Scouts for Equality founder to receive Elizabeth Birch award; ‘Milk’ screenwriter will be guest speaker
Dustin Lance Black, left, and Zach Wahls
LGBT advocate Zach Wahls will receive the Elizabeth Birch Equality Award at Black Tie Dinner, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black will attend as a guest speaker, event co-chairs announced Thursday.
Wahls, an Eagle Scout who founded Scouts for Equality, led the national campaign for including gay Scouts in the Boy Scouts of America and has remained vigilant in urging that the organization extend the policy to welcome gay leaders.
An outspoken supporter of marriage equality, Wahls wrote the national bestseller My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength and What Makes a Family, and his testimony about being raised by two moms before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee was YouTube’s most-watched political video of 2011.
At 22, Wahls is the youngest recipient of the award.
“It’s a big honor,” Wahls said. “I feel very lucky and very honored.”
The Elizabeth Birch Equality Award is given to an individual, organization or company that has made a significant contribution of national scope to the LGBT community.
It is named in honor of former Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Elizabeth Birch, who received the first award.
Past recipients of the Birch Award include Showtime Networks/Robert Greenblatt, Alan Cumming, Sharon Stone, Bishop V. Gene Robinson, Judy Shepard, American Airlines, decorated veteran Eric Alva and, last year, Chaz Bono.
“You may not recognize him by name, but Zach Wahls is known by millions as the teenager who gave powerful testimony to an Iowa House committee in support of his two moms,” BTD Co-chair Mitzi Lemons said. “Zach offers fresh, bold thoughts on the issue of gay marriage. You’ll walk away with a new and thought-provoking perspective after hearing Zach speak.”
Black, a Texan native who grew up in San Antonio, won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the 2008 film Milk, a biopic of gay rights champion Harvey Milk.
Black is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights and the writer of 8, a staged re-enactment of the federal trial that led to a ruling overturning California’s Proposition 8.
“Over the course of the last decade, Dustin Lance Black has evolved into one of the most critically acclaimed of all Hollywood screenwriters,” BTD Co-chair Ken Morris said. “From his position at the top of the Hollywood hierarchy, he consistently issues a call for equal rights, and he has been one of the rare voices from within the film industry to speak so passionately and openly about gay activism.”
Black Tie Dinner is scheduled for Nov. 2. For more information,visit BlackTie.org.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 26, 2013.