OUTmusic Awards on World AIDS Day
This year, the awards are being held on World AIDS Day to bring attention the increasing number of homeless youth being affected with HIV/AIDS daily. Currently, there is close to 2.5 million homeless people (40 percent LGBT identified) between the ages of 13-25 in America. In advocating for equality in the music industry, the organization is "creating the CHANGE we want to see" with the launch of its Sponsor A Young Person's Initiative. The Sponsor A Young Person Initiative is a series of PSA that include both mainstream and LGBT celebrities, entertainers, musicians and "real" people who work tirelessly daily to help and support homeless youth abandon by their family and love ones. The foundation will put a spotlight on the Next 20 years to celebrate and uplift the NEXT generation. Additional details and participates of the Sponsor A Young Person Initiatives will be announced later this month.
In advocating for equality in the music industry, the organization is "creating the CHANGE we want to see" with the launch of its Sponsor A Young Person's Initiative. The Sponsor A Young Person Initiative is a series of PSA that include both mainstream and LGBT celebrities, entertainers, musicians and "real" people who work tirelessly daily to help and support homeless youth abandon by their family and love ones. The foundation will put a spotlight on the Next 20 years to celebrate and uplift the NEXT generation.
December 1, 2010 World AIDS Day Town Hall NYC W. 43rd Street In The Heart of Times Square! www.outmusicawards.com and Full Press Release
Global Justice for LGBTQI people includes giving a basic education to the most impoverished people of the world
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 states: "Everyone has the right to education [and] education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages." But today, over 72 million children in the world's poorest countries do not attend school, more than half of them girls. Although there has been progress in getting children into school, universal primary completion remains low. Approximately one billion people have had less than four years of schooling and two-thirds of these people are women and girls. All school-age children must start school this year if we are to meet the world's commitment of universal primary completion by 2015.
Many countries with low enrolment rates are also those hardest hit by AIDS. In fact, the HIV epidemic itself is devastating struggling school systems-killing teachers and administrators, increasing absenteeism, and lowering productivity, all of which increase costs and undermine educational quality. Education correlates directly to safer behavior and reduced infection rates, and experts agree that education ranks among the most effective-and cost-effective-means of HIV prevention. The Global Campaign for Education estimates that if all children completed primary school, as many as 700,000 cases of HIV could be prevented each year.
This fall as we loaded our kids onto school busses across the U.S., we think of the 72 million children who are not in school around the world. As we take our children to get their physicals to play sports and their vaccinations, we are reminded of the infants born to illiterate mothers who never see their 5th birthday because of HIV infection, tuberculosis, malaria, and not enough access to food and clean water. Access to education would improve the lives of these children.
We can change that. The Education for All Act would position education as a priority for U.S. foreign policy and commits the U.S. to achieving quality universal basic education. The bill places particular emphasis on girls, orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDS, children in rural areas, religious and ethnic minorities, disabled children, child laborers, and victims of violence and trafficking. Education has a critical role in international development and diplomacy at large. By ensuring that more children can experience a stable education like ours in the U.S., we would be taking steps toward creating a better future for all future generations.
Please take a minute and visit this link and click "participate"
It will walk you through a few steps (5 mins) that will email a letter to the editor to all your local newspapers
Many countries with low enrolment rates are also those hardest hit by AIDS. In fact, the HIV epidemic itself is devastating struggling school systems-killing teachers and administrators, increasing absenteeism, and lowering productivity, all of which increase costs and undermine educational quality. Education correlates directly to safer behavior and reduced infection rates, and experts agree that education ranks among the most effective-and cost-effective-means of HIV prevention. The Global Campaign for Education estimates that if all children completed primary school, as many as 700,000 cases of HIV could be prevented each year.
This fall as we loaded our kids onto school busses across the U.S., we think of the 72 million children who are not in school around the world. As we take our children to get their physicals to play sports and their vaccinations, we are reminded of the infants born to illiterate mothers who never see their 5th birthday because of HIV infection, tuberculosis, malaria, and not enough access to food and clean water. Access to education would improve the lives of these children.
We can change that. The Education for All Act would position education as a priority for U.S. foreign policy and commits the U.S. to achieving quality universal basic education. The bill places particular emphasis on girls, orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDS, children in rural areas, religious and ethnic minorities, disabled children, child laborers, and victims of violence and trafficking. Education has a critical role in international development and diplomacy at large. By ensuring that more children can experience a stable education like ours in the U.S., we would be taking steps toward creating a better future for all future generations.
Please take a minute and visit this link and click "participate"
It will walk you through a few steps (5 mins) that will email a letter to the editor to all your local newspapers
Tell us what it means to be “human”!
We need your help to document One Day on Earth - October 10, 2010 (10.10.10)!
Human Rights Watch, together with 60 other organizations including Oxfam and the American Red Cross, is asking people around the world to help document life on earth during a 24-hour period (10.10.10), by creating videos that will live forever in a global archive (and may be used in a documentary).
We want you to shoot and upload short videos to illustrate the human rights we value or the abuses we face. We're asking you to show us the human in human rights - and by you we mean researchers, associates, directors, interns, activists, supporters and anyone else with an interest in these issues. For more specific guidelines and suggestions, visit our page (though the information is also pasted below).
Please forward this e-mail to everybody you know, especially partners and activists around the world––we want the broadest participation possible. You don’t need a high-def video camera to take part––shooting on a cell phone can work just as well. And for those without a stable internet connection, you can drop your video off at UNDP locations in 100 countries (www.101010untransport.org). E-mail us if you need more specific information regarding your country.
The footage gathered might be used in a feature film made by One Day on Earth, the non-profit organizing this event, as well as a short film created for Human Rights Watch. All the videos will also live in perpetuity on One Day in Earth’s global archive.
Click here (http://www.onedayonearth.org/page/human-rights-watch to learn how to submit video and for more information.
Once again, please forward this on to your contacts, wherever they may be.
Thanks,
Emma, Jim and Amy
CALL TO ACTION:
Tell us what it means to be “human”!
On October 10th, Human Rights Watch asks you to help us put a face to the human rights issue that confront us. Take the day to reflect on what human rights mean to you, and to society in general, and make a video that expresses your vision. Footage that you create will potentially be used in a feature film, as well as a short film created for Human Rights Watch and will live in perpetuity on One Day in Earth’s global archive.
Guidelines
1. Consider the question: what makes us human? Is it your ability to express yourself? To make decisions? To love? To vote? To go to school? To ask officials for help without paying a bribe, regardless of your ethnic group or religion? To express your gender or sexual orientation freely? What’s most important to you?
2. Answer this question to camera. Consider placing yourself in a location relevant to your answer.
3. Feel free to go further. Visually document the basic human rights that you enjoy, or the human rights that are being denied to you, or to others. Seek out images or interviews related to the topic of human rights.
4. Learn more about human rights-visit us at www.hrw.org, read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and share the information with your friends.
5. When you upload your video please be sure to tag it “HRW”.
Human Rights Watch, together with 60 other organizations including Oxfam and the American Red Cross, is asking people around the world to help document life on earth during a 24-hour period (10.10.10), by creating videos that will live forever in a global archive (and may be used in a documentary).
We want you to shoot and upload short videos to illustrate the human rights we value or the abuses we face. We're asking you to show us the human in human rights - and by you we mean researchers, associates, directors, interns, activists, supporters and anyone else with an interest in these issues. For more specific guidelines and suggestions, visit our page (though the information is also pasted below).
Please forward this e-mail to everybody you know, especially partners and activists around the world––we want the broadest participation possible. You don’t need a high-def video camera to take part––shooting on a cell phone can work just as well. And for those without a stable internet connection, you can drop your video off at UNDP locations in 100 countries (www.101010untransport.org). E-mail us if you need more specific information regarding your country.
The footage gathered might be used in a feature film made by One Day on Earth, the non-profit organizing this event, as well as a short film created for Human Rights Watch. All the videos will also live in perpetuity on One Day in Earth’s global archive.
Click here (http://www.onedayonearth.org/page/human-rights-watch to learn how to submit video and for more information.
Once again, please forward this on to your contacts, wherever they may be.
Thanks,
Emma, Jim and Amy
CALL TO ACTION:
Tell us what it means to be “human”!
On October 10th, Human Rights Watch asks you to help us put a face to the human rights issue that confront us. Take the day to reflect on what human rights mean to you, and to society in general, and make a video that expresses your vision. Footage that you create will potentially be used in a feature film, as well as a short film created for Human Rights Watch and will live in perpetuity on One Day in Earth’s global archive.
Guidelines
1. Consider the question: what makes us human? Is it your ability to express yourself? To make decisions? To love? To vote? To go to school? To ask officials for help without paying a bribe, regardless of your ethnic group or religion? To express your gender or sexual orientation freely? What’s most important to you?
2. Answer this question to camera. Consider placing yourself in a location relevant to your answer.
3. Feel free to go further. Visually document the basic human rights that you enjoy, or the human rights that are being denied to you, or to others. Seek out images or interviews related to the topic of human rights.
4. Learn more about human rights-visit us at www.hrw.org, read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and share the information with your friends.
5. When you upload your video please be sure to tag it “HRW”.
Office of the Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches
For Immediate Release: 01 October 2010
Not One More Child
Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches
Calls for Action to End Bullying and Harassment of Gay Teens
Billy Lucas --- Seth Walsh --- Asher Brown --- Tyler Clementi --- those are the names of four young teenage boys who took their own lives during the month of September.
Billy Lucas from Indiana was 15 years old when he hung himself from a barn rafter on his grandmother's farm in Greensburg on September 9th.
Seth Walsh was 13 when he was removed from life support ten days after he'd hung himself from a tree in a yard in California. The date was Sunday, September 19th.
Asher Brown, from Texas, was also 13 years old when he used his stepfather's gun to shoot himself to death on September 23rd.
One day earlier, 18-year-old college freshman, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge spanning the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey.
Each boy had been targeted by classmates and peers based on appearance and perceptions of their sexual orientations. In Billy's, Seth's and Asher's cases, the bullying and harassment, the verbal abuse and physical assault had gone on for months, sometimes years, without any meaningful intervention on the part of the schools they attended. In Tyler's case, just days after his college roommate secretly videotaped a private romantic encounter with another man, posting the tape live on the Internet; the young and gifted musician killed himself.
All those boys and young men were bright and talented human beings who should have had everything to live for; who should have been able to dream about growing up, falling in love and living openly as healthy, self-affirming adults with the life-partners of their choices. Instead, all they could apparently imagine was another day of torment and bullying which they could no longer tolerate.
My heart goes out to their families, friends and loved ones. As a person of faith, I find my comfort in knowing that they now live in a realm of peace with a God of total acceptance, whose love for them is unconditional. I find my comfort in trusting that we will all one day be reunited.
Spiritual comfort, however, is not enough, because it will not save our children. In fact, people of purported religious conviction are many, many times the motivation behind the daily taunts that claimed 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover in April of 2009, and Justin Aaberg of Anoka High School in Minnesota on July 9th of this year.
Currently, an Assistant Attorney General in the state of Michigan is claiming that his religious conviction and the Constitution of the United States are sufficient grounds to justify his 6-month internet bullying campaign against a student body president on the campus of the University of Michigan because that young man is gay.
We all know the statistics: 9 out of 10 LGBT youth report being verbally harassed at school; 44% say they have been physically harassed; 22% report having been assaulted; and 60% say is is useless to report abuse, because no one every does anything to help or protect them.
It is that last statistic that every person of conscience and good will can and must do something about!
Today, I am calling on Leaders of Faith across religious and denominational differences to do something to protect our LGBT kids.
Too many preachers and believers are either inciting or justifying cruelty and it needs to stop now!
The deaths of Carl Joseph and Justin, Billy, Seth, Asher and Tyler were absolutely preventable.
Go to your local schoolhouse. Volunteer to talk about diversity and ending bullying and harassment. There is no religion on the face of the earth that justifies harming children.
Teach a Sunday School class on the love of God for all the people of God. Offer an adult education series on what the Bible does and does not say about homosexuality. If you don't know, contact your local MCC and we will help you find a wealth of resources {www.mccchurches.org}.
Talk to your own children and grandchildren, your nephews and nieces, your godchildren. Tell them that hating anyone is wrong and that the Golden Rule is in every case the best policy to live by.
Forty-two states already have laws designed to legally prevent bullying. Clearly those laws did not save any of the children lost this year alone. --- We need policies that address hate crimes and harassment, yes, and we also need straight and LGBT people alike standing up against cruelty and speaking out for common human decency and kindness so that NOT ONE MORE CHILD is lost.
On Monday, October 11th, millions of Americans will celebrate "National Coming Out Day." This year, whether straight or gay, transgender or bisexual, join me in coming out for an end to violence and standing up for the safety and protection of all our children.
signed//
+Nancy
The Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches
Metropolitan Community Churches
For Immediate Release: 01 October 2010
Not One More Child
Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches
Calls for Action to End Bullying and Harassment of Gay Teens
Billy Lucas --- Seth Walsh --- Asher Brown --- Tyler Clementi --- those are the names of four young teenage boys who took their own lives during the month of September.
Billy Lucas from Indiana was 15 years old when he hung himself from a barn rafter on his grandmother's farm in Greensburg on September 9th.
Seth Walsh was 13 when he was removed from life support ten days after he'd hung himself from a tree in a yard in California. The date was Sunday, September 19th.
Asher Brown, from Texas, was also 13 years old when he used his stepfather's gun to shoot himself to death on September 23rd.
One day earlier, 18-year-old college freshman, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge spanning the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey.
Each boy had been targeted by classmates and peers based on appearance and perceptions of their sexual orientations. In Billy's, Seth's and Asher's cases, the bullying and harassment, the verbal abuse and physical assault had gone on for months, sometimes years, without any meaningful intervention on the part of the schools they attended. In Tyler's case, just days after his college roommate secretly videotaped a private romantic encounter with another man, posting the tape live on the Internet; the young and gifted musician killed himself.
All those boys and young men were bright and talented human beings who should have had everything to live for; who should have been able to dream about growing up, falling in love and living openly as healthy, self-affirming adults with the life-partners of their choices. Instead, all they could apparently imagine was another day of torment and bullying which they could no longer tolerate.
My heart goes out to their families, friends and loved ones. As a person of faith, I find my comfort in knowing that they now live in a realm of peace with a God of total acceptance, whose love for them is unconditional. I find my comfort in trusting that we will all one day be reunited.
Spiritual comfort, however, is not enough, because it will not save our children. In fact, people of purported religious conviction are many, many times the motivation behind the daily taunts that claimed 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover in April of 2009, and Justin Aaberg of Anoka High School in Minnesota on July 9th of this year.
Currently, an Assistant Attorney General in the state of Michigan is claiming that his religious conviction and the Constitution of the United States are sufficient grounds to justify his 6-month internet bullying campaign against a student body president on the campus of the University of Michigan because that young man is gay.
We all know the statistics: 9 out of 10 LGBT youth report being verbally harassed at school; 44% say they have been physically harassed; 22% report having been assaulted; and 60% say is is useless to report abuse, because no one every does anything to help or protect them.
It is that last statistic that every person of conscience and good will can and must do something about!
Today, I am calling on Leaders of Faith across religious and denominational differences to do something to protect our LGBT kids.
Too many preachers and believers are either inciting or justifying cruelty and it needs to stop now!
The deaths of Carl Joseph and Justin, Billy, Seth, Asher and Tyler were absolutely preventable.
Go to your local schoolhouse. Volunteer to talk about diversity and ending bullying and harassment. There is no religion on the face of the earth that justifies harming children.
Teach a Sunday School class on the love of God for all the people of God. Offer an adult education series on what the Bible does and does not say about homosexuality. If you don't know, contact your local MCC and we will help you find a wealth of resources {www.mccchurches.org}.
Talk to your own children and grandchildren, your nephews and nieces, your godchildren. Tell them that hating anyone is wrong and that the Golden Rule is in every case the best policy to live by.
Forty-two states already have laws designed to legally prevent bullying. Clearly those laws did not save any of the children lost this year alone. --- We need policies that address hate crimes and harassment, yes, and we also need straight and LGBT people alike standing up against cruelty and speaking out for common human decency and kindness so that NOT ONE MORE CHILD is lost.
On Monday, October 11th, millions of Americans will celebrate "National Coming Out Day." This year, whether straight or gay, transgender or bisexual, join me in coming out for an end to violence and standing up for the safety and protection of all our children.
signed//
+Nancy
The Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator
Metropolitan Community Churches
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