Browsing: Guest Opinion

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Change comes when we ask hard questions of our elected and appointed officials-school boards, superintendents, and others-about policies and programs to address bullying in schools, and when we push for better anti-bullying legislation and demand a commitment to GLBT youth empowerment among public servants. Above all, change comes when we take the time to listen to young people and empower them to create messages of survival for each other.

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LAST YEAR was an unusually tumultuous one for GLBT rights, at times a trying one, but ultimately a triumphant time for the gay community. By year’s end, it seemed we had reached a tipping point in the struggle for equality such that momentum for eventual success had finally gained the upper hand over the forces of resistance that have stymied full equality. Here are my choices for the top ten events that made 2010 such a memorable year:

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THE FALL OF 2010 saw a number of widely publicized teen suicides linked to anti-gay bullying across the country. The national GLBT community responded with candlelight vigils, “die-in’s,” and heartfelt homemade videos promising at-risk young people that “It Gets Better.” Kudos to Dan Savage for launching this project; still, it is difficult to lay healing hands on an isolated population through YouTube.

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U.S. CITIZENS or permanent residents currently have the right to petition for their heterosexual spouse to immigrate legally into the country. Same-sex unions confer no such rights. As of January 2010, there were over 36,000 binational couples in the U.S. living in the fear that a partner might be deported. Provisions in our current immigration reform are especially important for glbt families as this is the only chance they have of being treated fairly and having the same rights and protections as heterosexual families.

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DECLARING that she must distance herself “from this complicity with racism,” Judith Butler publicly rejected the 2010 Civil Courage Award at Berlin’s Gay Pride Celebrations, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day or CSD. This decision by one of today’s preeminent intellectuals provoked a scandal, but two factors prevented her statement from having its full effect: a reference to commercialism that sidetracked the mainstream press reception; and an insufficient explanation for the charge of racism.

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IN HER RADIO SHOW, Dr. Laura Schlessinger said that homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. The following open letter to Dr. Laura was posted anonymously on the Internet.

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IN JUNE 2010, the GLBT community is observing its 40th year of Pride. The first annual celebration of Gay Pride took place in New York a year after the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. Movement pioneer Craig Rodwell, who founded the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, took the lead in organizing the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee (csldc) to commemorate the first anniversary of Stonewall. The celebration centered on the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, held in New York on June 28, 1970. Although they could not have known it at the time, the 1970 march would give rise to “GLBT Pride” worldwide, which millions celebrate each year.

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Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) took the lead in formulating this letter to President Museveni of Uganda when that country’s parliament was considering a bill to make homosexuality a capital crime. The same group of legislators sent a similar letter to President Obama urging him to act on this matter.

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