Taylor Swift is taking a stand. The “Me!” Singer posted an open letter to Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander on Saturday, June 1, in support of the Equality Act that was passed in the House of Representatives on May 17, and must now be approved by the Senate before it can be signed into law.
Swift, 29, explained in a rainbow-colored letter to her fans, “I’ve decided to kick off Pride Month by writing a letter to one of my senators to explain how strongly I feel that the Equality Act should be passed.”
She wrote that she created a petition at change.org “to urge the Senate to support” the bill. The petition currently has more than 63,000 signatures, with the goal of hitting 75,000.
“Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally,” the Reputation artist concluded the letter, next to 13 (her lucky number) rainbow emojis.
In the next document, she launched in her pitch to the Tennessee senator. “As you know, the House has just passed the Equality Act, which would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their workplace, in their homes and in schools. For American citizens to be denied jobs or housing based on who they love or how they identify, in my opinion, is un-American and cruel.”
The Grammy winner continued with an economic pitch: “Additionally, the refusal in our state’s Legislature to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination has the serious potential to cripple us from bringing new jobs to Tennessee. I’m sure you saw where Amazon, and almost a dozen other major companies, said they feel the proposed anti-LGBTQ ‘State of Hate’ in Tennessee would negatively affect their ability to do business in Tennessee.”
“I respect your position in our country and your ability to really impact positive moves forward,” she concluded. “Please, please think about the lives you could change for the better if you were to vote to support the Equality Act in the Senate and prohibit this harsh and unfair discrimination.”
Swift has spoke about her burgeoning involvement in politics earlier in May. The “Bad Blood” singer revealed in an interview with RTL that her civic-minded side will come out in her upcoming album, the unnamed TS7. “I definitely think there are political undertones in the new music I made,” she said on May 24. “I’m not planning to stop encouraging young people to vote and to try to get them to talk about what’s going on in our country. I think that’s one of the most important things I could do.” Last year, she spoke out in support of Tennessee’s Democratic candidates for Congress and the Senate ahead of the midterm elections.
In April, Swift dropped her first single, “Me!” from TS7 with plenty of Easter eggs. The album release date and name has yet to be announced.
