Reasonably Logical

Dear Friends:

As the movement to protect New York City’s LGBTQI homeless youth continues to gain momentum, there are three more ways you can help protect the futures of thousands of LGBTQI homeless youth:

- Sign the international petition to Save New York City LGBTQI Youth Shelters! The petition has gained support from allies from 26 countries and 27 states who have called on DYCD to reverse its inhumane decision to cut funding for LGBTQI youth shelters. Invite friends, family, and co-workers to sign with you in order to tell legislators that LGBTQI youth are worth our best efforts, both locally and globally.

-Join our Facebook Cause Page. Creating and sustaining community is central to sending the unified message that the futures of homeless LGBTQI youth matter. By joining the Cause, we can tell friends and policymakers that an attack on LGBTQI youth is a threat to us all.

-Make a donation to help sustain youth services at Sylvia’s Place. Amid funding deliberations, we continue to serve over 60 youth a day, 365 days a year. Help us ensure that our youth are receiving the medical care, food, shelter and assistance that they need to help move them towards self-sufficiency, and away from jail or worse. Despite the threats from DYCD, we will continue to remain a haven and a source of stability for the youth we serve.

As always, your support is integral to ensuring that New York City does not cut costs at the expense of vulnerable youth. Please take a moment to tell legislators across the City and around the world that homeless LGBTQI youth deserve our best efforts.

Sincerely,

The Rev. Pat Bumgardner, Senior Pastor
MCCNY

William Moran-Berberena, Executive Director
MCCNY Charities

Lucky Michaels, Director
MCCNY Homeless Youth Services

Frances Wood, Administrator
MCCNY Charities

Join Our Mailing List

Today, Love Makes a Family - the organization that has been instrumental in obtaining same-sex marriage in Connecticut - announced that it would be closing its doors. Their letter to members stated that the organization will be closing its doors on December 31, 2009.

Having accomplished our core mission, Love Makes a Family has begun preparations to cease operations on December 31, 2009, allowing our staff, board and community of supporters to focus their energies on the myriad of community issues still facing our state and country.

We are absolutely confident that marriage equality is here to stay in Connecticut. We would never close our doors if we felt otherwise.

I have to say that I will be sorry to see the organization close. I had hoped that they would transition into a broader LGBT family organization and work on behalf of LGBT families in our state. I do however respect their reasons for discontinuing the organization. Anne, Matt, Ganon and everyone else, thank you for your years of effort. Your efforts have been much appreciated. I look forward to working with you all in future endeavors.

Homeless Youth
Rally at City Hall to Tell NYC that Homeless Youth Matter!

City Hall Park
Tuesday, March 31st
3:45 PM - 5:30 PM

We’ll meet at the north side of City Hall Park at 3:45 PM.
Make noise!
Bring signs!
Tell the City that the futures of homeless youth matter!

FIND OUT MORE

Visit our Facebook Event Page

Last week, the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development slashed funding for homeless youth shelters, in a wave of funding cuts that promise to cripple youth shelters across the city in the coming year.

Thousands of youth will be forced to return to living on the street if we don’t ACT NOW.

Join us in the fight to save the futures of the city’s homeless youth!

Thank you for your support as we fight for the future and dignity of this community.

The following is an action alert that I received from Sylvia’s Place homeless shelter at which I volunteer. Essentially, they just lost *ALL* of their operating funding for next year. So did most of the other LGBT specific programs in NYC. Please take a moment, read the below, and call one of the city council members mentioned at the bottom.

URGENT:
LGBTQ Youth Shelters Face Threat of Closure Following DYCD Funding Refusal

The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) has slashed funding for LGBTQ runaway and homeless youth programs, in a wave of funding cuts that promise to cripple LGBTQ homeless youth services across the city in the coming year. By refusing funding requests for LGBTQ youth programs at MCCNY Homeless Youth Services: Sylvia’s Place, Bronx Community Pride and cutting funds by 2/3 for Green Chimneys’ LGBTQ program, DYCD has jeopardized the futures of thousands of homeless LGBTQ youth who will be forced to live on the streets for months while waiting for beds at mainstream shelters, where they face harassment and violence due to their sexual orientation. DYCD has further threatened the wellbeing of LGBTQ clients who depend upon LGBTQ homeless youth organizations for food, clothing, medical care and case management services.

There are currently only 75 beds citywide for LGBTQ homeless youth, though over 35% of the city’s homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. The Metropolitan Community Church of New York operates Sylvia’s Place, which houses 26 LGBTQ youth beds and serves over 1000 youth every year. The city’s unwillingness to acknowledge the critical work of Sylvia’s Place and other LGBTQ -specific youth shelters will lead to a collapse in the shelter system citywide, making it impossible for homeless youth of all orientations to secure the housing and services they need.

If DYCD gets away with this, then the 75 beds that New York City currently has for LGBTQ youth could be cut to less than 49 BEDS for LGBTQ youth in a city where, according to a New York City Council-funded survey, over1000 LGBTQ youth are homeless every night.

Tell DYCD and your legislators that the futures of homeless LGBTQ youth matter!

MCCNY Homeless Youth Services, Green Chimneys, Bronx Community Pride and many more depended on these funds and will be losing ground if DYCD does not consider their proposals now!

Please direct your comments to:

Council Member Lewis A. Fidler
718-241-9330
LFidler@council.nyc.gov

Council Member Alan J. Gerson
212-788-7722

Council Member Gale Brewer
212-873-0282*

Updates:
* The correct person to speak with is Shula Warren. Her direct phone is 212-788-6975. Her email is shula(dot)warren(at)council (dot) nyc (dot) gov.

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you just a got an event invitation for a series of rallies that occurring all over the nation tomorrow. I usually don’t spam everyone I know with political events since I hate it when people do so to me. This time though, I’m making an exception.

Enough is enough folks! Proposition 8 was a f*cking slap in the face. Its time we, queer folks and straight allies alike, stood up and said something about it. Please take some time tomorrow and join a local protest in your town. Don’t just stand by and let this go unopposed.

To find out about a rally in your town, see http://jointheimpact.com/. Or if you’re as much of a Facebook junkie as I am, check out http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=33598248873#/event.php?eid=45356108205. There are events in literally every state in the nation. You won’t have to go far to find one.

Last night some friends and I went down to NYC to see Avenue Q. I’d heard good things about it and knew I liked the sound track, but I was still surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Avenue Q is fricking hilarious. (Definitely an adult sense of humor.) I really liked how it used humor to poke fun at real social issues.

Here were my favorite songs and why:

• “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” - Funny
• “It Sucks to Be Me” - Funny, but also pokes fun at everyone. Who hasn’t had that moment of self pity when there’s no good reason?
• “If You Were Gay” - I had so much sympathy for Rod during this song. Poor guy.
• “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” - So true, so true. Now if only we could non-PC enough to just admit it.
• “The Internet Is for Porn” - My favorite song. So funny, and so true. This ones is a lot better on the sound track then it was live though.
• “I Wish I Could Go Back to College” - This song is *so* me. Especially the last line.
• “For Now” - My life right now

Of course, it didn’t hurt that the lead actor (Howie Michael Smith) was really cute.

Well, I’m a little late getting this up here, but back in March I had an article published in Metroline - a gay & lesbian twice monthly news magazine. On pg 24, both the text and pictures of the article on the NHGLCC’s Dorothy Awards are mine. I was the event photographer and wrote up a quick article after the fact. The pictures didn’t print great, though they’re not too bad overall. The originals look a lot better than what made it into the magazine.

“Out & About: The 5th Annual Dorothy Awards”
Metroline (Volume 35, Issue 5), pg 24

Yesterday, I attended Our True Colors - a LGBT youth conference for the state of Connecticut. Overall, I enjoyed the conference, but there were a few things that didn’t work out quite as expected. For one thing, my black North Face jacket went missing part way though the day. I’m a little irritated by that, but well what can I do about it now?

I left Stamford at about 6:30 am, stopped at work to pick up my camera, the drove up to University of Connecticut (UConn) where the conference was being held. After checking in, I went to part of the opening keynote before heading out to prepare for my first workshop of the day.

My first workshop was entitled “Exploiting Technology to Further Your Mission.” In retrospect, that was probably a bit abstract for the age of the people attending. (Most high school, with a few college students, and middle schoolers thrown in) Partly as a result of that, and partly due to the day’s low attendance (see below), I only had one person attend. Worse, he was not involved in any form of LGBT organizing or activism; he’d been drug along by a friend. We ended up talking about the uses of technology in Physics since that was his major. Overall, it was a complete bust.

My second workshop (title “Practical Lessons in Managing Your Volunteer Base”) was more of a success. While I only had one person show up again, this time the attendee was there because they were actually interested and needed advice. I ran through my slides, but since it was just the two of us it really became a one-on-one counseling session. That type of one-on-one interaction is what I enjoy the most about teaching, so for me the workshop was more than worthwhile.

As I mentioned before, Saturday attendance was way down. Apparently, most of the high school students come up on Friday when they can come on school field trips. Also, the weather was bad (rain + some snow) so a lot of people stayed home.

After my workshops were over, I went to a workshop on over the counter drug use by LGBT youth. It was absolutely fascinating. This was a topic I knew next to nothing about, so I learned a lot from the workshop. I’ll probably be putting up a separate post about that workshop.

After the last workshop, I volunteered to help with the cleanup. I worked with one other volunteer to take boxes from the conference and load them onto the truck to go back to the True Colors office. Once we got mostly through that, we broke for a few minutes to eat a quick dinner. (It was during dinner that my jacket walked off.) After dinner & hunting for my jacket a bit, I got recruited to follow the truck back to Manchester and bring the driver (Brian - the volunteer I’d worked with earlier) back to the conference. All told, that trip took about an hour.

After getting back, I spent a little more time hunting for my jacket and then checked out with the volunteer table to head home. (It was about 9:30 pm by then.) On the way out, I stopped to talk with a guy nicknamed “Dragon”. Turned out we had a lot in common - including our shared difficulties in social situations - so I was able to give him some hopefully useful advice. We ended up talking for about 30 minutes before I took off to head home. I got home around midnight, talked to Matt and some friends from work who were over, then crashed.

Well, I’ve now been living in the northeast for seven weeks and working for six. I’m slowly getting used to being employed full time. I finished up training two weeks ago and have just about finished up my first real projects. I’m working prety much nine-to-five and am really enjoying having weekends and evenings to myself. (No more homework, yeah!)

Its also finely sinking in that this is “home” now. I still miss Champaign-Urbana and particularly my friends there, but I probably always will. I will be going back to visit in early September though. One of my friends is getting married, so I’m going back for the wedding. One of the engineering career fairs happened to be the next week, so I’m staying for that as well.

I have been somewhat disappointed by how difficult it has been to connect with the gay community around here. The closest center is in Norwalk and I often find myself driving either to New Haven or New York for things. I’ve only made it to half a dozen events total. Given how involved I was in Champaign, I’m feeling kinda bereft. Hopefully, I’ll make more connections as I move forward.

Well, my Europe trip has officially been over for a couple of days. I got back late Friday evening after some hellish security at Heathrow. (I’m not complaining mind you.) Talked with a friend for a while then crashed.

Saturday, I got up and drove with two friends to the Equal Marriage Illinois statewide conference. I hadn’t planned on being able to go, but since I was back anyways, I figured what the heck. It was a productive day. I got a chance to briefly meet Representative Greg Harris - the author of Illinois Civil Union bill - and saw a wonderful play that illustrates why marriage is often so important for same sex couples. (I’ll probably be writing more about that latter.)

On Sunday, I spent the day madly packing and then had dinner with a good friend. Monday, I got up continued the packing until the movers showed up at noon then made a series of panicked phone calls to arrange the rest of the move. Ryan and I finally got out of Champaign around 5:30 pm. We drove through the night and arrived here in Stamford, CT at around 11am. The rest of the day has been spent moving in, resting, and taking care of outstanding bills from Europe.

Thanks everyone for reading my blog and keeping in touch with me while I was in Europe. Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did.

— Stamford, Connecticut at 6pm local time