The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation has released its annual Municipal Equality Index, and Arlington was rated 100, the advocacy group’s top score, two points higher than last year.
The index examines how inclusive municipal laws, policies and services are of LGBTQ people who live and work there.
Cities are rated based on nondiscrimination laws, the municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement and the city leadership’s public position on equality.
Cities are rated based on non-discrimination laws, the municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement, and the city leadership’s public position on equality.
“We strive to make Arlington a community that is inclusive and open to all people and I am very pleased that we have once again improved our score on the MEI Index,” said Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine in a Nov. 21 news release. “We will continue to focus on matters of inclusion and look forward to welcoming the town’s first coordinator of diversity, equity and inclusion to further help us with these initiatives.”
Mel Goldsipe, chair of Arlington’s LGBTAIA+ Rainbow Commission, said: “HRC’s evaluation is a comprehensive set of benchmarks toward full equality for LGBTQIA+ folx in town life that has provided a clear blueprint for our work.
“We’re thrilled that Arlington’s score has gone up every year, because it reflects important work we’ve done, such as adding gender identity to the town’s nondiscrimination bylaw, establishing the Rainbow Commission, hosting Pride celebrations for the first time, and helping to ensure that trans/nonbinary/gender-conconforming folx continue to have equal rights in public spaces statewide.
“We also see this base score of 92 plus 8 bonus points to equal 100 as encouragement to keep pushing forward. We will continue to work on policy improvements and host community-building events because each of the benchmarks is necessary for healthy diversity, equity, and inclusion for our community.”
To see the full release, Arlington’s scorecard and report, go to arlingtonma.gov.
This news announcement was published Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019.
