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Here are some pictures from 2011 Pride Fest.  Thanks to our vendors, entertainers, performers, participants, and volunteers!  It’s great to see community coming together!

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Students created Ally Week as a way to build upon the unifying work GSAs do across the country by encouraging people to be allies against anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. Whether you belong to a GSA or not, Ally Week is the perfect time for you and your friends to sign the Ally Pledge.

GLSEN ALLY WEEK OCTOBER 18-22 2010

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Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
- James F. Byrnes

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(New York) A spate of teen suicides linked to anti-gay harassment is prompting school officials nationwide to rethink their efforts against bullying – and in the process, risk entanglement in a bitter ideological debate.

The conflict: Gay-rights supporters insist that any effective anti-bullying program must include specific components addressing harassment of gay youth. But religious conservatives condemn that approach as an unnecessary and manipulative tactic to sway young people’s views of homosexuality.

It’s a highly emotional topic. Witness the hate mail – from the left and right – directed at Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District while it reviews its anti-bullying strategies in the aftermath of a gay student’s suicide.

The invective is “some of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Superintendent Dennis Carlson said. “We may invite the Department of Justice to come in and help us mediate this discussion between people who seem to want to go at each other.”

Carlson’s district in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis is politically diverse, and there are strong, divided views on how to combat bullying.

“We believe the bullying policy should put the emphasis on the wrong actions of the bullies and not the characteristics of the victims,” said Chuck Darrell of the conservative Minnesota Family Council.

That’s a wrongheaded, potentially dangerous approach, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network – which tries to improve the school climate for gay students nationwide.

“Policies have to name the problem in order to have an impact,” said GLSEN’s executive director, Eliza Byard. “Only the ones that name it see an improvement.”

According to a 2009 GLSEN survey of 7,261 students, only 18 percent said their schools had a comprehensive program addressing anti-gay bullying, while gay students in schools that had such programs were less likely to be victimized and more likely to report problems to staff.

Across the political spectrum, every group weighing in on the issue had deplored the recent deaths – the latest in a long series of suicides over many years by harassed gay teens, but dramatic nonetheless because of the high toll in a short span.

The most recent and highest-profile case involved Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, 18, who killed himself by jumping off the George Washington bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him with another male student, then broadcast the video online.

But at least four younger teens have killed themselves since July after being targeted by anti-gay bullying, including Justin Aaberg, 15, of Andover, Minn., who hanged himself in his room in July. His friends told his mother he’d been a frequent target of bullies mocking his sexual orientation.

Five other students in his Anoka-Hennepin school district have killed themselves in the past year, and gay-rights advocates say bullying may have played a role in two of these cases as well.

Carlson, the district superintendent, lost a teenage daughter of his own in a car crash, and says he shares the anguish of the parents bereaved by suicide. He acknowledges that a controversial district policy calling for “neutrality” in classroom discussions of sexual orientation may have created an impression among some teachers, students and outsiders that school staff wouldn’t intervene aggressively to combat anti-gay bullying.

The district – Minnesota’s largest – serves nearly 40,000 students in 13 towns. The school board adopted the neutrality policy in 2009 as a balancing act, trying not to offend either liberal or conservative families.

Rebecca Dearing, 17, a junior who belongs to the gay-straight alliance at the district’s Champlin Park High School, said the neutrality policy caused teachers to shy away from halting anti-gay harassment – sometimes leaving her gay friends feeling vulnerable to the point where they don’t come to school.

“This shouldn’t be a political issue any more, when it’s affecting the lives of our students,” she said. “It’s a human issue that needs to be dealt with. They can be doing more and they’re not.”

In August, amid the furor over the suicides, the district clarified its anti-bullying program – saying that it was not governed by the neutrality provision and had always been intended to encourage vigilant, proactive adult intervention to curb anti-gay harassment. Staffers were told failure to intervene would be punished.

Justin Aaberg’s mother, Tammy Aaberg, is convinced the broader neutrality policy has been damaging to gay students and wants it changed. She said she heard belatedly from Justin’s friends about instances in past years where he was harassed that she was never notified about even through staff members were aware.

Now she sees signs that the district wants to be more diligent, but isn’t fully reassured.

“Most of the teachers and principals, and maybe even now the superintendent, they mean well – they want to intervene,” she said. “But the teachers still don’t know what they can and can’t do.”

Nadia Boufous Phelps, the school psychologist at Anoka’s Blaine High School, is co-advisor for its gay-straight alliance – to which 27 of the 3,000 students belong. She welcomes the attempt to clarify the stance toward anti-gay bullying.

“In the past, the staff often would not intervene,” she said. “Now the district has come out loud and clear, if you hear “That’s so gay,’ if you witness anything, you must do something.”

Still, she said, “We still have a long way to go”

Carlson says his district, seven years ago, was among the first in the state to implement a comprehensive anti-bullying program. Now he’s exasperated by the highly charged, politicized debate that has flared since Aaberg’s suicide.

“It’s a terribly sensitive situation,” he said. “Hurtful statements on either side are not helpful … and the kids are watching.”

Phil Duran, staff attorney for the statewide gay rights group OutFront Minnesota, says Carlson and his colleagues are constrained by school board members who do not want to anger conservative voters in the district.

“They’re between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “I do think they want to do the right thing – I don’t think they known what the right thing is.”

Nationally, the recent suicides have intensified calls on Congress to pass a pending bill, the Safe Schools Improvement Act. It would require schools receiving federal funds to implement bullying prevention programs that specifically address anti-gay harassment.

Supporters of the act say it has bipartisan support, but the likelihood of Democratic losses in the Nov. 2 election cloud its prospects, and it is vehemently opposed by many conservatives.

“A lot of these anti-bullying programs are crossing the lines far beyond bullying prevention into adult-oriented material and politics,” said Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family. Mission America president Linda Harvey said the act would “incorporate mandatory pro-gay propaganda.”

According to GLSEN, 10 states have anti-bullying laws along the lines of the Safe Schools Act – requiring specific components addressing anti-gay harassment. But gay-rights activists say enforcement and compliance is not uniform.

For example, Dave Reynolds of the Trevor Project, which seeks to combat teen suicides, says many California schools are not in compliance with the state’s 10-year-old law. One problem area, he said, is California’s Central Valley – the source of many calls to the Trevor Project’s suicide hot line.

Jeffree Merteuil-Clark, 17, is a junior who’s active in the gay-straight alliance at Frontier High School in Bakersfield, a Central Valley city not far from Tehachapi. That’s the town where 13-year-old Seth Walsh, hanged himself outside his home last month after enduring taunts from classmates about being gay. He died after nine days in a coma.

Merteuil-Clark said the teachers who are sympathetic to bullied gay students tend to be cautious, fearing they might antagonize Kern County school administrators who want to “sweep the problem under the rug.”

“Growing up gay in Kern County, you have all this opposition to you,” he said. “It does have an impact on you. When you’re little, you think the rest of the world hates you.”

The debate has proved to be a minefield for the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, one of the largest in the nation, as it strives to serve schools ranging from progressive to conservative.

“We have to be extremely careful,” said Marlene Snyder, the Olweus development director, describing a community-by-community approach which enables schools to tailor the program as they see fit in regard to anti-gay bullying.

“We’ve worked in all kinds of schools,” Snyder said. “Some have very much taken on the homophobic situation. Other schools won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.”

GLSEN sees a mixed picture nationwide – gay-straight alliances continue to spread, numbering more than 4,000 nationwide, yet nine of 10 gay students in its latest survey reported suffering anti-gay harassment,

Asked for an example of an effective program, GLSEN leader Eliza Byard cited New York City’s Respect for All Initiative. The district, which serves 1.1 million students, makes specific mention of sexual orientation in its anti-bullying training for teachers and its materials for students.

“There’s always more to do,” said Elayna Konstan, head of the Office of School and Youth Development. “We’re always trying to do this work better.”

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(Riverside, Calif.)  A federal judge has issued a worldwide injunction stopping enforcement of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, ending the military’s 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops. Read the text of the gays in the military decision.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. Pentagon and Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case and had no immediate comment.

The injunction goes into effect immediately, said Dan Woods, the attorney who represented the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay rights group that filed the lawsuit in 2004 to stop the ban’s enforcement.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, as of today at least, is done, and the government is going to have to do something now to resurrect it,” Woods said. “This is an extremely significant, historic decision. Once and for all, this failed policy is stopped. Fortunately now we hope all Americans who wish to serve their country can.”

Legal experts say the Obama administration is under no legal obligation to appeal and could let Phillips’ ruling stand.

Phillips’ decision was widely cheered by gay rights organizations that credited her with getting accomplished what President Obama and Washington politics could not.

“This order from Judge Phillips is another historic and courageous step in the right direction, a step that Congress has been noticeably slow in taking,” said Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans.

He was the sole named veteran plaintiff in the case along with the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights organization that filed the lawsuit in 2004 to stop the ban’s enforcement.

Gay rights groups warned gay troops not to make their sexual orientation public just yet. Aaron Tax, the legal director for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he expects the Justice Department to appeal. If that happens, the case would be brought to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, where the decision could be reversed.

“Service members must proceed safely and should not come out at this time,” Tax said in a statement.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, the military’s top uniformed officer, have both said they support lifting the ban. But Gates and Mullen also have said they would prefer to move slowly.

Gates has ordered a sweeping study, due Dec. 1, that includes a survey of troops and their families.

President Obama agreed to the Pentagon study but also worked with Democrats to write a bill that would have lifted the ban, pending completion of the Defense Department review and certification from the military that troop morale wouldn’t suffer.

That legislation passed the House but was blocked in the Senate by Republicans.

Gates has said the purpose of his study isn’t to determine whether to change the law – something he says is probably inevitable but up for Congress to decide. Instead, the study is intended to determine how to lift the ban without causing serious disruption at a time when troops are fighting two wars.

“The president has taken a very consistent position here, and that is: ‘Look, I will not use my discretion in any way that will step on Congress’ ability to be the sole decider about this policy here,’ ” said Diane H. Mazur, legal co-director of the Palm Center, a think tank at the University of California at Santa Barbara that supports a repeal.

Government attorneys had warned Phillips that such an abrupt change might harm military operations in a time of war. They had asked Phillips to limit her ruling to the 19,000 members of the Log Cabin Republicans, which includes current and former military service members.

The Department of Justice attorneys also said Congress should decide the issue – not her court.

Phillips disagreed, saying the law doesn’t help military readiness and instead has a “direct and deleterious effect” on the armed services by hurting recruiting during wartime and requiring the discharge of service members with critical skills and training.

“Furthermore, there is no adequate remedy at law to prevent the continued violation of servicemembers’ rights or to compensate them for violation of their rights,” Phillips said in her order.

She said Department of Justice attorneys did not address these issues in their objection to her expected injunction.

Phillips declared the law unconstitutional after listening to the testimony of discharged service members during a two-week nonjury trial this summer in federal court in Riverside.

She said the Log Cabin Republicans “established at trial that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act irreparably injures servicemembers by infringing their fundamental rights.” She said the policy violates due process rights, freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Phillips is the second federal judge in recent weeks to throw the law into disarray.

A federal judge last month in Tacoma, Wash., ruled that a decorated flight nurse discharged from the Air Force for being gay should be given her job back as soon as possible. Barring an appeal, Maj. Margaret Witt who was suspended in 2004, will now be able to serve despite being openly gay.

Gay rights advocates have worried they lost a crucial opportunity to change the law when Senate Republicans opposed the defense bill last month because of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal provision.

If Democrats lose seats in the upcoming elections, repealing the ban could prove even more difficult – if not impossible – next year.

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but bans those who are openly gay. Under the 1993 policy, service men and women who acknowledge being gay or are discovered engaging in homosexual activity, even in the privacy of their own homes off base, are subject to discharge.

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The mostly partisan vote dealt a major blow to gay rights groups who saw the legislation as their best hope, at least in the short term, for repeal of the 17-year-old law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

If Democrats lose seats in the upcoming congressional elections this fall, as many expect, repealing the ban could prove even more difficult — if not impossible — next year. With that scenario looming, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that a lame-duck session was being planned and that lifting the ban would be taken up then.

The episode upset advocates who believe that neither President Barack Obama nor Reid did enough to see the measure through.

“The whole thing is a political train wreck,” said Richard Socarides, a White House adviser on gay rights during the Clinton administration.

Democrats included the repeal provision in a $726 billion defense policy bill, which authorizes a pay raise for the troops among other popular programs. In a deal brokered with the White House, the measure would have overturned the 1993 law banning openly gay service only after a Pentagon review and certification from the president that lifting the ban wouldn’t hurt troop morale.

But with little time left for debate before the November ballot, the bill languished on the Senate calendar until gay rights groups, backed by pop star Lady Gaga, began an aggressive push to turn it into an election issue.

Earlier this month a federal judge in Los Angeles declared the ban an unconstitutional violation of the due process and free speech rights of gays and lesbians. The decision was the third federal court ruling since July to assert that statutory limits on the rights of gays and lesbians were unconstitutional.

Reid agreed to force a vote on the bill this week and limit debate, despite Republican objections. A Nevada Democrat in a tight race of his own this fall, he also pledged to use the defense bill as a vehicle for an immigration proposal that would enable young people to qualify for U.S. citizenship if they joined the military.

Republicans alleged that Reid was using the defense bill to score political points with the Democratic base.

“This is not a serious exercise. It’s a show,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Democrats countered that the bill merely reflects public opinion. Recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans think the ban on gays in the military should be overturned.

“We’re going to fight for this,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

But at least for now, the question of how and when to change the policy returns to the Pentagon, which had set a December deadline to complete a study of the effects of lifting the ban. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that he supports Obama’s goal of repeal, but Gates made it clear he thought the process should move gradually.

It is not clear how quickly the Pentagon might make its own recommendations. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell declined to comment Tuesday on what he called “an internal procedural matter for the Senate.”

Initially, advocates had thought that Democrats might win the 60 votes needed to overcome GOP objections and advance the bill. Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Maine Republican, was seen as a crucial vote because she supports overturning the ban.

But Collins ultimately sided with her GOP colleagues in arguing that the bill shouldn’t advance because Republicans weren’t given sufficient chance to offer amendments to the wide-ranging policy bill.

Democrats also failed to keep all of their party members in line. Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas, voted with Republicans to scuttle the bill. The vote was 56-43, four short of the 60 required to advance under Senate rules.

Lincoln said she objected to the limits on debate and wanted a chance to offer amendments that would benefit her state. In a statement, Pryor said the bill deserved more serious debate than was being allowed.

“There needs to be a genuine and honest effort to craft a defense bill that senators from both parties can support, because supporting our troops should not ever be a partisan issue,” he said.

When it became clear that Democrats would lose, Reid cast his own vote in opposition as a procedural tactic. Under Senate rules, doing so enabled him to revive the bill.

Conservative groups hailed the vote as a victory for the troops. “At least for now they will not be used to advance a radical social agenda,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

An estimated 13,000 people have been discharged under the law since its inception in 1993. Although most dismissals have resulted from gay service members outing themselves, gay rights’ groups say it has been used by vindictive co-workers to drum out troops who never made their sexuality an issue.

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