A Letter From The President

New Home for Pride Celebration

 Bob Dorr, PFLAG Omaha

 Posted on May 29, 2008

The annual Nebraska Pride celebration will have a picturesque new home this year: Lewis and Clark Landing on Omaha’s riverfront. The June 21 date for the Pride Parade and Festival is one week later than usual.

The parade will start at 11 a.m. from 10th and Pacific Streets. Come earlier to join our Omaha PFLAG marching group. By taking part, you will declare your pride as the parent of a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender offspring, or your pride in being GLBT. And you will have a blast.

Wear your Omaha PFLAG T-Shirt. If you don’t have a PFLAG T-Shirt, buy one for $15 at our June 12 meeting. Omaha PFLAG will carry a new banner with a new design. If you have a rainbow umbrella, bring it. Stop at a store on your way to the parade and buy a handful of helium-filled balloons to distribute to youngsters along the route.

The parade route will be different, heading north on 10th Street to Farnam Street, turning east on Farnam to 8th Street, turning north on 8th and ending at 8th Street and Riverfront Drive under the I-480 bridge near the Lewis and Clark Landing festival site.

Sign up at our June meeting to help staff the PFLAG festival booth, which will be open from noon Saturday until 6 p.m. or so. Pride opens with a show Friday night at Lewis and Clark Landing.

Pride Co-Chair Johnnie Richards will come to PFLAG’s June 12 meeting to speak about the Pride celebration.

PLACE OF PURE JOY: For the young people at the Tom Mahony Pride Prom—gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and their allies--the fellowship hall at First United Methodist Church was a place of pure joy on May 17. They had their own special prom, something most of their elders didn’t experience while growing up. The hall resounded with noise and energy.

Attendance has increased every year, reaching 266 this year. The Pride Prom committee, led by Proud Horizons facilitators Barb and Tom Johnson, outdid itself. Betty and I felt a great sense of pride in being there. Read a report on Pride Prom elsewhere in this newsletter.

REPARATIVE THERAPY, the misguided notion that gay, lesbian and bisexual people can and should change their sexual orientation, came to Hastings College in Hastings, Neb., on March 31. Mike Haley of Focus on the Family and Exodus International gave a talk advocating reparative therapy.

As people arrived for Haley’s talk, members of PFLAG Hastings and the Hastings College Alliance along with other allies handed out PFLAG brochures, other information, brownies and rainbow cookies. Judy Sandeen, former Alliance sponsor and founder of PFLAG Hastings, said she hoped people would understand that Haley’s view “isn’t necessarily the Christian approach. . . many Christians love and accept GLBT persons just as they are, and believe that God does, too.”

Hurrah for the Hastings folks!

JUDY SHEPARD, Jody Huckaby and Mara Kiesling will speak at the PFLAG Mountain West Regional Conference Sept. 19-21 in Boulder, Colo. Judy heads the Matthew Shepard Foundation named after her late son, who was a hate-crime victim; Jody is executive director of PFLAG, and Mara is executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. There will be interesting and helpful workshops, and you will meet great people. If you are interested in attending, let me know. For details and registration: www.pflagmountainwest.org

WE ARE THRILLED: Two of this year’s 16 National PFLAG scholarship winners are graduating Omaha high school seniors. We will tell you who they are and a little bit about them and their plans in next month’s newsletter.

DECLINE TO SIGN petitions being circulated by an outside group that would place on the Nebraska ballot a proposed state constitutional amendment banning affirmative action. It carries the confusing title, Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative Petition. Petitioners need to collect 115,000 signatures by July 4. Groups opposing this petition drive include the NAACP, ACLU-Nebraska and the Omaha Chamber of Commerce. For more information, go to: www.NebraskansUnited.org

AND FINALLY, if you think it has been two months since you received an Omaha PFLAG newsletter, you are correct. When the May newsletter should have been published, editor Vicki Wiese was on a trip abroad. Betty and I were in Ft. Worth, Tex., attending the quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church and taking part in activities seeking the full inclusion of GLBT people in the United Methodist Church. We will reach that goal, but not quickly.

Thanks to Gay Biga for running PFLAG’s May meeting.

Bob Dorr, Omaha PFLAG president