A Letter From The President

From the July 2003 Newsletter

 Bob Dorr, PFLAG Omaha

 Posted on July 1, 2003

PFLAG chapters around the country have been invited to preview a film that will be shown on PBS stations later in August. Omaha PFLAG will show the film, "Family Fundamentals," at its Aug. 14 meeting.

The meeting will be at the usual place, First United Methodist Church's Mead Hall (west end of the building) at 7 p.m. We will gather for social time at 6:30 p.m.

Following the film, we will have a discussion. We will devote our entire two-hour meeting to the film and discussion.

The film is part of an award-winning PBS series called P.O.V. that has brought point-of-view, often-controversial films to a national audience. "Family Fundamentals" is film-maker Arthur Dong's attempt to answer this question: What happens when conservative Christian families have children who are homosexual?

Among the film's profiles are: a Pentecostal church leader with a lesbian daughter and a gay grandson who founded a Christian ministry for parents with children who have "become homosexual," the gay son of Mormon bishop in rural Utah and Brian Bennett, the former chief of staff to conservative (and Catholic) former Congressman Bob Dornan, a California Republican who once regarded Bennett as a son.

In Nebraska the film will be shown on NETV (Channel 12 for most Omaha-area viewers) at 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 26.

PFLAG's mid-summer potluck at our July meeting drew a few members of other organizations whom we had invited, some people new to PFLAG and some of our regular members. In all, more than 60 people attended, straining the capacity of FUMC's Mead Hall. It was a great evening.

At the potluck I briefly described the services that Omaha PFLAG provides to the community and to people who need our help. We sponsor a youth support group, which involves three adult facilitators. We have a seven-day-a-week Help Line, with a volunteer phone answerer each day, and we have a Speakers Bureau that involves several dozen members of PFLAG and GLSEN, our partner in speaking-panel presentations to college classes and other groups. Fifteen or 20 people typically attend our monthly meetings at which we give support to hurting people.

Every time I think about the range of things that we do, I am amazed at how willing our members are to give their time and energy to our cause.

Bob Dorr, president