Articles From Our December, 2003 Newsletter

Its time once again for our annual holiday pot luck at PFLAG/KC. It’s a festive time so bring some festive food, enough for yourselves and maybe for an extra person who maybe forgot it was potluck time.

The festivities will begin at 3:00 PM at the regular place, Room 307 at Village Presbyterian Church, 6641 Mission Rd.

Come join us and bring your loved ones along. It’ll be a typical PFLAG great time of celebration and fellowship.

HALLELUJAH!
Have we got a holiday show for you!

The 100-voice Heartland Men's Chorus sends you holiday greetings with a wonderful concert at the Folly Theater in downtown Kansas City.
"Angels" will be presented at 8 pm, Saturday, December 6 and 4 pm Sunday, December 7, 2003.

For more information and to order your tickets, check our website: www.hmckc.org/angels.htm  or phone 816-931-3338.

In addition, Internationally-known children's author Tomie dePaola will appear with the chorus in a world premier of a musical to be presented in a special one-hour "Family Matinee" at 3 pm, Saturday, December 6. HMC commissioned this new children's musical from Tomie's delightful holiday book "Country Angel Christmas."

Tickets are priced to make this holiday show affordable for the whole family: adult tickets are just $8, and each adult ticket qualifies for a FREE child's ticket. Additional child tickets are just $4. See ticket info above. Don’t miss it!!!

From Our President

It's Thanksgiving weekend and I find myself grateful…for many things. My kids are all here and their friends are bopping in and out-calling and coming by for a meal or a cup of hot chocolate. At the same time, I'm mindful of those who head home for the holidays only to wear their "straight" mask again. How frightened they must be, always guarding their conversations and hiding who they are from those they love the most. What are we all so frightened of? As I think about the recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court to allow same-sex civil marriage, I know many are frightened. Not me. I'm grateful. Grateful to the couples who applied for their marriage licenses knowing the battles that loomed ahead. Grateful for their moxie because they are paving the way for many-including my son.

In our initial "coming out" conversation with our son, he told his father and me that he wanted what we had. He wanted to be married and to have children some day. It seemed like too much information at the time but, again, I'm grateful for the things my son values. As it turns out, there are countless other gays who value what we in the straight community have taken for granted (for years). They want what we've had and rightly so-basic human rights.

I've never considered myself an activist or very savvy politically, but that too is changing. I'm grateful to all of you who continue to challenge what I have always thought to be true and/or right. Turns out, I have much to learn. I am willing. I'm heading into the holiday season with great joy and hope: grateful for the changes I see being made in this incredible country. It may be a slow march, but we press on. Keep the faith.
Jamie Lee

p.s.
Hey all!! Bob Minor will be speaking at our meeting in January-I'm totally pumped!! I'm still working with the A.C.A about their April convention- Bob is willing to be there the whole time to sign books- all proceeds to go to PFLAG! (about $6 a book).

- Gays' Right to a Union, If Not to 'Marriage'

(Staff Note: Gail Folkman is a member of the San Diego PFLAG chapter.)
San Diego Union Tribune, November 21, 2003

Hooray for the brave Massachusetts Supreme Court justices who have rendered a decision that gay and lesbian U.S. citizens are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual U.S. citizens. Makes perfect sense to me. What the non-gay world doesn't realize is that heterosexual married couples are protected by more than 1,000 laws that gay or lesbian couples do not have, as attested to in the November 2003 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning, pages 46-50.

Even when the non-gay world begins to grasp this notion, it seems to be unable to separate the civil marriage from the religious rites of a wedding. No one is demanding that all churches, synagogues or mosques allow gay/lesbian weddings, but they do want to have the right to a legal civil marriage and the benefits and obligations that result from that license. This really isn't so complicated; and heterosexual couples, as we know them now, have nothing to lose by allowing all citizens to enjoy the same rights they have.

I speak as the proud mother of two wonderful adult gay children, who, so far, have had the short end of the stick for just being born gay. And no, they didn't choose to be gay.

GAIL FOLKMAN, San Diego

Editorial

One year ago, transgender teens Stephanie Thomas and Ukea Davis were coldly executed while they sat in a car in Washington DC. Less than a week ago, popular local entertainer Bella Evangelista Perez was murdered and another transgender woman assaulted - and now this morning, the body of an un-named transsexual woman was found brutalized in South East DC with the exact cause of death still under investigation. Between these heinous crimes one year ago and now this week is a string of bloody murders and an unknown multitude of beatings, abuse and intimidations. There is at least one reported murder of a transgender person, usually also a person of color, in our nation every month. Our hearts break for the families and friends of these victims.

We are sad. We are ashamed. We are outraged that each day, each of us walks the streets with potential batterers and murderers who believe that they can with impunity, for whatever reasons, brutalize those who are among most marginalized and discriminated-against members of our society.

In a nation formed on the basis of freedom and individual rights, violence against individuals who have done no more than live their lives with personal integrity and honesty must be condemned. It is not enough to let the police and the courts do their jobs. We must work to translate hate into understanding, pain into hope and anger into action.

PFLAG has worked tirelessly to promote legislation that would add sexual orientation and gender identity as a basis for crime to proposed and existing hate crimes laws. We have been in the forefront of acknowledging that the transgender community has experienced a devastating history of harassment, misunderstanding and hate crimes perpetrated against them.

But we all know that law is not enough. No law will protect any of us from lawless individuals who are blinded with hate, intolerance and fear of those who are different from themselves. For that, we must transform our society -- from the courts to the legislature to our places of worship to our own hearts.

Let us grieve for these women and for all the women and men whose lives have been snatched away by intolerance. In this time of mourning, let's reach out to each other and vow to continue the fight.

Editorial from
www.pflag.org

EPISCOPAL GAY BISHOP AN “AFFRONT” TO TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians are an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church’s founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, and his wife Anne Boleyn, and his wife Jane Seymour, and his wife Anne of Cleves, and his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriage.

PFLAG SUPPORTS REAL FAMILY VALUES