larger than last year’s.
“In this economy, we’re astounded that this year’s Legends Dinner will be massively larger than any we’ve held before,” said
Steven Goldstein, chair and founder of Garden State Equality. “Nothing better symbolizes the booming power of New Jersey’s LGBT community and our straight allies – and our hunger to win marriage equality in 2009.”
Tickets to the 2009 Legends Dinner range from $250 to $1000.
The chairs of the dinner are the Reverend
John Graf, Jr.,
David M. Smith and
Luanne Peterpaul. The corporate sponsors of the 2009 Legends Dinner include Chubb; Entrust Northeast; Flaster Greenberg; Genova, Burns & Vernoia; Gibbons; Green Hill;
Hilton Short Hills; McCarter & English; Prudential; RSVP Cruises; Schering-Plough.
Since Garden State Equality’s founding in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 204 laws at the state, county and local levels advancing the civil rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. That represents more LGBT civil rights laws enacted in less time than in any other U.S. state, ever.
Garden State Equality has won wide recognition for its pathbreaking activism, including many awards and a recent profile of the organization as a national model for social change in the Harvard Law and Policy Review.
In 2008, the film about Garden State Equality’s campaign to win benefits for the late Lt.
Laurel Hester and her partner, “Freeheld,” won the Oscar(R) for Best Documentary – the first time in American history that an LGBT advocacy organization has been showcased in an Academy Award(R)-winning film.
SOURCE Garden State Equality
