The Creating Change conference sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is going on right now, and every year, I think that next year, I’m going to go. Truly, I am almost envious as I read friend’s Facebook posts about what they are doing there. But this year, I have a different mindset. This year, I’m glad I was right here in Pittsburgh, helping to create change locally by attending the Black and[Read More…]
As far too many queer and disenfranchised youth commit suicide, why is it that such comments go unchecked? Perhaps not unchecked. We don’t know exactly why the label dropped her. But there really is more to this story.
Idiots like Rand Paul won an election when the American People were clamoring for job creation. For the Far Right, every effort had to be made to harm the Administration. For the Far Left, Obama had not been progressive enough or fought hard enough (for example: the Public Option). And for everyone in between these extremes, the single most important agenda was the economy and job creation.
The world is too small and the number of youth who are killing each other and killing themselves too high without anyone in the public’s eye encouraging it. Azealia Banks is part of the problem harming our young people, not a part of the solution from it.
Progressives across the state and the PA Democratic Party ought to be extremely busy, doing more than ever before to set up a large enough change in coming elections to turn Pennsylvania in a new direction. Here is what I think needs to happen:
Obama gave us, gay and lesbian people, a place within the whole of the American Dream in a way that had never been articulated so clearly before.
All of us, must care about these things, and none of us can pitt one of these things against the others as more or less important. They are all apart of our journey, and all must come to be.
Not from a single act, but rather from the collective act of millions and millions of people performing a individual act. And even that may not be a true statement, because, coming out is never a single act. It is something that many of us do all of the time, over and over. It is nice to suggest that one raindrop helps the plant grow to it’s fullest, but really it is the accumulation of all the raindrops together. Is one more or less the thing that makes the real difference? I don’t think so.
GLSEN Pittsburgh is working to increase support of local K–12 schools through these new skill-building workshops, which will consist of experiential and interactive components designed to build on participants’ existing knowledge and facilitation skills. GLSEN Pittsburgh encourages those with previous training, facilitation, teaching and/or public speaking experience — and those with an understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues — to apply to become a volunteer facilitator.
While this act is ceremonial, it truly is far more than that. It is a visible, tangible effort to make LGBTQ issues matter in PA government like few other efforts have.