Letters to President-elect Obama: Jeffrey Prang

Dear President-elect Obama,

The next presidency should be about hope and should put the American people first. We must invest in our collective future, focusing on health care, economic recovery, and education. The last eight years have proven that our efforts are best directed towards supporting the next generation of Americans, not promoting unnecessary war. Most important, it is now time to move the issue of civil rights for all Americans to the proverbial front burner of national priorities. Equality is a nonnegotiable and constitutional right.

Your leadership can restore the United States' standing in the world community. Developing new international partnerships will help address continued global conflicts and curb greenhouse emissions. Moreover, American policy should be guided by a commitment to ending unilateralism. America needs leadership with follow-through, not empty rhetoric, and this administration will begin the next chapter in U.S. history.

With Democratic control of the White House and Congress, the common good of Americans should be the objective of legislative initiatives. And finally, let's not exclude Republicans and others who may disagree, as they excluded us when they were in charge.

I look forward to the next four years.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey PrangMayor of West Hollywood

More Letters to the President-elect:Tammy Baldwin, Democratic member of Congress from Wisconsin

Daniel Tammet, author of Born on a Blue Day

Evan Wolfson, Executive director of Freedom to Marry and author of Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry

Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign

Melissa Etheridge, singer-songwriter

Michelangelo Signorile, radio host and author of Queer in America

Tammy Bruce, radio talk-show host and author of The New American Revolution

Kenji Yoshino, professor at New York University School of Law and the author of Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights

Vestal McIntyre, author of You Are Not the One and the forthcoming Lake Overturn