Tag Archives: Gay Lesbian and Bisexual

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Erick Warner via Change.org


Change.org

My public high school threatened to suspend 20 students for wearing pro-gay t-shirts. Tell my school to stop discriminating and allow students to create a Gay-Straight Alliance.
Sign My Petition

 

The students at my high school need your help. I’m a 16-year-old junior at Celina High School — a public high school in northwest Ohio. We’re trying to make our school more accepting and safe for gay students, but the administration won’t let us.

Recently, 20 students tried to fight homophobia by wearing homemade t-shirts to school that said things like “Straight but Supportive” and “I Support [Rainbow].” Our Vice Principal told students that they had to stop wearing the shirts or face suspension.

I’m straight, but I think it’s wrong that my school is discriminating against gay students and suppressing students’ rights to express our opinions.

I started a petition on Change.org demanding that my school promote a more welcoming environment, including allowing students to create a Gay-Straight Alliance. Click here to add your name.

We all know that anti-gay bullying is a serious problem. In the past few years, we have seen so many kids tragically take their own lives because they were bullied for being gay or perceived to be gay.

I think it’s crazy that at my school, it’s not the kids doing the bullying. It’s the adults who are supposed to be our leaders and role models.

Well I’m not going to take it anymore. Other kids have gotten their schools to allow Gay-Straight Alliances after they started petitions on Change.org — I know that if enough people sign my petition, my school administrators will cease their shameful behavior and create an environment that is supportive for all students, not just straight ones.

Click here to sign my petition demanding that the administrators at my public high school allow students to create a Gay-Straight Alliance.

Thank you,

Erick Warner
Celina, OH

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Fighting to preserve the freedom to marry


 

Everyone — EVERYONE — deserves to marry the person they love most in the world and receive the support and recognition that only comes from marriage.

Zach Silk
Campaign Manager
Washington United for Marriage

 

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NOM Exposed: A Facebook Swarm -from Kevin Nix


A door just opened, one that allows all of us to further expose and challenge the homophobia of the National Organization for Marriage.

You may have heard about Louis Marinelli, NOM’s online strategist who recently resigned because he supports marriage equality. He took all of the organization’s 290,000 Facebook fans with him. They’ve just begun to rebuild a Facebook fan base from scratch.

Here’s where you come in. If everyone on this list – after holding your nose – friended NOM, pro-equality supporters would outnumber NOM’s current anti-equality supporters 6 to 1.

But you know what would really make an impact? Leave a comment on NOM’s Facebook posts. Let’s saturate their page with positive, fact-based pro-equality messages. Some suggestions:

-Marriage for gays and lesbians will do nothing to religious freedom. Houses of worship will continue to decide whether they want to recognize gay marriages, or not. We’re talking about committed gay and lesbian couples going down to city hall to get married.

-Gay couples want to make the public commitment of marriage – and be held accountable for that commitment .

-Credible polls show a majority of American Catholics actually support marriage for gay and lesbian couples. People in the pews do not necessarily agree with the Catholic hierarchy.

You can get more ideas for comments in our “Fact” section of NOMExposed.org. But – please – don’t leave personal, ad hominem attacks. Don’t let them drag you into the gutter. No tit for tat. That gets us nowhere. We need elevated, positive conversation.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/R?i=5k_xjG_BkXX9ISoCeENCgQ..

One last thing. The fight for marriage in New York is heating up. While HRC and other LGBT groups just launched a new campaign in New York. NOM has too and is trying to mobilize its people. If you live in New York State, become a NY NOMWatcher. We need more eyes and ears on the ground and online.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/R?i=4anDOjLLVetvFWAvD1fd8g..

As always, thanks for your interest and engagement.

Kevin Nix

Director, NOM Project

~ Recent Post

After suicides, Mormon leader rants against gays

2 Comments

Human Rights Campaign



The recent suicides of several gay teenagers have made national headlines. Yet this is the moment – of all moments – that a top Mormon leader decides to broadcast a verbal rampage against gays to millions of viewers.

I couldn’t believe it either. Boyd K. Packer, the second-highest leader in the Mormon Church, said in a sermon broadcast to millions yesterday that same-sex attraction is “impure and unnatural” and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong.

Do we need more proof than the suicides of teens as young as 13 that words like these can do unimaginable damage?

We cannot stay silent. By speaking out together, we can show the Mormon Church hierarchy that it has literally risked the lives of children by inciting their tormentors. And we can ensure that the young people who heard this sermon know that it is scientifically wrong and profoundly misguided.

Speaking before 20,000 people and broadcasting to millions more, Packer said same-sex unions are morally wrong and “against God’s law and nature” – and that the church hierarchy would continue to support marriage bans like Proposition 8 (which was funded largely by Mormons).

It makes me physically sick to think how many young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender kids had to sit in those pews and listen to that venom.

Comments like these are exactly what makes young LGBT kids think there’s no way out but suicide – that their parents will reject them, that their communities will shun them, and that living openly will bring pain or violence – that even God looks on their very identity as a sin to be “overcome.”

And these lies fuel the bullying, harassment, and violence that plague our schools.

Packer’s lies have been disproven over and over again by science and by the spiritual experience of Americans who know their LGBT neighbors and care about them. We know sexual orientation cannot and should not be changed and that two people falling in love is beautiful, not evil.

But unless we refute these lies whenever groups like the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Mormon Church repeat them – whether through letters like this or projects like HRC‘s www.NOMexposed.com – we risk another young person hearing them and believing that LGBT people are “defective.” And that belief contributes to violence and suicide.

Americans are sick of the Mormon hierarchy trying to dictate what they should believe. They know commitment and love when they see it. That’s why they are turning away in droves from limitations on their friends’ and neighbors’ freedom to marry.

Thank you for helping take a stand for the truth.

Sincerely,

Joe Solmonese
Joe Solmonese
President