Glee' Actress Jane Lynch Joins Others in Launching Super PAC to Support Pro-Lesbian Political Candidates

Super PACs seem to be all the rage these days. First, there was Stephen Colbert and his "Americans Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow" super PAC and now there's LPAC, an organization that will support pro-lesbian candidates. The group was founded by prominent women, including former professional tennis player Billie Jean King and "Glee" actress Jane Lynch.

LPAC will promote candidates -- both Democrats and Republicans, males and females and gays and straights -- who support lesbians. Rather than simply promoting candidates at state and federal levels, LPAC will financially back ballot measures. Here's an official description from the group's web site:

PAC is a Political Action Committee, formed by a group of committed activists and donors, to positively influence the current political and social landscape. After decades of being a small subset of players in women’s rights and LGBT rights political efforts, the women of LPAC are stepping up to get organized like never before, aiming to give lesbians a real and meaningful seat at the table. With significant resources behind us, LPAC plans to make a true impact for lesbians in the 2012 election cycle and beyond.

LPAC will support candidates who champion a range of issues that impact lesbians and their families, these include:

• Ending discriminatory treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and their families;
• Supporting sexual and reproductive freedom and women’s access to quality healthcare; and,
• Furthering social, racial, and economic justice for all Americans.

LPAC hopes to raise $1 million for the 2012 presidential election campaign. Interestingly, according to the Huffington Post, the group also has the support of Laura Ricketts, who is the daughter of GOP businessman Joe Ricketts (he recently was embroiled in a major controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright and a controversial anti-Obama campaign proposal).

Here's an infographic from LPAC that explains the purported attacks that are being waged against women:

"Women's voices get lost a lot and get overshadowed in almost all settings, so I think there's a real opportunity here to engage women who haven't been engaged before -- for lesbians, in particular, to speak for ourselves about the issues that are important to us and to define those issues in our own words," explained LPAC spokeswoman Sarah Schmidt in an interview with Huffington Post. "It's a chance to really have a seat at the table when these critical issues are being discussed and the policy is being developed."

While the group says it's open to Republicans -- and while Schmidt claims she hopes to find GOP candidates to support -- it's not likely in the near-term. As stated, the LPAC web site is claiming that women's rights are under attack -- a statement that seems to align with the "war on women" mantra the Democratic Party has been using of late. And the GOP's more negative stance against gay marriage, of course, also impacts this sentiment.

(H/T: Huffington Post)