Day of Silence

On April 25, students across the country will take part in a Day of Silence to protest the bullying, harassment, and sadly, violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

Is there anything worth saying that isn't obvious? Our school must be safe for all students. We cannot allow our children to form hateful, prejudicial habits like bullying. Most of all, we have to finally stop placing value judgments on traits that are beyond a person's control - in that way, sexuality is no different than ethnicity.

I hope you'll encourage the students in your life to participate.

OK hate speech

As in Oklahoma... as in state rep Sally Kern... She calls it free speech - I call it an example of the kind of person who doesn't deserve a leadership role in our country. I hope her constituents are listening, too.



Sign an open letter to Kern here.

Thanks to Interstate Q for the post.

Winter Walk 07

I've written about the Winter Walk for AIDS a time or two before. With yesterday's temperate weather and the shortening of the walk from five to three miles a while back, this year's walk stood in stark contrast with the first time I participated in 1996. The walks were still in the morning then, and that particular morning was nearly freezing with a mist of drizzle. We had fun walking that day - we felt good about walking - but the bitterness of the morning seemed to suit the disease we were fighting. It felt like an appropriate challenge (though a symbolic and, of course, terribly minor challenge) to brave the weather.

This year felt more like a stroll with friends. It was, in fact. We arranged to meet with several friends and found several more along the way. One friend picked me up and swung me around, a reassuring reminder of his strength and health (I'm nowhere near petite) even in the face of his relatively recent HIV diagnosis.

People are living longer, healthier lives with HIV/AIDS than ever before. It is a testament to the scientists working towards better treatments and the agencies, like the walk organizers, Triad Health Project, that provide support services for those living with the disease. But, as we were reminded with the reading of a list of THP clients lost in the last year, people are still dying of this preventable disease.

Those who walked yesterday give me hope, though. The crowd was diverse in age, ethnicity and (presumably) sexual orientation, but the bulk was made of area college students - a group of people that I believe has the most power, right now, to spread the message of prevention through safe sex (abstinence being only one method of prevention). Perhaps some of them will even enter the labs to continue the work towards a cure. I was also pleased to see a contingent of young Jews from the American Hebrew Academy and Temple Emanuel. I was raised to believe that social action is an important part of Judaism; it seems these kids have been taught the same.

We did miss the A&T drumline starting the walk, as they have done every previous year I've participated, and Cakalak Thunder, who also usually makes an appearance. (No offense, UNCG drumline - I admire the chutzpah the seven of you showed.) I was also disappointed to see that at least one local anti-war group decided to exploit the gathering to spread their own messages. While I would love to see impeachment be the first of many punishments Bush has to suffer, yesterday wasn't about politics or personal agendas - it was about supporting people with a disease, and raising money for the agencies that help keep them living longer, healthier, happier lives. I think if HIV/AIDS activism were as high on their priority list as their sign and flyers would have the crowd believe, I would have seen them at previous Winter Walks, but, alas, no.

All in all, it seemed to be another successful Winter Walk, hopefully bringing a little more awareness to the local community and acting as a reminder that it is through hope, not fear, that we will conquer HIV/AIDS.

Mike Gravel on gay marriage

Kudos to Christine

Mike Penner, sports writer for the LA Times, published a column yesterday outing himself as a pre-op transexual; during leave in the next few weeks, he will become a post-op.

I have joined several people on the journey of admitting, both internally and, eventually, externally, to homosexuality; often they were women who dated men for a long while, hoping that the way in which they felt "different" was due to not having yet found the right man and not what they knew to be true somewhere deep down in their gut, that there would never be a right man, only a right woman.

I can only imagine how the difficulty of that kind of sexual orientation journey is compounded by transexuality. Even as the country becomes more comfortable with same sex couples, transexuality is still part of the misunderstood fringe. It was bold for Mike to come to terms with his need to become Christine and amazing that he could share it with the rest of us.

Kudos to you, Christine - I hope you have a speedy recovery from your surgery!

Micky to attend same-sex weddings

It seems that Disney is working to shake off its history of exclusion (a la banning the long-haired in the 60s) and will start allowing same-sex couples to purchase its Fairy Tale Wedding packages. For the sake of fairness, I'm unclear whether their previous exclusion from these packages was intentional or a thoughtless side-effect of requiring a valid marriage license for booking. Now, the many Mickey lovers of the gay community can now enter connubial bliss with the grand rodent by their side.

The timing is right for such a move because even though statistics compiled by The Third Way show that the country is still a ambivalent about full marital rights for gays and lesbians (61% of Americans support legal civil union), an overwhelming majority believe that the GLBT community should have equal job opportunities (90%) and should be allowed to serve openly in the military (80%).

Interestingly, 56% of Americans do not think that same-sex couples lack significant legal protections. Sadly, that's just plain wrong. There are so many things that those of us in hetero marriages take for granted - that if our spouse is sick, we can stay with them in the hospital; if they should die, what's theirs is automatically ours; that if we have children and are both good parents, we have equal rights to see our children should we divorce. None of this is true for same-sex couples. I have one lesbian friend who is counting down the days until her daughter is 18 because her ex had sole legal custody (two people of the same gender cannot share legal custody under our laws) and has chosen to keep the child from her.

And though I think the civil rights implications of the gay marriage debate are the most important part, there are practical reasons that allowing the same rights of marriage to the GLBT community would benefit the whole country, one of which Disney has cleverly tapped into: the millions, perhaps billions, of dollars gays and lesbians would pump into our economy to throw the sames kinds of elaborate weddings that hetero couples indulge in. Someone should remind Bush - that kind of tax revenue could fund a couple more days in Iraq...