(New York, April 28, 2008) The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) announced today that it would present a posthumous OUTSPOKEN Award to Representative Tom Lantos, the 14-term Congressman who lost his life to cancer on February 11, 2008. IGLHRC's OUTSPOKEN Award recognizes the leadership of a global ally to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community whose outspokenness has contributed substantially to advancing the rights and understanding of LGBTI people everywhere.

"We are so deeply grateful for Representative Lantos's unwavering commitment to human rights," said Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director. "Throughout his life, Representative Lantos waged a steadfast fight against injustice. His voice, vision and compassion will be sorely missed by all of us in the LGBTI community."

During his fourteen terms as a member of Congress, Representative Lantos, who rose among the ranks to chair the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, was a strong and consistent voice for the rights of the disenfranchised. As the founding co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Lantos used his prestige as an internationally respected leader on human rights to hold the very first congressional briefing about the global persecution of sexual minorities. He was the author of the International Human Rights Equality Resolution, which he introduced in the 106th and 107th Congress, condemning human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people throughout the world.

Representative Lantos regularly challenged the abuses meted out by individual countries to their LGBTI citizens. For instance, along with key congressional colleagues, he protested the arrests of allegedly gay men in the United Arab Emirates, and the stoning to death of a Nigerian gay man. He also asked Congress to "withhold any support for a U.S.-Egypt Free Trade Agreement" in light of the roundup, conviction and re-conviction of reportedly gay Egyptian men, and issued a strongly worded statement asking the Nigerian Government to consider the implications of passing the Same-Sex Prohibition Act, which would have severely compromised the rights of the LGBTI community in that country.

Congressman Lantos was also a staunch ally of LGBTI Americans. He opposed a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage, worked to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to sponsor their "permanent partners" for U.S. residency, and introduced a bill, with Representative Baldwin, to extend basic employment rights to same-sex partners of federal employees. He campaigned for adoption rights and marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples, and supported hate-crimes legislation and anti-discrimination protections in the workplace. This is only a small part of his astounding legacy of work in support of LGBTI rights.

Born in Budapest in 1928, Congressman Lantos was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the United States Congress. He was a teenager when the Nazi's invaded Hungary in 1944 and started rounding up Jews. After being sent to a labor camp, and escaping twice, he returned to Budapest where he joined the resistance, lived in a safe house established by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and secretly distributed food to other Jews in hiding. At the war's end, he discovered that his own family had perished in the Nazi death camps. Miraculously, he managed to locate his childhood friend, Annette Tillemann, whom he later married. He first came to the United States on an academic scholarship in 1947. He earned a Master's Degree in economics from the University of Washington in Seattle and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, teaching economics at San Francisco State University for several years before being elected to Congress in 1980.

"Representative Lantos's legacy has meant so much to our community," said Ettelbrick. "We are truly grateful for his unwavering commitment to human rights. We send our deepest condolences to his wife and family, and are honored to pay tribute to his extraordinary legacy on LGBTI rights by posthumously presenting him with our OUTSPOKEN Award."

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