| In the classic GayDar tradition the social group invites the entire LGBTQI Community to takeover Buffalo Billiards in Petaluma for a Gay Night of fun. Join us for a gay night of friends, games and a good time! We’ve arranged for our GayDar friends to have a special happy hour menu and we will be holding a raffle for Sonoma County Pride 2020! Invite all your friends and join us for a fun time!. |
| Meet the Spahr Center’s Youth Advocacy CoalitionThe Spahr Center’s Youth Advocacy Coalition is a group comprised of queer and trans youth, high-school aged and up, who are passionate about activism and changing societal norms surrounding the LGTBQ+ community in Marin. Founded in March of 2018, the Youth Advocacy Coalition meets every week to organize and plan our events. Nina Friedman was our first program coordinator, and over the last three months, Fel Agrelius has taken that role. The group is entirely youth-led and directed. We pursue projects that we are most passionate about, and we prioritize those that show the most demonstrated need in our community. We initially started out planning social events, but as we grew together as a group, we realized we wanted to focus more on activism and community advocacy. Our group provides a way to get involved with other LGBTQ+ identified folks and create meaningful change, connecting those in and outside of the community and reducing the ignorance and prejudice with which we have personal experience. Click here to read more |
| 40 PEOPLE STEPPED UP, NOW ONLY $2,000 MORE IS NEEDED TOWARD A $25,000 GOAL TO PROTECT LGBTQ STUDENTS, SENIORS AND PEOPLE WITH HIV |
| Good news: We recently announced that our Cause to be Proud Campaign had received a generous $5,000 challenge grant from Sid Hartman and Miguel Ruelas. To date, already $23,000 has been raised to meet this challenge. These funds will sustain and help usgrow our vital programs that support and empower LGBTQ+ youth and seniors, and people living with HIV. Sunday, June 30 is the last day of our fiscal year and Pride Month. Please help reach our $25,000 goal by contributing as generously as you can toward our $2,000 shortfall in reaching that goal by midnight 6/30. Note that you can make a monthly recurring gift that might just make it possible to increase your contribution! Today’s Spahrkle highlights the truly impressive work of our Youth Advocacy Coalition, which is preparing an important back-to-school training program for Marin County educators on the best ways to support a positive learning environment for LGBTQ+ students. The $2,000 we hope to raise before July 1 will help us to meet the costs of this program, building the kind of welcoming environment we all wanted and needed when wewere in school. Please donate by clicking the button below, or call our Executive Director Dana Van Gorder who will happily accept your gift or monthly pledge by phone 24/7 on his cell phone 415.987.7061. |
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| Welcome to New Board of Directors Members Wade Flores and Bobby MoskeAssuring that its membership is inclusive of all people being served by The Spahr Center is a key priority of the Board of Directors. And so, it is with admiration and excitement that we welcome Bobby Moske and Wade Flores to the Board to help assure the effectiveness of services to our 255 clients living with HIV, as well as to prevent new HIV infections.Both Wade and Bobby have selflessly and effectively represented the needs of people living with HIV as members of the Marin HIV Care Council, the official body that guides the spending of some $800,000 in federal Ryan White Program funding coming to the County. Click here to read more |
| Marin PRIDE PicnicA Sweet Afternoon of Community, Fun and PurposeThe June 22 Marin Pride Picnic was a great event — bringing 225 people together to celebrate the contributions of the LGBTQ+ and HIV communities in Marin County, and re-dedicating themselves to assuring our visibility and well-being. We heard from many people how happy they were to attend their first LGBTQ+ event locally, to make new friends, or to run into people they had not seen for many years. And we are thrilled to have been able to provide this opportunity. Many people helped to make Saturday such a great afternoon. Special thanks to Bri Silva and Fel Agrelius of The Spahr Center staff, as well as members of our brilliant Youth Advocacy Coalition, who put great thought and energy into the event. Marshall Grimes and Jeff Devoto outdid themselves standing over a hot, smoky grill for hours to feed grateful guests delicious grass fed beef hamburgers donated by Stemple Creek of West Marin. And our deep gratitude to Kaiser Permanente, Westamerica Bank, and Thomas Henthorne of Sotheby‘s for their sponsorship of the festivities. Attending the Picnic to express their strong commitment to addressing the needs of the LGBTQ+ and HIV communities were Assembly member Marc Levine; Supervisors Damon Connolly and Dennis Rodoni; and Amy Schroeder, representing Congressman Jared Huffman. The Spahr Center looks forward to continued work with these and other elected officials from Marin to assure a powerful future for our community. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for the announcement of the date of the 2020 Marin Pride Picnic. Trust us, you won’t want to miss out on the friendship and warm spirit that permeate this event. |
| We RememberNancy Flaxman, MSW, Senior Program Advisor |
| In February 2016, I was contacted by Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa to present on working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender seniors at a Grand Rounds for physicians and other medical staff on June 21st. The Kaiser LGBT Employee Association was sponsoring this cultural competency forum for Pride month. The week before the Grand Rounds, on June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 53 others wounded at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, Florida. This was the deadliest mass killing by a single shooter in the United States and the deadliest incident against LGBT people. Click here to read more |
| The Spahr Center lobbies for PrEP and PEPAndy Fyne, Testing & Prevention ManagerPrEP and PEP are exciting and important strategies for helping us to prevent new HIV infections. But both medically-based prevention strategies are suffering from alarmingly low levels of use. The Spahr Center is engaging in advocacy of state legislation to address this problem by allowing pharmacists to provide both PrEP and PEP to people who request it. You can help secure passage of this important legislation, and help make sure people you care about know of these prevention strategies. PrEP (PRE-exposure prophylaxis) is a once-daily pill for HIV-negative people that almost entirely eliminates the risk of contracting HIV. PEP (POST-exposure prophylaxis), on the other hand, is medication that a person takes after potential exposure to HIV, in order to prevent the virus from taking hold. Click here to read more. |
| LGBTQ Senior LuncheonMark your calendars now! Our next LGBTQ luncheon will be held on Wednesday, August 28th. 12 pm – 3 pm at The Marin Yacht club! We can’t wait to see you there! |
| Join AIDS WALK 2019!Andy Fyne, Testing & Prevention ManagerIt’s a great time to show some PRIDE and begin your fundraising for AIDS Walk 2019. It’s coming right up on July 14th! Whether you join us in Golden Gate Park and stroll the 10K or whether you cannot physically be there and sign up as a Virtual Walker, we want you to join our team! Tell your friends and families just how proud you are of the wonderful work that is done every day at the Spahr Center and watch the donations pour in!Some of us have already begun asking our friends and families AND dentists, dry cleaners, carpool riders, neighbors, coworkers, frenemies, butchers and book club participants for contributions. It’s really easy and people are happy to give when you tell them why you care about The Spahr Center’s mission and good works. Some of you have reached out to me for assistance in making this happen. I AM HAPPY TO HELP! I can help with personalized web pages, provide flyers and other technical assistance. I also have giveaways to entice your contacts to give generously. Everyone has their own style of fundraising and I can help you tailor your appeal. Give me a call at 415-886-8556 and let’s get started. OR If you want to register right now, call 415-615-WALK or go to: https://sf.aidswalk.netand click the register button. Select The Spahr Center as your team. If you wish to donate, please click the button below and give a donation with PRIDE!!Donate to our AIDSWALK team |
| Harm Reduction Saves Lives“It’s an epidemic [syringe sharing]. That’s how bad it’s getting. I mean, you’ve got four or five people sharing a needle, and then they’ll throw it down on the ground and maybe somebody else come along and they pick it up and they think burning it with a lighter will sterilize it. Well, that’s not so. And then the next thing you know, four or five people use that needle. One needle will probably do 15 people.” In a recent qualitative study of program participants by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, one person who injects drugs recounted this terrifying new reality of using drugs when syringe services programs aren’t readily accessible. We are hearing similar anecdotes from our syringe access site participants. Is a cluster of HIV cases down the road for Marin as well? Read the following article for more background: HIV Transmission in People Who Use Drugs The Spahr Center distributed 146K syringes in 2018 when we were located at our home in San Rafael. Now that we cannot provide syringe access from our offices, we are located at five evening mobile locations. Our distribution is down 83% in the first half of 2019 because of the disruption our move has brought. We need to step up our outreach so that people can once again find us and use all our Harm Reduction services including lifesaving Narcan and connection to treatment. We need to step up our volunteer team also- not only to staff our five (and soon to be more) mobile sites, but to help us meet people and spread the word about our lifesaving services. Call Andy at 415-886-8556 or email Rhiannon at rhiannon.spahr@gmail.com and find out how you can get involved and help us prevent an increase of HIV and Hepatitis C in Marin. |
| Results of the Ryan White – HIV Services Satisfaction SurveyEach year, the County of Marin reaches out to all the clients who have accessed Ryan White Program funded HIV services to measure their satisfaction with the full range of services being provided by The Spahr Center. For 2019, 176 surveys were distributed to clients, who were offered two ways to complete the survey – online or on paper. A total of 89 surveys were returned, yielding a solid 48 percent response rate. This is higher than last year’s response rate of 45 percent. The Spahr Center was honored by the outcome of the survey this year. While our scores have always been in the high 80’s and low 90’s, this year all but one program rated in the mid 90’s. These are our best results yet for the annual survey. We have carefully reviewed individual comments made by survey respondents and are addressing each one that asked us to do better. We greatly appreciate this helpful information, and take each comment very seriously. Many thanks to our HIV services team – Leslie Gallen, David Mon, Maria Camacho and Andy Fyne – for the devotion and skill they put into their work. For more information about the results of the Satisfaction Survey, contact Leslie Gallen at lgallen@thespahrcenter.org |
| Support GroupsThe Spahr Center offers a variety of social support groups. Below is a list of the groups, with a short description. Please click any of the groups to learn more! |
| HIV Groups Latino Support Group – this group is for Latinos living with or affected by HIV.Women’s Support Group – this group is for women living with or affected by HIV.Long Term Survivors Group – this group is for any individual who identifies as a “long-term survivor” of HIV. |
Nepal made history on Saturday (29 June) when hundreds marched through the capital Kathmandu to celebrate LGBTI pride.
More than 300 people donned colorful face paint, carried rainbow umbrellas, and waved flags according to local media.
Although Nepal has held LGBTI pride events in the past, this was the first march through the city in June. Hundreds of LGBTI rights supporters, for example, attend the Gai Jatra festival each year in August.
Queer Youth Group (QYG) and Queer Rights Collective organized the event.
Attendees of the first pride parade in the capital of Nepal Kathmandu. (Photo: Queer Youth Group) 4
‘I feel like these are my people. I know they won’t judge me and I can fully be myself here, attendee Jyoti Shrestha told South Asia Time.
‘People here don’t know the specific terms used and although they know we exist, there is still taboo surrounding this topic,’ Shrestha also said.
One pride attendee shared footage of an apparent confrontation with police on Twitter.
User Shubha Kayastha told pride attendees to take down their rainbow flags outside the designated area.
(A thread) Here is the other side of the Pride parade yesterday that most didn’t see. Police asked us to take off the flags we had around us before we leave restricted area in Baneswor. #PrideParade #Nepal @RukshanaNewa captured by @teentare979:30 PM – Jun 29, 201968 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy
The mountainous South Asian country legalized gay sex in 2007, and theoretically has laws to protect LGBTI equality. It also recognizes a third or ‘other’ gender marker in citizenship documents.
But, local activists have warned, that is not always the case in practice.
‘There has always been a romanticization of Nepal as being one of the more tolerant countries in Asia; however, the ground reality is very different’ organizer Rukshana Kapali told South Asia Time.
A new criminal code enacted in August last year fails to guarantee equal marriage, for example.
The campers at Brave Trails are told, above all else, they get a “second family” while participating in this Los Angeles-based LGBTQ+ youth summer camp.
Brave Trails blossomed out of the love that founders Jessica and Kayla Weissbuch’s share for summer camp and queer youth mentorship.
“With the skills learned at camp, our campers will be primed to thrive in their schools, workplace and personal lives,” Jessica said. “In addition, our campers will have the knowledge and confidence to be more impactful leaders and implement innovative social change in their communities.”
The camp’s program focuses on four key elements: Leadership, Community Building, Self-Realization, and Service. They use workshops, adventure and artistic programming, service projects, peer connections and positive role models to “create a safe space where youth can thrive.” Jessica said that with the skills learned at Brave Trails, campers will be primed to thrive in their schools, workplace and personal lives. In addition, Jessica said that campers will have the knowledge and confidence to be more impactful leaders and implement innovative social change in their communities.
“It is important to have a queer-specific space for our youth because the campers are able to connect with one another in a very different way,” Jessica said. “They are able to talk about things they have in common and find a tribe that they fit into. Even though much of Los Angeles is a liberal bubble, not all of it is.”
Most campers come to Brave Trails with a “shield of armor” on, but through the course of the program, they are able to “take that off,” Jessica said.
“We give them the space to not have to look over their shoulder and defend themselves (which they often have to do at their schools and in their communities),” Jessica explained.
This year, Brave Trails has partnered with Los Angeles-based Camp TAZO ambassador JD Knapp for more fun and mentorship. Camp TAZO® ‘Passion’ was TAZO tea’s inaugural camp experience that brought 30 strangers from across the country to Marble Falls, TX to break out of their comfort zones, and send them to a sleep-away camp directed by vivacious drag queen Alyssa Edwards.
“Brave Trails attendees can expect a surprisingly heartfelt yet undeniably entertaining speech from me this June,” JD said in an interview with the Pride LA. “My life story is truly a work of fiction and I cannot wait to start using my past pain to help encourage and inspire the next generation of LGBTQ+ leaders.
A group of about 12 protestors brought the San Francisco 2019 Pride Parade to a halt on Sunday (30 June). They were drawing attention to the police’s participation in the parade, which they found objectionable because of the treatment by police to members of the LGBTQ Community both in the city and around the world. They also object to the many corporations that participate, that negatively impact the community.
About an hour after the parade began, protestors blocked Market Street by chaining themselves together under rainbow tubes, according to SF Gate.
Other pride attendees also pushed and shoved police officers, CBS reports.
Police arrested at least two people. But, authorities cleared the protest by noon and the march continued. Event organizers worked with the protesters and police to pacify both groups and promised to take the protesters demands under consideration.
Millions of LGBTI supporters took to the streets of New York on Sunday (30 June) to celebrate pride and renew calls for equality.
Some 150,000 participants from 600 contingents hosting more than 100 floats marched down the four-kilometer route, according to BBC News.
An estimated four million people, meanwhile, took to the streets to watch and celebrate New York City Pride Parade.
This year, New York hosted global LGBT-event WorldPride.
The mass march also marked 50 years since Stonewall Riots. On 28 June, 1969, LGBTI community members launched spontaneous protests against discrimination following raids of the Stonewall Inn.
People regard it as the birth of the modern LGBTI rights movement in the US.
But, for the first time, this year activists also marched a separate route to protest the mainstream pride.
A sign reading ‘RuPaul on Rushmore’
The Reclaim Pride Coalition organized the Queer Liberation March. The wanted to protest a pride parade they say has become too money-centric and will be devoid of police or corporate sponsors.View image on Twitter
Reclaim Pride Coalition@queermarch
45,000 strong for queer pride not corporate pride. #QueerLiberationMarch #ReclaimPride3629:20 AM – Jun 30, 2019 · Manhattan, NY149 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy
The estimated 45,000 attendees performed acts of resistance. For instance, on 23rd Street, in collaboration with ACT UP, they held a die-in to represent the 17 HIV+ asylum seekers who died in ICE custody.
The main march, titled New York City Heritage of Pride parade, meanwhile, passed important LGBTI landmarks. These included the Stonewall National Monument and the New York City Aids memorial.
The NYC Pride March – Happy #WorldPrideNYC everyone!2,5039:22 AM – Jun 30, 2019931 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy
Among the Grand Marshals at this year’s Pride is the cast of hit FX show Pose, The Trevor Project, and the Gay Liberation Front (the original group who organized following the Stonewall riots).
New York Mayor and Democrat presidential hopeful Bill De Blasio walked in the parade with his wife.View image on Twitter
Mayor @BilldeBlasio marching in the #WorldPride2019 parade!2311:04 AM – Jun 30, 201916 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy
Representatives from around the world marched in New York. These included a team from London Pride and Taiwan, which became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage this year.
World-renowned artists, including Madonna and Lady Gaga, performed at the WorldPride closing ceremony on one of the city’s piers.
Deutsche Welle reports:
Police pushed back crowds celebrating Istanbul’s 17th gay pride march on Sunday, an event Turkish authorities had banned for the fifth year in a row.
The rally, on a side street off Istanbul’s main pedestrian avenue, drew several hundred people who cheered and waved rainbow flags. Chants of “shoulder to shoulder against fascism” and “we will not be quiet” were heard among the crowd.
“There is a massive police presence all around the city to prevent the celebration of Pride, but despite that, activities are still going on,” DW’s Turkey correspondent Dorian Jones reported, noting also that riot police officers were backed up with water cannon.
The Independent reports:
Police with dogs allowed rally leaders to make a short statement to the media before officers dispersed the crowd with tear gas, blocking the street. Istanbul Pride organisers said they would continue to fight to get sexual orientation and gender identity recognised in Turkish laws.
Amnesty International said the authorities had rejected all suggested locations for the rally by deeming the LGBT+ community “societally objectionable”. In 2014, up to 100,000 people attended a Pride march in Istanbul, but police have tried to block the events since.
The Stonewall riots were a six-night series of protests that began in the early morning of June 28, 1969, and centered around the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City.
Four days earlier, on June 24, 1969, the police, led by Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, raided the Stonewall Inn and began arresting bar employees and confiscating liquor. But when Pine led a second raid on the 28th, patrons fought back. Approximately 150 people fled, regrouped on the street and stormed the bar, trapping the police inside. The protesters began throwing bricks, bottles and garbage, and attempted to set the bar on fire.
For six nights, protesters clashed off and on with police, while chanting and marching in and around Christopher Street.
Today, many credit the protests with sparking the LGBTQ rights movement. But at the time, if you were a New Yorker reading the local, mainstream papers, you wouldn’t know that a new civil rights movement was unfolding in the city.
As someone who studies the history and role of the alternative press, I’ve researched how the Stonewall riots were reported in New York’s mainstream and alternative publications.
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In the days after the Stonewall riots, depending on which paper you read, you would have been exposed to a vastly different version of events. The major dailies gave a megaphone to the police, while alternative outlets embedded themselves among the protesters.
To understand the differences in media coverage, it’s important to recall the relationship between gay people, the press and the police prior to Stonewall.
In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. In New York – home to the largest gay population in the U.S. – police aggressively and systematically targeted places frequented by gay men.
If arrested, a person’s name, age, address and crime would be published as part of the police blotter in most local newspapers across the U.S. For example, if a man was arrested for committing a “homosexual” act in Dayton, Ohio, his information would be published in the Dayton Daily News. Such publication often had disastrous consequences for the person “outed” in print.
Many were disowned by their family, fired from their workplace or dishonorably discharged from the military. Some were targeted for assault or murder.
Gay men, therefore, were forced underground. Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village became a fairly safe locale with bars and coffee shops that surreptitiously catered to a LGBTQ clientele. These bars often were run by the Mafia, which owned the cigarette machines and jukeboxes, and sold watered-down liquor.
Unlike many clubs, the Stonewall Inn, which opened in March 1967, was on a main thoroughfare instead of a side street. The clientele was mostly men, though even marginalized segments of the LGBTQ community frequented the bar because of its two dance floors.
On average, police raided bars once a month, though they typically would warn the bar that a raid was coming and time the raid to minimize disrupting the bar’s business. Police raids usually were accepted by bar employees and clientele.
However, this time was different. Stonewall’s patrons already were upset about the June 24 raid, so when one person resisted arrest, others joined in. The situation quickly escalated.
The scene was tense and chaotic.
Inside Stonewall, Pine gave his officers the order not to shoot, fearing that any additional escalation could lead to a full-scale massacre. Outside, hundreds of protesters were throwing almost anything they could get their hands on, while others were trying to find a way to set Stonewall on fire with the cops inside.
Yet the mainstream media largely failed to adequately cover the protests.
The three city dailies – The New York Times, The New York Daily News and New York Post – wrote a smattering of stories in which they quoted exclusively police sources and offered little context. The story was framed as an instance of lawless youth run amok – an almost unprovoked riot.
For example, the Times’ first Stonewall article, “4 policemen hurt in ‘Village’ raid” began “Hundreds of young men went on a rampage in Greenwich Village shortly after 3 a.m. yesterday after a force of plainclothes men raided a bar that the police said was wellknown for its homosexual clientele.”
The mainstream papers at least covered Stonewall. Local TV stations failed to even report on the riots happening in the heart of Manhattan.
In contrast, the most popular local alternative paper, The Village Voice, gave the riots front-page coverage. It included interviews and quotes from the protesters, as well as two first-person accounts by Voice reporters Howard Smith, who was trapped inside the bar with police officers, and Lucian Truscott IV, who was outside with protesters.
Both reporters initially witnessed the riot from the Voice offices, which were a few doors down Christopher Street from Stonewall.
The Voice’s coverage featured many hallmarks of alternative publications.
By incorporating the views of both protesters and police, they created a more complex, nuanced story. And the paper framed the Stonewall riots as an expression of liberation instead of rebellion, with Smith writing that the protesters were simply “objecting to how they were being treated.”
However, the Voice coverage was far from perfect. The anti-gay tone in Truscott’s piece angered protesters, as did some of the paper’s long-held editorial policies against same-sex personal ads.
While the Voice often was left-of-center politically, it wasn’t as radical as some of its more underground counterparts – the Rat, the East Village Other and the Berkeley Barb, all of which also covered the Stonewall riots.
Still, the Voice served as an important platform for the otherwise voiceless left out of the mainstream discussion during both Stonewall and the paper’s 60-year run. The Voice closed in 2018, following the shuttering of similar publications in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
An alternative press has existed alongside the mainstream since the earliest days of the nation. These papers play an important role in the U.S. media landscape by covering stories and topics that go unreported by their mainstream counterparts. They often forego the pretense of objectivity for activism; rather than quote government officials and business leaders, they’ll quote people on the ground.
Fifty years after Stonewall, it’s important to reflect on the gains of the LGBTQ movement. But it’s equally important to think about what’s lost when alternative newspapers stop publishing – and thus stop covering unreported, underreported or misreported stories.
A new survey reveals most LGBTI Americans are welcoming of police and other groups, such as corporations, at annual Pride parades.
BuzzFeed News and Whitman Insight Strategies conducted the survey from 5-10 June, speaking to 801 LGBTI people in the US. Most of the respondents identified as bisexual (46%). Gay and lesbian respondents were next, at 29 and 17%, respectively. Finally, 7% of respondents identified as transgender and nonbinary, respectively.
The survey asked a broad range of questions, including ones about Pride, gay icons, and the Pride flag.
Police at pride has become a controversial and heated debate in the LGBTI community.
Numerous cities have declared police in uniform are not welcome at their Pride parades, such as Portland and Sacramento. Based on this survey, however, a majority of LGBTI Americans — 79% — said police should be welcome. This includes cops marching in the parade.
The survey did not specify if the question specifically meant police in uniform, or in general.
Results of question about police at Pride | Photo: BUzzFeed News
The survey also found 7 in 10 respondents believe police sometimes discriminate against LGBTI people.
Despite this belief, only 8% said police should absolutely not be allowed to participate at Pride events, such as parades.
This welcoming attitudes towards Pride events extended to groups beyond police. A majority said both corporations (76%) and kink groups (72%) should be able to participate as well. People who responded no unequivocally were equal or lesser to 1 in 10.
Results of question about corportations Pride | Photo: BuzzFeed News
People’s critiques of kink groups present at Pride events often offer family and children as the reasoning for the critiques.
The respondents of this survey, however, also said families with children should be allowed and welcomed. Specifically, 87% said they should be present, even alongside the kink groups.
Chart showing results about kink groups at Pride | Photo: BuzzFeed News
Another component of the survey included questions on diversity and history.
Less than half (45%) said they attended a Pride event this year (or had plans to), but an overwhelming 90% also responded they believe Pride advances LGBTI equality.
Only a little over half (54%) said they knowledge of the Stonewall Riots, but tellingly, 89% said they believed LGBTI history should be taught in schools.
How inclusive lessons or the promotion of LGBTI rights will be remains to be seen, as most respondents (56%) said they do not approve of adding black and brown stripes to the Pride flag to acknowledge LGBTI people of color.
Chart about making the Pride flag more inclusive | Photo: BuzzFeed News
Not according to this survey.
Only 9% of respondents classified her as a gay icon — three points above the Babadook.
Ellen DeGeneres was the clear winner, with 78% of LGBTI people saying she’s a gay icon. Figures like RuPaul (65%), Lady Gaga (53%), Cher (40%), and Madonna (36%) followed.
Finally, a slight majority of people (53%) also believe public figures have a responsibility to come out if they identify as LGBTI.
A Catholic high school in Indiana said Sunday that it is firing an openly gay teacher to avoid “forfeiting our Catholic identity” — the second school in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis to publicly reckon with the issue of homosexuality in a week.
In an open letter, officials with Cathedral High School in Indianapolis said the teacher, who is in a same-sex marriage, was “living in contradiction to Catholic teaching.”
To remain within the archdiocese, the letter said, “Cathedral must follow the direct guidance given to us by Archbishop Thompson and separate from the teacher.”
If the school were to continue employing the teacher, the letter said, Cathedral would no longer be considered a Catholic school. The letter said Cathedral would lose its nonprofit status, its priests would not be able to serve on the school’s board of directors and it could not celebrate important Catholic rituals.
The letter, which was signed by Matt Cohoat, chairman of the school’s board of directors, and president Rob Bridges, described the firing as an “agonizing” decision.
The move was in contrast to another school, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, that defied an order from Archbishop Charles Thompson last week to fire a long-time teacher in a same-sex marriage.
In that case, school officials said Thompson’s “direct insertion into an employment matter of a school governed by a religious order is unprecedented.”
“After long and prayerful consideration, we determined that following the Archdiocese’s directive would not only violate our informed conscience on this particular matter, but also set a concerning precedent for future interference in the school’s operations,” school officials said.
The archdiocese cut ties with Brebeuf after its announcement, The Indianapolis Star reported.
In its letter, Cathedral, which is run by a different order, the Brothers of the Holy Cross, said that while it “respected” Brebeuf’s decision, it could not continue to function in the same way as that Jesuit-sponsored school were it to be banished by the archdiocese.