Articles From Our July, 2008 Newsletter

Greetings and Happy 4th of July to all! On Sunday July 13th, it will be our pleasure to have back as PFLAG/KC’s guest speaker, George Turner. For over15 years, George has been helping people through the challenges of life, improve their professional performance and increase the quality of their life. A Graduate of the University of Kansas, George is licensed in both Kansas and  Missouri. He is also a certified therapist having received post-graduate advanced clinical training in sex therapy . H is currently finishing his doctorate at Widener University. He is the Owner of  the Turner Professional Group, with offices in Overland Park and Westport. TPG helps clients in the areas of relationship enhancement, sexual health and personal wellness. Please join us on Sunday to welcome George back once again to PFLAG/KC.

Turner Professional Group

816-931-8255

george@turnerprofessionalgroup.com

From Our President

Dear PFLAG Family,

Thank you to all who participated at Pride fest this year and survived the heat.  It was a wonderful time and many contacts were made throughout the community.

We have several upcoming speaking events within the community for LGBT groups within local companies as well as YLI (formerly Anytown) which is a gathering of high school students.  If anyone would be willing to participate in what was previously referred to as a speaker's bureau, please contact me.  I would be more than happy to give you some examples of speaking engagements we have had in the past.  Many of these take place during business hours during the week.  We are always looking for people that are available to represent PFLAG.

I look forward to hearing George Turner, our July presenter.  August will bring Sandy Krigel, an attorney who will speak about adoption and estate planning issues for GLBT clients.  September will bring representatives from Black Gay Pride to discuss specific needs within the Black GLBT community.  If you have an idea for a program or speaker, please contact any Board member.

Thank you for all that you do within our organization and our community as a whole!

Randy

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

American Family Association gets caught rewriting Associated Press stories. 

   The American Family Association website onenewsnow.com tagline is  “Your latest point of view from a Christian perspective”. They have op-ed pieces from anti-gay authors, but also rely on content from the Associated Press. They routinely make changes in AP stories to give them an anti-gay slant. They also use a filter system to replace every instance of the word “gay” with “homosexual”. So when Olympic athlete Tyson Gay ran the fastest 100m of all time, the headline at onenewsnow.com read “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials”……...hmmmm???

The National Anti-violence Project (NAVP) is based in New York, and it gathers data from GLBT anti-violence programs across the USA and collates them into annual reports. It gathers data on both GLBT bias related crimes and assaults, and GLBT domestic violence. The current reports and those for previous years can be downloaded from the NAVP website.

The statistics reported by the NAVP differ greatly from those reported by official government sources. It is generally recognized that official sources under-represent GLBT bias related crimes by as much as 75% as victims are often afraid to report the incident to the authorities for fear of further discrimination, and harassment, or for fear of disclosure of their sexual orientation or gender identity to families or employers.

National PFLAG Military Issues

Over the course of the last 10 years, more than 7,500 discharges – at the cost of more than a quarter billion dollars – have been the result of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gay and lesbian members of the military in the U.S. The policy has proven to be destructive and counterproductive, harming national security and obliterating the concepts of equality and fairness.

PFLAG opposes the ban on gay and lesbian service members in the U.S. military because it denies the opportunity to serve their country simply on the basis of sexual orientation. It denies talented and patriotic Americans a chance to be part of the armed forces and deprives the armed forces of qualified, committed, and talented Americans who can boost military effectiveness.

This policy must be rejected to restore opportunity to patriotic Americans who wish to serve their country and to establish a fair, equal, and effective plan for the U.S. armed forces.

PFLAG SUPPORTS REAL FAMILY VALUES