| November E-Newsletter |
| Volume II / Issue 10 / November 4, 2006 www.respectsacramento.org |
| 5. GSA Network News Register your GSA Before you plan any events for your GSA, remember to register or re-register your group with the GSA Network. Do it NOW to make sure you receive our student resource sheets, FREE posters, other resources, and notifications of future GSA Network or LGBT-related events (see below). Register online at http://www.gsanetwork.org/register/index.html If you have any questions or concerns, contact: Tanya Mayo, Program Director tanya@gsanetwork.org 415-552-4229 Save the date - Queer Youth Advocacy Day, March 26,2007 Mark your calendars for QYAD 2007 on March 26 in Sacramento! Queer Youth Advocacy Day is a youth-led lobby day at the Capitol where hundreds of youth activists come together and educate lawmakers about the need for statewide policy that will make schools safer and more supportive for LGBTQ youth. QYAD 2006 was huge success that brought 500 people to the Capitol, showed California legislators the power of youth activism, and opened a lot of people's eyes to the kind of harassment and discrimination still faced by many students. Now, it's time to go back to the Capitol and show them that we're still fighting for safer schools! WHO: LGBTQ youth & their allies WHERE: Crest Theater & the Capitol (Sacramento) WHEN: Monday, March 26, 2007 WHY: To network with other youth activists, learn important advocacy skills, and help make change for schools all over California Informational packets with additional details will be mailed out later this fall to all GSAs registered with GSA Network. Keep an eye on your mailboxes! For more info, email advocacy@gsanetwork.org or call 415-552-4229. |
| 3. Hey! Vote! We're a non-profit, so we can't tell you who to vote for. But needless to say, there are a lot of important state and local races and ballot measures this year. There are avowed anti-gay school board candidates in at least two districts (Sacramento City and San Juan) and ballot propositions that affect school funding, the health and safety of school-age youth, and the ability of groups of all sorts (ours included) to raise money and affect change. Vote like your well being and the well being of your community depends on it. After all, it does. |
| That's enough for now. Did I leave anything out? Please drop me a line. Do you have an announcement or item that you'd like to include in our newsletter? Would you like to write an opinion piece about something in the LGBT education area? Tell us about what's going on in your GSA! Send complaints, comments, or submissions to admin@respectsacramento.org and I will be happy to place it in our newsletter, which is composed at the end of the current month and sent out in the first week of the subsequent month. Make this your newsletter by contributing to it! See you at our next meeting on November 8 at the Lambda Community Center at 6:30 pm. Jerry O'Connor Respect Sacramento Board Member Respect Sacramento PO Box 191678 Sacramento CA 95819 (916) 733-2135 info@respectsacramento.org www.respectsacramento.org |
| 1. From the Editor Two of our board members attended the LGBT Town Hall meeting last week at the Sierra 2 Center, during which prominent leaders from Sacramento's LGBT community and representatives of government, law enforcement, business, and the media discussed the rise of anti-gay vitriol coming from certain segments of Sacramento's immigrant and religious community. One of the most moving and emotional testimonies came from a student at Natomas High School who has endured harassment and physical abuse from peers and indifference and disrespect from administration and staff. Many who were present appeared surprised to hear of such things occurring in our local schools, or at least at a school with an apparent LGBT-friendly school board. Some may have thought that changes in California law and the existence of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs on school campuses have lessened the amount and severity of discrimination and harassment in our public schools. Some may have thought that the passage of a few gay-friendly school board resolutions in one school district would force changes in our entire region. They may have believed that these things had come to pass. Not us. The board members of Respect Sacramento know all too well how much needs to be done in the Sacramento area to ensure that all students in our schools are learning in safe and harassment-free campuses. Sometimes we look at how much needs to be done and we wonder how we can do it alone. The fact is, we can't. The members of our little organization have worked as hard as we can with little means and limited support to effect some changes in our schools. One of our members wrote the first Sacramento City Unified School District board resolution in support of sexual minority youth and was indispensable in creating the LGBT Task Force to implement the board's resolution. We remain as leaders on that Task Force. We created the first draft of the Day of Silence resolution that aroused the ire of the bigoted and intolerant in our city. We have been instrumental in bringing safe schools training to teachers in the San Juan Unified School District. And we've run training workshops for youth every year, sometimes twice in a year. We've done a lot, but we've only made a dent. We remain convinced that little of substance will change without the concerted effort of our entire community - LGBT and straight - to force local schools to put an end to the harassment and discrimination and require that ALL staff members be trained in recognizing and combating anti-gay slurs, bullying, and abuse. Many in attendance at the Town Hall meeting expressed a desire to change the way things are in our area schools. After the end of the meeting, I spoke with several people who demonstrated an interest in helping to create that change. The members of our organization do not care who makes those changes, who gets the credit, or even how they are accomplished. We simply want to see that they are done. We can't do it alone. We need people with desire and commitment to join us, or for other community members or groups to step up and ask for our assistance or collaboration in their efforts. We couldn't care less if the work comes through our group, or PFLAG, or Lambda, or Stonewall, or the County Office of Education... we just want to see the goal attained. Email, call, write, shake some trees, join us or support our allies. But do something. It's a problem here and now, not in Washington or Los Angeles. |
| Quote Unquote "There's nothing wrong with asking a candidate if he's gay. It's just like asking him if he's married, dating anyone or has children. There's nothing shameful about being gay." - Eric Hegedus, president, National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, as quoted in Express South Florida "I am always 100 percent open. All the skeletons in the closet need to be out when you run for public office. People like the fact, whether they disagree or agree with you, but they like you being honest." - Scott Gruendl, mayor of Chico CA, as quoted in Bay Area Reporter |
| Anti-gay t-shirt battle heads to Supreme Court Oct. 29 SAN FRANCISCO (365gay. com) A conservative legal group that regularly fights against LGBT issues is asking the US Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling involving a student who wore an anti-gay T-shirt to school. In April a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit found that Poway Unified School District had not violated the First Amendment rights of student Tyler Chase Harper when it kicked him out of class for not removing the homemade T-shirt that said on the front "Be ashamed, our school embraced what God has condemned," and on the back "Homosexuality is shameful". The teen wore the shirt on the National Day of Silence in 2004. Harper, with the help of the Alliance Defense Fund sued the school and sought an injunction barring Poway from refusing to allow students to wear clothing with a political or social message. The panel addressed only the narrow issue of whether the dress code should be unenforced pending the outcome of the student's First Amendment suit. A majority of judges said, however, that Tyler Chase Harper was unlikely to prevail on claims that the Poway Unified School District violated his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion Following the ruling his lawyers appealed for the full Ninth Circuit to review the case and the panel's ruling. In a brief order, the court said that a majority of its judges voted not to reconsider the case. Harper was a sophomore at Poway High in 2004 when he wore the T- shirt to protest the Gay-Straight Alliance held a "Day of Silence". The year before, the campus was disrupted by protests and conflicts between students over the Day of Silence. After Harper refused to take off the T-shirt, Poway High School's principal kept Harper out of class and assigned him to do homework in a conference room for the rest of the day. He was not suspended from school. The First Amendment suit has yet to be heard. But the ADF filed papers with the Supreme Court on Friday asking the justices to examine the 9th circuit decision. “The 9th Circuit carved out a new category of protected speech,” said ADF attorney Tim Chandler. “That has the potential to transform what schools across the country can do with their speech codes.” An attorney for the school district said the request for Supreme Court intervention should wait until the full case is decided by the lower courts. Michigan store that sponsored GSA homecoming float targeted for vandalism, boycott Nov. 2 MASON MI (Lansing City Pulse ) On a blustery late October afternoon in Mason, several teenagers huddled under a white canopy in the parking lot of a small record store to celebrate its first anniversary. The teens sported various body piercings, and most wore oversized hooded sweatshirts. Sharing cake and coffee, they ignored the gust of wind that pulled up the corners of the canopy as they listened to a live band. But the celebration may be short- lived, according to Teri Yale, owner of Davey’s Basement, the alternative record shop in downtown Mason. Yale said many residents of the small city have attempted to push her shop out of town. The store has been hit with a number of labels and accusations, has been subjected to police visits, and now is being boycotted, Yale said. All for sponsoring a gay-straight alliance student group’s float at Mason High School’s Sept. 29 homecoming parade, she said. “The store was just dead, for two days the door didn’t even open,” Yale said of the days following the parade. “Then, we would get out- of-towners, people driving through or people from Lansing, but a lot of regulars just stopped coming in.” More... Gay student in fear in Australia Nov. 3 BRISBANE QUEENSLAND (365gay.com) Keith Phillips once told his teacher he would die for the right "to be himself". The Year 10 Alexandra Hills State High School student is openly gay and says Year 12 students have bullied and taunted him with verbal abuse. Yesterday Keith, 15, missed school because of a warning of possible violence. Keith's mother Trudy Lillicrap said the school had called her on Thursday night asking her to ensure Keith took the next day off because the school had received information his safety was under threat from a group of Year 12 students. Although unsure if he would return to school, Keith said he was willing to face the situation. "I'm not going to sit at home and hide..." he said. Ms Lillicrap said that she was worried the boys would not face any consequences because it was the end of the school year. "I'm really glad they (the school) rang me... but... there was nothing done," Ms Lillicrap said. She said the school simply told her it was watching a handful of students and feared what would happen if Keith appeared at school. |
| Contents 1. From the Editor 2. Our next meeting November 8 3. Hey! Vote! 4. Announcements 5. GSA Network News |
| Blurbs |