[Winona Online Democracy]
One of my "extracurriculars" as a Winona educator is facilitating a SEED
seminar, which is a group of educators who want to improve how schools deal
with equity and diversity issues. Last night, we had a guest to help us
with the topic of GLBT issues from the perspective of staff and parents.
Our guest is an educator who is a lesbian, and in addition to our
discussion about the educational setting, we talked about the gay marriage
debate. I had brought along a handout of excerpts from the WOD thread (Bob,
Eva and others).
I know many in our SEED group started out skeptical about the marriage
issue. A couple of the practical points our guest brought up were ones I
don't think I've heard before here, though maybe I missed them. For
instance, as I now understand it, non-married partners cannot receive any
social security survivor benefits, and civil unions would not address this
either. Other legal matters, from buying a home to adopting a child, are
made very difficult by lack of access to married status.
We were encouraged to think about how difficult it would be to deal with
lack of benefits on top of the challenges of not being able to publicly
express affection, debrief about the weekend, or generally engage in
workplace smalltalk without extreme caution. Apparently the public sector
lags dramatically behind the private sector in being supportive or at least
accepting of committed GLBT relationships. For GLBT human service workers,
this largely has to do with fear of being attacked and accused by
homophobic zealots, and being vulnerable to such because of working with
young people.
Thanks to Bob, Eva, Ruth Charles, Terri Hyle and others who have written so
well on this topic. The thing I'm still puzzling about though is this...why
would advocates of GLBT human rights affiliate with the Republican Party??
Scott Lowery
----------
"The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are
selling--their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons,
their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few.
They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible,
she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
Arundhati Roy
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
Zora Neale Hurston
sent by:
Scott Lowery
461 Sunnyview Drive, Rollingstone MN 55969
home phone: (507)689-4532
school phone: (507)454-9573
home email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
school email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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