The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is an umbrella organization of more than 200 smaller organizations that works to promote human rights throughout the U.S. Wade Henderson is president and CEO, and Nancy Zirkin is the group’s policy director.

An analysis of the statistics by Human Rights First shows that while the number of hate crimes remained steady from 2006 to 2007, the number of attacks targeting Hispanics and LGBT people rose. The FBI reports showed a 3.3 percent rise in anti-Hispanic hate crimes and a 5.5 percent rise in the number of hate crimes motivated […]

The FBI’s has an index of all hate crime statistics since 1995.

The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest and editor at large at America magazine in New York. His books include Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter Into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity. 

Caroline J. Simon is the John H. and Jeanne M. Jacobson Professor of Philosophy at Hope College in Holland, Mich. She specializes in the topics of virtue, moral knowledge and sexuality and wrote The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny & Imagination.

The Muslim Women’s League is a nonprofit organization that works to improve the status of women in the American Muslim community. Part of its mission is to create awareness about domestic violence within the American Muslim Community. It is based in Los Angeles.

Read a June 14, 2012 Guardian article about South African transgendered runner, Caster Semenya, who won the women’s 800m run in the 2009 word championship which caused much debate in the media.

Paul Knitter is the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He is an expert in religious pluralism and can talk about how the election can affect the nation’s religious dynamics.

Serene Jones is president of Union Theological Seminary in New York and Roosevelt Professor of Systematic Theology. She can discuss the ways in which Obama’s presidency could move the religious focus from hot-button issues of sexuality to social justice issues, such as poverty and homelessness.