San Antonio School to Make Changes After Transgender Student Leads Protest
Yesterday, we learned that Jayden Blake Castillo, a transgender student at Memorial High School in the Edgewood School District of San Antonio, Texas
Stupid Things People Say About Gays – Anti-Gay Pastor James Manning Admits Homosexual Fantasies?
James Manning, a Pentecostal minister in New York who is no stranger to controversial statements, recently recorded a rant in which he interpreted God’s loving words as follows: “It is time now for those of us who know the truth to stand up and push back against this homosexual lesbianly LGBT agenda, and those are the correct alphabet. It is time for us to stand up and declare that homosexuality is not normal, it is abnormal.”
When is a Hate Crime Not a Hate Crime? – When SAPD Investigates
The San Antonio Police Department has refused to investigate the murder of Troy Martinez Clattenberg as a hate crime in spite of a confession from his murderer, Cody Carmichael, wherein Carmichael stated to police that he shot Clattenburg because the victim made sexual advances toward him.
LGBT Notable News Happenings (June 7, 2009 – June 12, 2009).
Salt Lake Celebrates LGBT Pride – There were brightly colored floats, rainbow banners, marching and dancing men and women in brightly colored attire. This year the Utah Pride Center, organizer of the celebration, also held a political rally in conjunction with the festival. Grand marshal was LGBT activist Clive Jones – who incidentally thanked The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for supporting Proposition 8. Clive said, “We thank you for unifying us as never before. We thank you for teaching our young people that they must be prepared to fight for freedom.” It is easy to feel like part of the fun – just go to the article and click the “play multimedia” link on the red and white striped face!! Happy LGBT Pride month everybody!!
D.C. Pride Fest Honors Franklin Kameny – Franklin Kameny is known as one of the original LGBT activists, and this year he was honored as a part of the Pride Fest in D.C. Kameny was part of the first Gay Rights picket in front of the White House in October 1965 – and although he has been involved in many parts of the LGBT rights movement – he prefers to be remembered for coming up with the slogan “Gay is Good” in 1968. The slogan is really very important to him. Mr Kameny said, “The phrase encapsulates the whole underlying driving force and rationale for everything that I’ve been involved in.”
LGBT Notable News Happenings (June 2, 2009 – June 6, 2009)
WA LGBT Group Might Expose Petition Signers – There has been a lot of discussion lately about publicly recognizing people who are anti-LGBT in their actions. Previously, contributors to anti-LGBT legislation such as Prop. 8 in CA have been listed on weblogs and other internet sites. When a registered voter signs a petition, and it has been properly certified, the names then do become a matter of public record. Now two organizations are planning to create a similar type of post showing those who sign petitions for Referendum 71. Recently WA passed an expansion of their Domestic Partner Bill and Referendum 71 is an attempt to overturn that approved expansion of LGBT rights.
Denmark Study – Kids of Lesbian Moms More Mentally Healthy – According to a study done in Copenhagen – children raised in families headed by Lesbian mothers have a lesser chance of developing mental illness than those children raised in families headed by heterosexual parents. Merete Lauberg of the University of Copenhagen said, “The findings suggest that concerns that alternative families have a negative effect on child development are over.” Hopefully this will be the beginning of many more adoptions by LGBT parents – to be. Good news and definitely very interesting news for our community.
Why Would You Say That – Really?
When I was a shop steward and a union activist (not so very long ago) I fought for the rights of my co-workers and myself. We had a contract between our Union and the major corporation we worked for – and as shop stewards our purpose was to make sure that the rights of not even one person were violated under that contract. Another side of that same purpose was to educate and assist our co-workers so that no union members knowingly violated the contracted either. More importantly we worked really hard to try to resolve issues before getting to the point of needing to file grievances or other types of legal complaints.
There were dissenters within our membership who felt from time to time that the Union was handling things wrong and they were entitled to their opinion. My fellow stewards and I found that communication and compassion was a very important part of what we did. It was a job I gladly volunteered for and, although it took a significant amount of my own time, I’m still glad I was a part of that.
Saying things about other people when you don’t really know … – now I’m thinking you are likely wondering how in the world I jumped to this topic. Well, it has to do with what I have already mentioned and with what I am about to mention.