a) Join our Facebook group and send invitations to all your friends.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to our mailing list and send an email to your friends asking them to do the same.

b) Copy-and-paste this email and send it to all your friends and ask them to forward it to all their friends.

c) Talk about the upcoming events with your friends and family:

Human Rights Day (Dec. 10)

Food Drive for Equality (ongoing)

Light Up The Night - Candlelight vigil on Main Street on Dec. 20 at 5:00 p.m.

1. If you have not already done so, sign Equality Utah's Common Ground Initiative petition - http://EqualityUtah.org

2. On December 10, ask two or more of your co-workers (or friends or family) to sign the petition. Explain why you believe it is important (see below for examples). Also ask them to spread the word.

3. Volunteer to perform service work during the day or evening of December 10.

To receive email updates regarding where and when we will perform service work, join our Facebook group or subscribe to our mailing list.

4. Familiarize yourself with the civil rights denied to LGBT people in the State of Utah, so that you can explain to others why you signed the petition.

Here are descriptions of those five civil rights denied to LGBT people in Utah:

1. Gay couples are not eligible for family health insurance coverage, even if they have lived together in a committed relationship for years.

2. An employer can terminate the employment of a gay or transgender employee simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In other words, even if a transgender employee has an exemplary work record, he or she can be fired if the employer doesn't like transgender people--no other reason need be given.

3. Similarly, a landlord can evict a tenant simply because he or she is gay or transgender.

Tenant: "I've been a good tenant for over five years. I always paid my rent on time and never had any complaints filed against me. Why are you evicting me?"

Landlord: "I'm evicting you because I recently learned that you are gay. I don't like homosexuals so you have to leave and there's nothing you can do about it."

4. LGBT widows and widowers have no legal right to sue in cases of wrongful death or malpractice. For example, if one member of a lesbian couple is killed by a drunk driver, her partner cannot sue for wrongful death. A sibling or parent of the deceased could sue but the widow has no legal standing even if the couple had been together for twenty years.

5. LGBT citizens possess no inherent legal rights in the areas of inheritance, insurance coverage, and fair housing practices. Thus, for example, if a man loses his partner of 17 years to cancer, he has no inherent legal right to inherit any of his deceased partner's assets. A nephew who never had a relationship with his uncle could inherit everything if the deceased did not have any other blood relatives. The widower would have to surrender his partner's possessions to a stranger, even meaningful keepsakes from their lengthy relationship.

Many people who oppose civil rights for LGBT citizens, declare that a couple can hire an attorney to draft a will and develop an estate plan. That argument assumes that all couples have the financial resources and knowledge to hire an attorney for that purpose. That is not an assumption we make for heterosexual couples.

In the case of heterosexual couples, the law provides for a default position, as it were, in which spouses are assumed to be the proper recipient of a deceased's estate and any relevant insurance policies. This 'default position' takes into consideration that many heterosexual couples do not execute a will or an estate plan. The law assumes that it would not be just to have a "free for all" competition for a deceased's assets, with all relatives on equal footing with the spouse.

The same should be true for LGBT couples and can be established easily with a Domestic Partner Registry.

The Common Ground Initiative consists of six bills to be introduced in the Utah Legislature that will establish civil rights in each of the above areas.