A Letter From The President

 Bob Dorr, PFLAG Omaha

 Posted on November 28, 2004

On Election Day, voters in 11 states adopted constitutional gay marriage bans—no surprise but hugely disheartening to all of us who want equal rights for our loved ones or for ourselves. Many Americans don’t see marriage as a civil right that should be available equally to same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples.

Over the long term, that will change. In the Omaha-Council Bluffs area, we sense change when we speak in college classrooms about Safe Schools, and when we talk as panel members about our own life experiences. Our audiences—many of them future teachers or present teachers receiving advanced training--are respectful and anxious to learn, and they ask good questions.

It is true that our audiences typically consist of young, well-educated people. They are not the broad range of people that voted on Nov. 2. Still our audiences make us optimistic about the future.

One piece of good election news: Every Massachusetts lawmaker on the ballot who supported gay rights won another term in that state’s Legislature. Same-sex marriage has been a reality in Massachusetts for seven months, and it no longer is the hypothetical threat feared by citizens of the 11 states that voted against it. Hundreds of same-sex couples have been married in Massachusetts without any uproar or dire consequences.

What is clear to me is this: For years to come, this human rights struggle will require Omaha PFLAG’s best efforts. We will continue to take our message to any audience that will hear us. And at the same time we will continue all our other support, education and advocacy efforts.

We need your financial support now more than ever. If you received a dues envelope with this mailing, please renew your membership for another year. We have higher costs, including a recent increase in the amount we pay to National PFLAG from your dues. Thus we are raising dues after Jan. 1 to $50 annually for a family membership, and to $45 for a single membership. Renew now at the lower rate of $40 and $35.

Other items:

--Please come to our Dec. 9 support meeting and bring two dozen cookies to share with the group. This will be an evening of holiday socializing. Our support time is important, and we will have that from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Come at 6:30 p.m. for pre-meeting socializing and then stay after support time for more fellowship.

--For the second year, National PFLAG is offering college scholarships to graduating high school students who are GLBT or are straight allies. Omaha PFLAG is distributing scholarship materials to Omaha-Council Bluffs area high schools and to our Proud Horizons youth support group. Our thanks go to Omaha PFLAG members Judy Hancock and Fred Smith, who are heading this effort locally.

--At the National PFLAG convention in Salt Lake City in October, New York University Sociology Professor Judith Stacy discussed her research into same-sex parenting. She concluded that, as a group, children raised by same-sex couples are no different in their health and well-being from children raised by heterosexual couples. Other research points to the same conclusion. The critical difference is the quality of the relationship between the parents and their children, and not whether the parents are a same-sex or opposite-sex couple.

Bob Dorr, president