Queer Democrats Celebrate Election Victories at Freedom Awards (tags)
The predominantly Queer San Diego Democrats for Equality celebrated recent election victories in San Diego County at their annual Freedom Awards November 17 at 1202 Club in HIllcrest. They also honored retiring State Senator Christine Kehoe, the first open Queer ever elected to office in San Diego County, for her19 years in elective office.
Singer Justin Utley: Gay Ex-Mormon Tells His Story in Music (tags)
Justin Utley grew up Mormon in a suburb of Salt Lake City. He was raised to believe he was one of the "Chosen People" — until he started realizing that his emotional, romantic and sexual interests lay with men and not women. On the advice of the church, he spent four years in so-called "reparative therapy" trying to "cure" himself of being Gay. Then he decided to be who he was created to be and not what his repressive church wanted him to be, and in two full-length CD's and his inspirational single "Stand for Something" he's set his struggle to powerful, intense music.
Openly Gay Fort Worth City Councilmember Headlines Queer Democrats' Freedom Awards (tags)
As a boy, openly Gay Fort Worth City Councilmember Joel Burns was bullied by schoolmates and driven to thoughts of suicide. One of his friends, a boy from Oklahoma, actually did kill himself. As an elected official, Burns spoke October 12 in the Fort Worth City Council chambers and talked about his past in a speech that was heard 'round the world through YouTube and the power of the Internet. On November 13 Burns came to San Diego as the keynote speaker for the 35th Annual Freedom Awards of the predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club and talked about teen suicide and the need for renewed commitment on the part of Queer Democrats and progressives to elect officials whose actions will make Queer teens safer.
Bullying: America’s National Pastime; Queer Youth Victims of a Homo-Hating Culture (tags)
A recent spate of suicides by Queer youth and assaults against Queers have once again made Queer-bashing and bullying in general hot topics in the corporate media and mainstream political discourse. But in a hypercompetitive society that punishes “weakness” — and perceives same-sex affection and sexuality as a sign of “weakness” — and makes stars of reality-TV show winners and bullying talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, the bullies who target Queer people feel encouraged, supported and motivated to keep doing it.
Over 200 Turn Out for Matthew Shepard Memorial in San Diego (tags)
Over 200 San Diegans marched in Hillcrest October 12, 2010 to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, target of an especially brutal Queer-bashing attack in Wyoming, and to honor the lives lost to Queer-bashing, bullying and teen suicide. The event featured two marches, a preliminary rally outside Obelisk Bookstore (site of a memorial plaque to John Robert Wear, 17-year-old killed in a Queer-related assault in 1991) and a program at San Diego’s LGBT Center that featured speakers including Terry Summers, a personal acquaintance of Matthew Shepard.