SpeakingOUT training, TONIGHT!

We are holding our first fall training for SpeakingOUT tonight. I hope you will consider joining us and being part of our program.

Yesterday, I went to a local middle school to speak with a classroom of 8th graders, as part of SpeakingOUT. More than 2/3rds of the students in the classroom indicated they would change their behaviour because of the stories they heard. One of the students in the class bravely spoke up, hand shaking, to talk about her two moms. Another student wanted to know how to be ally.

SpeakingOUT is a way to make a difference in the community, one person at a time, and can take as little as an hour once or twice a year. Your story could be the one a student needs to hear to feel the strength to go on. It could be the reason a student changes the way they treat a fellow student.

I hope you will join us tonight at the First United Methodist Church at Spruce and 14th from 6-8pm.

If you can't be part of the program by speaking, even a $5 donation can help us keep this program strong!

Vote.

I know, no Presidents are getting elected, but that doesn't mean important things aren't happening. So read your guide and send in your ballot!

Hate Crimes Bill Signed!

Read more about it at cnn.While I applaud this as a victory, I find it a bitter pill to swallow that it was passed as part of an increase in our military spending.

Let it Snow?

Oh the weather outside is frightful ... This is a hot chocolate; telecommuting kind of day! Be safe and warm!

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What happened on Sunday the 11th in DC?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Here we are.

Yesterday was national coming out day and today is the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death in Laramie, WY. In researching for a panel discussion tonight at the Laramie Project Epilogue  I found myself wondering why we as queer people can feel that "in order to win rights, gay people not only have to be just like you, they have to be better than you" where you is mainstream America. How deeply have we bought into the idea that we will have arrived when we can get married and divorced, just like the straight people? How long will it be before we really grasp that what makes us such a powerful community is rooted in our difference from "you"? Our desire to follow our heart in the face of opposition?


We, the SGLGLBTTSIQQAPPGV community, bring together a diverse and beautiful cross-section of the american salad bowl-- when we get it right. We are everywhere, and we re-emerge in every generation, touching straight families as their children, friends, and extended family. We can no longer be identified as "other" when we sit at so many tables in fragile silence, the truth out there that we will no longer hide behind the reassuring deceptions many of us embraced, for so many years. We don't always look like each other and we certainly don't look like "you" and I, for one, am proud of that.