Luke Montgomery

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Luke Montgomery (born c. 1974) is an American political activist.

1 Biography
2 Recent activity
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

In the early 1990s, Montgomery drew attention to AIDS issues through appearances on TV and radio talks shows including Donahue.^{[citation needed]} Montgomery was a member of ACT UP Seattle and helped lead the youth arm of the AIDS activist organization. He helped lead efforts to distribute over 500 safer-sex packets outside Seattle high schools. He changed his name to make a point about discrimination against gays and lesbians, a move that was covered in papers from USAToday to Sydney Morning Herald. On December 1, 1993, World AIDS Day, he attended a speech in Washington, D.C. by President Bill Clinton marking the occasion. Montgomery interrupted the speech and shouted at the president that he was not taking enough action against the disease. The protest was widely publicized and was even covered in the New York Times editorial page, and Montgomery said he had staged it to remind AIDS activists of their responsibility to hold Clinton to his campaign promises. Montgomery also protested the next year at speeches by Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and an Easter service that Clinton attended.

Montgomery ran for Mayor of Washington D.C. unsuccessfully.^[1]

Although he played up an effeminate image in his early public appearances, he changed his name back to Montgomery in 1996 and spoke against what he considered counterfeit and self-destructive expressions of sexual orientation. He told Out magazine, "The gay identity is manufactured out of insecurities and abnormalities. It has nothing more to offer than AIDS, beer, and shallowness."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Recent activity

Montgomery is also an animal rights activist. He worked in Los Angeles near the end of the 1990s on the staff of the animal rights group Last Chance for Animals. He started a ballot initiative, "Beverly Hills Consumers for Informed Choices," to require all fur coats sold in Beverly Hills to carry a label describing how fur manufacturers put animals to death.^[2] The initiative did gather the necessary number of signatures to appear on the ballot, but was defeated in the election.^[3]

Montgomery's personal website defines his current activity as "a marketing and Internet fundraising consultant for non-profits and a media strategist whose work has captured front page coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. The website also discussed his work in non-profit marketing and amimal welfare. Montgomery has worked with the Humane Society of the United States and the SPCA of Canada, and was a founder and designer of 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com.

In September 2005, Montgomery, with Tom Kertes, started "Bill for First Lady.com", a humorous web campaign who's stated objective is to build support for a 2008 presidential run by Hillary Clinton and "to tickle the red states pink and make the Republican attack jokes old news". The website features videos of "First Lady" Bill Clinton wearing a woman's dress-suit.^[4]