NC's Mitchell Gold one of Advocate's 'People of the Year'

I wanted to give kudos to Mitchell Gold, founder of Faith In America, a national non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about the history of religion-based bigotry and how it is being used today to justify discrimination. Gold, named one of its People of the Year by The Advocate, is also well-known as the co-founder and chair of furniture powerhouse Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, which is based in Hickory, NC. From FIA's release:

"We are all so thankful for Mitchell's vision and tireless energy and efforts that brought us all together over the past year," said the Rev. Jimmy Creech, executive director of Faith In America.  "We built this organization on his vision of engaging people directly in communities across the country in open and frank conversations about how religion is misused to deny lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens the full rights and protections guaranteed by the US Constitution.  As a result, through the activities of our first year, we have seen much success."

I posted about the powerful series of print ads that ran last year as part of Faith in America's attempt to open up a dialogue about the injustice of using religion to justify bigotry against LGBT citizens. See a couple after the break.

Its primary goal was to reach evangelicals through those ads, as well as billboards, direct mail and door-to-door canvassers. Faith in America directly contacted more than two million homes, in Indiana, Colorado, Maryland and North Carolina, and obviously reached millions more through the ads in newspapers and TV.

Take a look at some of the letters FIA received as a result of the campaign.