A Letter From The President

 Bob Dorr, PFLAG Omaha

 Posted on June 24, 2004

For an enjoyable and relaxing evening, come to Omaha PFLAG’s traditional summer potluck at 6:30 p.m. on July 8. It will be at our usual meeting place, Mead Hall on the west end of First United Methodist Church, 7020 Cass St.

Bring a dish to share—main dish, side dish, salad or dessert. We will provide table service, cold drinks and coffee.

We will skip our normal support time. There will be a short program about the nationally acclaimed Anytown program for high school students sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ). Charisse Williams, the group’s program associate, will speak.

We have invited members of Real Families and their children. We also have invited youths who attend meetings of Proud Horizons and their parents. Proud Horizons is the youth support group sponsored by Omaha PFLAG.

*Thanks to all who made our part of the annual Pride celebration a big success. Sixteen PFLAG members and their children marched with us, a larger-than-usual contingent.

The marchers followed PFLAG board member Hap Rohwer’s pickup truck, which we decorated with signs and balloons. At our exhibit table, we gave away literature, sold a few books and t-shirts, answered questions, talked with friends and took the names of 13 people who asked to receive sample copies of our newsletter.

*From last September through June, the PFLAG-GLSEN Speakers Bureau made 35 talks and presentations—mostly Safe Schools presentations and panels.

We went to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, Iowa Western College, Buena Vista University on the Iowa Western campus, Metro Community College, Dana College, Southeast Community College in Lincoln, Marian High School, North High School, Benson High School, Girls Club, Family Service and a few churches.

We have eight people trained to do Safe Schools presentations and 41 people in our pool of panel members. Participation of transgenders on our panels has increased this year.

*Congratulations to our brothers and sisters in Cornhusker PFLAG in Lincoln for playing a large role in reversing, at least temporarily, the election of U.S. Sen. Kenneth Wherry to Nebraska’s Hall of Fame.

Wherry, a close associate of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, had a large role in removing gay men and lesbians from government jobs at the height of McCarthyism. An article in Nebraska History magazine said that “an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 real or suspected homosexuals—Democrat and Republican—lost their jobs during the 1950s.”

The same article said: “In spite of the ‘success’ of Wherry’s overall efforts, the fact remains that no American has ever been proved to have divulged state secrets as a result of blackmail over homosexuality.”

Wherry was elected in April to the Hall of Fame over Malcolm X in a 4-3 vote. Lincoln PFLAG board member Cheri Marti and others didn’t stop asking about the process. It turned out that the Hall of Fame Commission’s secret-ballot vote violated the Nebraska open meetings law. The commission set a new meeting for June 21 to vote again.

But the vote was delayed until early next year when it was discovered that the last person inducted was approved in 2000, and five years must elapse between elections. The World-Herald suggested in an editorial that someone else among the five other nominees might be a better choice than Malcolm X or Wherry.

Bob Dorr, president