A Letter From The President
How Are GLBT Bills Doing in the Legislature?
Bob Dorr, PFLAG Omaha
Posted on February 19, 2007
How Are GLBT Bills Doing in the Legislature? (Headline)
Michael Gordon, political point person for gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender issues in Nebraska , will speak at Omaha PFLAG’s March 8 meeting.
Michael is executive director of Citizens for Equal Protection (CFEP). He will update us on three bills in the Legislature that would extend rights and protections to the GLBT community and to others.
They are: LB 205, which would require all Nebraska school districts to adopt an anti-bullying policy; LB 571, which would allow any two persons to adopt a child, and LB 475, which would add sexual orientation and marital status as protected classes in the existing Nebraska Fair Employment Practices Act. The employment anti-discrimination bill had its public hearing recently, and the hearing went well.
COLD DAY, WARM HEARTS: It was six below zero at 8 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, when Betty and I drove downtown to take part in the fifth annual Marriage Action sponsored by Metropolitan Community Church of Omaha. Tamra Burlingame and Sherry Polito applied for a marriage license in the Douglas County Clerk’s Office. As expected, they were denied. Same-gender marriages are not legal in Nebraska . Eight of us, led by MCC Pastor Tom Emmett, were there to support Tamra and Sherry.
Some day, hopefully not too many years off, Tamra and Sherry will have the same civil rights from marriage that Betty and I have taken for granted for nearly 50 years.
LOVE WON OUT: This traveling conference put on by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family will come to Omaha on Saturday, April 14, with an all-day session at Trinity Church on West Dodge. The conference promotes the false notion that homosexuality is a choice and can be altered though “reparative therapy.”
Omaha PFLAG has joined a group that is planning a public response that will affirm our conviction that all of God’s children are worthy and loved just as they are. Our response will include an interfaith religious service the night of April 13. Details will follow in next month’s newsletter.
CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE COURTS: The final program of four sponsored by the Nebraska Judicial Networking Coalition will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 27, at UNO’s Milo Bail Student Center, Dodge Room A.
The panelists are UNL Law School Dean Steve Willborn, Kathleen Neary, Bassel El-Kasaby and Susan Koenig.
The Judicial Networking Coalition consists of Omaha PFLAG and seven other groups. Past programs have been excellent, but audiences have been small.
OMAHA PEACE AND JUSTICE EXPO: Omaha PFLAG will have a booth for displaying our pamphlets and other literature at the Omaha Peace and Justice Expo from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 15 at UNO’s Milo Bail Student Center . Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan will be the main speaker at 2 p.m.
Cindy’s son was killed in Iraq . She gained national attention in 2005 when she and other protesters camped outside President Bush’s ranch in Texas and demanded an audience with the President. Admission is $5.
GREMLINS IN THE DVD? We tried unsuccessfully for a second time at our February PFLAG meeting to show a DVD that deals with medical research into the origins of homosexuality. We had tested the DVD on the Mead Hall equipment before the meeting, and it worked. But it didn’t work at the meeting. Either there are electronic mysteries that defy explanation, or God is angry with me.
When Betty and I got home after the meeting, the DVD worked fine on our DVD player and TV. So we will put our two copies of the DVD in PFLAG’s Mead Hall library. If you have a DVD player at home, check out the DVD just as you would a book. We have every confidence that you finally will be able to see it.
Bob Dorr,
Omaha PFLAG president
