Speak Out

Events such as this do not happen without assistance. We are grateful for the support and active participation from organizations like yours.

We are acknowledging over twenty years of service to the community, and with support from people like you, we will continue. Again, please accept our many thanks for your help on HERO’s behalf.

Leonardo R. Ortega, MD, MPH Executive Director/CEO HERO, Inc.

I’m writing to introduce you to the Military Education Initiative (MEI) (www.military-education.org) and to ask for your help in identifying Veterans within the GLBT community who may be interested in MEI’s work.

MEI is a project of the University of California’s Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM) (www.gaymilitary.ucsb.edu), and is funded by a generous grant from the Gill Foundation. MEI has a distinguished Advisory Board, consisting of Veterans/military retirees from across the country, and from each branch of the Armed Forces.

The mission of MEI is to initiate a dialogue with America’s 27 plus million Veterans about the gays-in-the-military issue. MEI will contact Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Military Associations such as the Association of the United States Army, to distribute CSSMM’s social science research, and other evidence, pertaining to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. MEI will explore providing speakers to local chapters of VSOs, and will attempt to get the gay-military issue on the agendas of these groups’ regional conferences and national conventions. We will also press to have studies and opinion pieces published in these organization’s magazines and journals.

This is important because veterans hold a place of special honor in our society, and their voices are listened to on Capitol Hill. We believe that direct engagement of this critically important constituency is key to paving the way for eventual service by gays and lesbians in our nation’s military.

This ambitious project represents a first-ever effort to positively engage America’s Veterans to educate them about the service and sacrifice of the one million within their ranks who are themselves gay and lesbian, according to the Urban Institute’s Population Studies Center.

Interested Veterans may assist MEI by completing the Survey section in the upper right corner of MEI’s website, www.military-education.org.

MEI is also working to identify more allies within the Veterans community who might be able to assist in our educational efforts.

Major Jeff Cleghorn, USA (Ret.), Esq. Director, MEI

I came home this evening to find my partner in tears over the recent comments of state senators John C. Still III and Robert L. Venables regarding the proposed addition of an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Delaware constitution. (newszap.com, 3/9/04.)

"I don’t know of anything that disgusts me more than seeing two women get married on television, where one is dressed like a man and has a haircut like a man," said Venables. "I guess they take turns being the man on different nights."

Venables’ lack of imagination is even more astonishing than his lack of respectful communication skills. One feels sorry for whomever he’s upholding the institution of marriage with. And in case Venables hasn’t been to a Walmart recently, he should be informed that half of the women in Sussex County have short haircuts—married straight women with children who need practical haircuts because they work on farms or in factories. Not that Venables would bother with farmers or factory workers.

My partner is still crying.

"We must do everything we can to preserve the institution of marriage," Still said. "Amending the Delaware constitution is the best way to do that."

Mr. Still, if you are interested in preserving the institution of marriage, I suggest you target reality shows in which it’s treated like a cross between betting on horses and trying to catch a greased pig—not the committed couples who live in your state, are forced to check "single" on their tax returns, would like to be able to visit each other in the emergency room, and, let it be said, contribute a mammoth amount to state revenues when it comes to resort vacations. I will certainly apprise every gay man or lesbian I meet at the beach this summer of yours and Mr. Venables’ comments.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go see what my wife has cooked for dinner (she’s being the man tonight.)

Emily Lloyd

Don’t ask and I won’t tell. If fact, if you do ask, I still won’t tell. I follow that great philosopher Sinbad, who said in comic oration, "At least try to fool somebody."

I am a high school teacher in this resort area. I don’t teach tolerance of divergent life styles and I don’t preach it. I just live that way, walk the silly walk, so to speak. I live on a planet where nothing is against nature because "nature ain’t no person" but a series of interrelated systems and interactions of species evolving and spinning in many directions at the same time.

I find the current arguments against gay marriage and gays in the military to be embarrassing as straights circle the wagons to protect their own failed institutions, while ducking service claiming those in the all volunteer army have a higher calling.

I support the mission statement of CAMP Rehoboth, especially the part about working against prejudice and discrimination and lessening tensions among the community at large. I’m not so sure about Style Court on the cable network, and it’s unlikely I’ll stop in at the Double L for a few shots and beers on a Saturday night. But life is too short not to rock and roll and thank god everybody isn’t like everybody else.