Here's some good news from the Post-Gazette's wonderful L.A. Johnson < is L.A.a man or woman? does it matter other than for my pronoun selection?>
A majority of U.S. citizens support equal treatment for gay people, a recent Harris Interactive poll reports.
About 56 percent of straight Americans 18 and older believe people should be more supportive of gay equality, a number that rises to 60 percent for those polled between the ages of 18 and 44, the survey said.
Hurrah! The survey also brings to light the value of heterosexual allies, especially those who speak out against incidents of discrimination and homophobia.
"People's minds are changed more ... by the person who isn't the minority," says Betty Hill, executive director of Persad Center (www.persadcenter.org), which offers counseling, education and advocacy for the Pittsburgh-area gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. "When a family member speaks up, it seems to be better listened to than when a regular old gay person like myself speaks up."
Now see that's exactly why Betty Hill is a lesbian who rocks -- "regular old gay person" indeed.
Anyway, her point is very true. And it is a point I made oh so eloquently at The Society with regard to my good friend John McIntire, one of the staunchest allies the LGBT community is lucky to have.
Heteros like John and that guy down the street and the lady at church and my friend Amy make all the difference b/c they normalize homosexuality.
That being said, I was pleased to have a chance to hang out with my friend Maria when she sat in for Lynn Cullen this morning. It ties into this little theme very nicely b/c Maria asked me to talk about my *other* blogging gig -- the Pittsburgh Women's Blogging Society. Sure, the lesbian flavor came up a time or two, but it was an opportunity to talk about other issues that matter to me. I'm a multi-dimensional homo!
One thing that was frustrating was our limited ability to talk about some big news -- WDUQ- FM will not allow Planned Parenthood to underwrite news segments. Why? Because Duquesne University pulled the puppet strings of so-called public radio. Check out Maria's well crafted post on the topic and decide for yourselves -- should NPR's flagship station in Pittsburgh have a modicum of free speech or should it be all fetus, all the time?
Geez oh man. Anyway, because it was about a rival station and we are supposed to have the courtesy of not talking about other stations, we had to low key it because saying "another local station" without the whole MacDaddy Catholic Church thing was pointless. I hope we were successful and Maria gets to go back.
I wrote some emails to Scott Hanley and the big kahuna Dr. Doughertry at Duquesne. I even filed a complaint with the NPR ombudsman. Do they seriously not realize how much of their local listening audience are liberal do-gooder yuppies who support organizations that promote women's health and try to keep kids from contracting the clap? Seriously?
Here's something amusing -- take a look at the list of local companies that accept the membership Q-card. Disclaimer or not, the station is willing to promote these folks in exchange for a little love to the members. Let's see who can identity the most companies that have some business practice which violates Catholic principles. You go first ...all I'm gonna do is remind you of the entire Rolling Stones exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum and call it a day. :-)
All fetus, all the time. I just like the sound of that.
