Today marks my official resignation from the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh Board of Directors. I have contemplated the resignation for a full year, and back in June officially announced my decision, and set the date of resignation as today. This date was selected to align with the last day of our ARSP volunteer’s placement with Delta.

I have been on the board for a bit over three years and have appreciated my involvement with the group very much. I believe strongly in the importance of Pride, and Delta has done an amazing job building Pittsburgh Pride into a tremendous asset for the region, the city, and the local LGBT community. I’m sure they will continue to do great work, and I wish them the best of luck. However, I’m aware that my biggest passion concerns getting LGBTQ and supportive allies to go and meet with their legislators, a very specific type of issue advocacy work. I feel I can better address that interest independent of the Delta Foundation. Additionally, my blogging has probably suffered the most while I have been on the board because of both a time limitation, and also a desire to not rock the boat  (to much) posting opinions that are too directly in conflict with the Delta official position. So, to address these three reasons, I felt it was time to step away, refocus my time and energy, and allow Delta to keep moving forward as well with the great work that they do.

To be honest, looking back, I never expected some of what came because of being associated with Delta. To be sure, no organization, especially one that is all volunteer, does everything perfectly, but far too often, I found myself dismissed as part of Gay Inc, both a criticism and a designation that never applied. Even with its imperfections, Delta has done a tremendous amount for LGBT visibility and equality. They don’t deserve so much of the criticism thrown at them. As a blogger, my opinions always were my own and never during my time with the board did I alter or revise my position to please anyone. I have always been a blogger who has said things exactly like I see it. But I think being fully independent of Delta may allow some of those ideas to be read and understood differently.

As important as I believe Pride is, I also must admit that in the bigger scheme of things I  care more about other things, like issue advocacy with legislators. This is fairly unexciting, not-trendy work which is essential if we are going to get the legislature of Pennsylvania to move forward on any LGBT positive legislation.  Both Pride and issue advocacy are types of visibility-building, but to most people they seem more different than similar, so I think stepping away from that identity of “Pride” will help focus attention on issue advocacy more directly.

So, today marks a new direction as well as leaving one. It is all exciting, and I am looking forward to what comes next.