Anne Stanback
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| As a life-long champion of equal rights for women and the gay and lesbian community, Anne Stanback has stood as a bulwark against discrimination and tirelessly fought to right social injustices at every turn. With a clear vision of equality and a penchant for helping the disenfranchised, Anne has challenged the status quo with courage and conviction and a soft Southern style. Born in Salisbury, North Carolina on December 15, 1958 to journalist and teacher Betty Anne and businessman William C. Stanback, Anne Elizabeth and her two brothers enjoyed an upper middle class lifestyle. A natural born leader in academics and on the athletic field, Anne graduated from Salisbury High School with academic honors and community service awards. Anne graduated from Davidson College in 1981 and then attended Yale Divinity School to pursue an education in social justice. The divinity program focused on liberation theology which had a major influence on Anne’s activism. In the early 90’s she co-chaired the original CT Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights and helped lead the charge to pass the CT Gay Rights Statue in 1991. During that same year Anne became the Executive Director of the CT Chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League now known as NARAL Pro-Choice CT. In 1993 Anne become the Executive Director of the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal fund, focusing on child support issues and hate crimes. During this time Anne was a strong advocate for Title IX, speaking out on the inequality between men’s and women’s teams in areas of equipment and funding. In 1999 Anne helped create Love Makes a Family, an organization dedicated to equality for same-sex couples and their families and was chosen as its Founding President in 2000. LMF’s charge was to effect legislation that would allow for non-legal parents in a same sex relationship to legally adopt their own child, guarantee domestic partnership benefits for state employees in same-gender relationships, and secure for same-sex couples the right to marry. On April 23, 2009, Connecticut passed the law that would remove demeaning anti-gay language from CT statutes, provide a means for merging civil unions and marriages by October 2010, and provide for recognition of marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships from other states. Anne Stanback, the public face of LMF, is an organizer’s organizer: hardworking, attentive to details but always within a strategic vision, kind, democratic, trustworthy, exceptionally competent, and gifted in the art of persuasion. On an issue often used to polarize, Anne Stanback built consensus and was, by far, the single most influential person in the Connecticut marriage equality movement. Her dedication and visionary leadership was integral to winning the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. Having accomplished its core mission to win marriage equality in Connecticut, LMF closed its doors in November 2009. | |||||||||
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