The young activists of QueerToday.com express our utmost gratitude for the support we have received for our recent protesting efforts.
I want to personally thank Gerry of the StoneWall Warriors/International Action Center, and Karen, Christine, and the other leaders of the October 29th Coalition. We could never have pulled off a successful protest against Focus On The Family without you!!
I am sorry that QueerToday.com is not a larger more established and organized group so that we could have offered more support and marchers in the anti-war efforts - but we are a new young group so very grateful for the support we have received from you. As QueerToday.com grows we will not forget the support you have given us and we promise to work together on future initiatives.
I would also like to thank the Bisexual Resource Center, who endorsed our protest last week.
In addition to our official endorsements we have received support from many individuals in our community. Most people in our community are glad we are asking the gay establishment to broaden their agendas to create a truly queer social justice movement. Thank you to all of you who showed up at the protests and sent us e-mail. I would especially like to thank the queer adults out there who showed up to support the young activists of QueerToday.com.
There are others in our community who do not understand why we are not single-issue focused. They send us emails complaining that we show up at pro-choice rallies, anti-war marches, etc. I hope that after they saw the awesome protest we created with the October 29th Coalition they will see the importance and effectiveness of true coalition building.
Still there are others in the gay community who sent us emails and complaints about being too radical, too outraged, too in-your-face. They are mostly adults who are worried we will seem too bizarre or angry in the news, thus ruining the "mainstream" image they wish the gay community would show the world.
Let me be very clear to the gay community of Boston: QueerToday will continue to express our outrage against all forms of injustice. We do not care if the news captures us in drag protesting on the streets in the spirit of Stonewall. We do not care if we threaten your obsession with presenting the gay community as "mainstream." We know that being queer is innately NOT mainstream, and it never will be. - Mark Snyder
What happened?
We had about 50 protestors in front of the Love Won Out Conference throughout the snowy afternoon. QueerToday.com supplied 2 lifesized coffins to represent queer youth suicides caused by Focus On The Family's homophobic attitudes and their refusal to support gay straight alliances in high schools. We also had a large banner that read Focus On The Family: Racist Sexist Anti-gay. In the afternoon about a thousand people joined us from the anti-war march. QueerToday led the anti-war protestors in chants against the Love Won Out Conference. Our spies tell us you could hear it in the main room of the conference. We have also learned that Love Won Out cancelled their lunch break and had lunch catered because of our protest!
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7 comments:
radical queers unite.
fuck gay gap usa.
It was disappointing to see how small the mention in the Boston Globe was, especially after their recent series on Right-wing Evangelicals.
The globe coverage was dissapointing all around. For the anti-war march attended by at least a thousand they used a photograph of one of a handful of pro-war protestors.
If the news is that there is a big anti-war march then you talk about the anti-war march and you show the anti-war march.
If the news is about a pro-war march then you show that and talk about that.
There is this obsession in the media with showing "both sides" but it ends up being really unfair.
I was sad that some of the media that was there ended up not using their reports as well - on our protest against focus.
ABC 40 will have a story out later this week.
Hi Queer today
i feel so saddened that I did not make it into your protest on saturday, how efficacious that would have made me feel. I'm a midlife divorced mom living alone in the country with my 2 beautiful kids. with energy and purpose i outed and then divorced and then bought out the home impoverishing myself but giving the kids a place to stay through high school.
my sister has 4 children. the first born, age 16, has been put in therapy with focus on the family, kept in evangelical fundamentalist high school, and put on surveillance for attempting to gay actualize. the second born, is gender dysphoric since birth and needs boatloads of love, instead of denial or forced clothing marches, fundamentalist biblical theology, prosthelytizing high school, removal of all computers, monitoring, they are the real deal. they are what i lose it over. i'm the adult. i can deal.
but in the dealing process, i have apparently been cut out and cut off. I'm too together. I'm happy queer. My kids have no shame. I'm like, you know, just way too lesbian happy for my sister and way too good of an Aunt. i am not allowed to be near these 4 children that my sister birthed. all those baby parties. all that pregnancy assistance with bedrest. all that trying to be the sister and aunt that I wanted to be down the toilet, because, you know I'm as my sister likes to say "one of those." after a lifetime of being the best aunt, the super aunt, the great mommy, the one involved in every kids charity and community thing from here to timbucktoo, i am cut off, ostracized. dobson, he's the man, isn't he? i figure it is because I am a super mom, a loving aunt, a hell of a band-aid applier, emathatic, and cool. shit, think of the damage I could do. I'm out to my own kids, we are happier than pigs in shit about it, we are proud, queer, AND kid loving. and for this, all this pain and sadness from my sister who has quietly, stealthily, and persistently, affected my ex, and my family. i'm such a freakin' woman to fear, aren't I?
my sister deemphasizes the ostracization. it is done quietly. i was exorcised without even a whisper. amazing. If I bark about it, I'm looked at in indignation. god forbid we call the damn mental police because she is damaging her kids and herself with this monumental devotion to a cult.
what hypocrisy. what pain. what a freakin' futile waste. I don't know if you hear from lesbian moms much with case scenarios such as mine. but to rub salt into the wound, my ex h babysat my sister's 3 kids saturday so that she could actually attend the love won out conference, most probably with the cured gay nephew, my godson, an awesome kid who has been pulled out of his hobbies and passions and made to therapeutically avert.
tell me you all made a difference. forgive me for not being there. write me and tell me when I can show up for dobbieboy's next child abuse conference.
dobbiedunce should know that I was suicidal as a pubescent/teenager because I couldn't actualize. but deep down he probably thinks it decreases the non-averting gay population. what a waste of teenagehood for my nephew and niece, what risk for depression and suicide, what devotion at the altar of predudice and hate all wrapped up in the warm fuzzy glow of medicate and repent.
thanks.
country Mom and Sad Aunt
You're absolutely right. The Love Won Out Conference and all of the ex-gay ministries is child abuse. We'll keep you updated! Be sure to sign up for our action alerts.
Thanks so much for your support!
Why do you heterophobes hate the First Amendment and Freedom of religion?
I personally love the first amendment and freedom of religion. But if you use religion to preach psuedo-science and homophobia I'll come to your doorstep and protest.
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