Chefs for Equality

“The Human Rights Campaign approached me in 2012 to put on a fundraiser to raise money for the marriage equality act that was on the ballot in Maryland and I was too happy to do that,” David Hagedorn told Hollywood on the Potomac at the HRC Foundation 8th Annual Chefs for Equality Gala held this year in grand style at The Washington National Cathedral and themed ‘Stirred, Not Shaken.’ “I don’t think that my idea was quite what they had in mind – thinking on such a grand scale. They were a little dubious maybe, but we pulled it off that first year in like a month and a half. We put that together at the Ritz Carlton and now it’s grown and grown.”

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“We knew back then not to call it Chefs for Marriage Equality. I knew we would achieve marriage equality, but I also knew the backlash would be very severe. I never really imagined back then exactly where we would be now and how threatened our community would be in this current political climate. We’re really in for the fight of our lives. We just had a Supreme Court case two weeks ago today where our government was defending making it all right to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the workforce. You know, that is our very security that threatens our very livelihood, our very existence. And so that’s why our theme this year is ‘Stirred, not Shaken’ because we’re used to having the rug pulled out from under us.”