Each year Equality California (EQCA) honors the inspirational leaders and outstanding allied organizations whose selfless work helps create a better world for all people. The Equality Awards recognize the achievements of the organization, its sponsors, members, staff and volunteers, as well as the GLBT community.

The organization will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the 2008 San Diego Equality Awards on Friday, Oct. 17, when it honors San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and his family and B. Birgit Koebke and Kendall French for their efforts to help promote equality for GLBT Californians.

Sanders, his wife Rana Samson and their daughter Lisa will receive EQCA’s Equality Leadership Award in recognition of their decision to stand up for marriage equality for all Californians.

“My family and I are very honored to receive this award,” Sanders said. “Equality is something we can never take for granted – it is something we must strive for every day in every part of our community.

The Republican mayor had threatened to veto a city resolution supporting same-sex marriage, but experienced a change of heart, which he tearfully announced at a press conference last September, joining San Diego with San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the other major cities in California on a brief urging the state Supreme Court to strike down marriage discrimination.

“I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community that they were less important, less worthy and less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage – than anyone else – simply because of their sexual orientation,” Sanders told the media, noting that being faced with the decision forced him to reflect and search his soul for the right thing to do.

It was widely known that Sanders’ daughter Lisa is a lesbian.

B. Birgit Koebke and Kendall French will be honored with the Equality Champion Award.

A couple of more than 13 years, French and Koebke were the plaintiffs in a precedent-setting case challenging anti-GLBT discrimination in California.

In 2001, Koebke and French filed a lawsuit against the Bernardo Heights Country Club for not allowing them the same rights as married club members. A four-year court battle ensued, but ended in victory when the California Supreme Court ruled that businesses must extend the same benefits to domestic partners as they offer married couples.

Koebke is on the board of directors for the Make A Wish Foundation and French is on the board of directors for the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation.

“We are proud to honor two San Diego families whose courage and leadership has helped our community achieve full equality,” said EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors, who heads up the California GLBT civil rights and advocacy organization.

EQCA leads efforts for GLBT civil rights at the state level through an array of strategies including sponsoring legislation and leading efforts to ensure their passage, lobbying legislators and other government officials, building coalitions, and empowering other organizations and individuals to engage in the political process.

“These advocates have not only inspired people in their own city, but they have also empowered LGBT people across our state to continue to fight for laws that treat everyone as equals,” Kors said.

EQCA, working in partnership with California’s LGBT Legislative Caucus, has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited rights for GLBT individuals to the state with the most comprehensive GLBT civil rights protections in the nation.

The 2008 Equality Awards will be held at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and San Diego’s Queen of Boogie Woogie, Sue Palmer, will headline this year’s event.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.gaylesbiantimes.com/ links/1085.