A Letter From The President
CFEP’S Michael Gordon to Discuss Advocacy
Bob Dorr, PFLAG Omaha
Posted on March 25, 2008
PFLAG’s mission statement has three pillars: support, education and advocacy. The subject of our April 10 program is advocacy. The speaker is Michael Gordon, executive director of Citizens for Equal Protection, the point political group in Nebraska for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender causes.
Michael, who is no stranger to Omaha PFLAGers, will talk about the Nebraska Legislature’s passage this session of an anti-bullying bill, a long-sought victory for GLBT forces and for everyone else who wants safety in the public schools for all students. He also will discuss the recent court victory in Iowa for same-sex marriage, which could be overturned on appeal.
The April 10 meeting will start at 7 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 7020 Cass St., in Mead Hall (west end of building), with the program at 8 p.m. following support time. Come at 6:30 p.m. for pre-meeting coffee and socializing.
SUPPORT TIME: Sometimes at the end of a PFLAG meeting, I leave Mead Hall feeling really good. That night during support time, someone has received some of the help they desperately need. After 15 years in Omaha PFLAG, the last seven as president, I continue to be amazed at the simplicity involved in Support Time—and also amazed at the good that can result. Most of us in the Support Time Circle know each other. We are veteran PFLAGers. We have our own life experiences.
At most meetings, one or two or a few in the Support Circle are new. They have found PFLAG through word of mouth, by calling our telephone Help Line or by checking our Internet web site. It has taken courage for them to walk through the door of our meeting place. When they get there, they find a warm embrace. They are feeling heartache. We listen, we gently question, we offer words of encouragement.
I also am continually amazed as the number of veteran PFLAGers who keep coming each month and telling little parts of their own stories because they want to be in the place where their life experience might help some new person. I can’t count the number of times I have listened to a veteran PFLAGer with experience in the matter being discussed saying exactly the right thing. I sit there and think how lucky I am to lead this type of organization.
The most important message we give at Support Time is this: You aren’t alone. What is devastating is a feeling of isolation. New people come thinking they don’t know any other parent of a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender offspring. They leave knowing there are many other people out there with similar life experiences. On their way out, some stop and thank me or another PFLAGer for the help they received, and to say they will be back.
Our Support Time is an enormously important part of our work as PFLAGers. And yet I almost never write about it. The reason involves confidentiality. What is said during Support Time must stay inside the walls of Mead Hall. I don’t want to write something that would breach someone’s confidentiality.
However, now and then I get someone’s permission to write about their reaction to our Support Time. A decade ago, Tom Fredericksen Jr., came to his first PFLAG meeting as a high school student struggling with uncertainties. Over the years he attended other meetings of PFLAG and of Proud Horizons, and for a time he spoke as a panelist during our Safe Schools appearances.
We didn’t realize until he wrote a letter before he left for the East Coast to continue his college education how much help PFLAG had given him during his roller-coaster life in high school and college. He wrote in part:
“When I came out at age 17, I felt like I was completely alone. . . I can honestly say that I never thought about ending my own life, but I felt that my life, as I knew it, had ended. . .That all began to change in one night: April 9, 1998, my first PFLAG-Omaha meeting. . . It may seem strange that I remember the exact date, but the memory is so vivid because of the drastic change that happened after just two hours. By the time I left that evening, I began to feel a lot better about myself. . .I started to develop a sense of pride—the opposite of shame—in myself as a gay man. . .
“I am truly a better person for my affiliation with all of you, and I am writing to thank you and to let you know that your work is helping and your mission is succeeding.”
Bob Dorr, Omaha PFLAG president
