SAVE Dade was founded in 1993 by a small group of people who decided to fight against Anita Bryant’s anti-gay “Save our Children” campaign, which repealed Miami-Dade’s Human Rights Ordinance (HRO), the nation’s first countywide ordinance that included banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. SAVE Dade worked with a broad coalition of pro-equality organizations and launched a public awareness campaign to educate the public about the need for a policy that protects citizens from discrimination on the basis of one’s sexual orientation.  In 1998, SAVE Dade successfully lobbied the Miami-Dade County Commission and passed a Human Rights Ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 2002, the HRO was challenged at the ballot box by anti-gay opposition groups, and yet, the same citizens who founded SAVE Dade successfully campaigned to uphold the ordinance, winning by a vote of 53% to 47%.

Honored for its human rights work by Amnesty International, SAVE Dade is proud of its success as a local community-driven organization, working to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender South Floridians lead productive lives free of discrimination in their homes and workplaces. Following a bottom-up approach to policy change, the SAVE Dade community is proud of its ability to effect change, whether it be through coalition building and grassroots organizing or electoral campaigning.  SAVE Dade believes all politics is local and continues to lobby municipalities and county governments to pass legislation that improves the quality of life for our local LGBT community.