Building a more perfect world

Today’s blog post is a call to action. First off, I would like to share a recent feature from LittleRockPride.com

“In a perfect world:

There would be no division or infighting within the GLBT community in Arkansas.

All of the groups would work together to promote one another and would gather together at the pride events as “one.”

Every gay-owned business would support others in the community whether by networking or by providing financial support for the various fundraising events.

We as a community would take care of one another first.

The community would hire those who are gay for essential services and would make purchases at gay owned businesses when given a choice.

We would care, as a whole, how we presented ourselves to the community in all areas of our lives.

We’d help candidates get elected who would support equal rights for all in the GLBT community.

We would speak out when possible for our rights.

Before we criticized another individual or group that is actually doing something for the community, we would stop and ask ourselves “What am I doing?”

If the answer to that was “nothing,” we’d find a way to do our part, because it takes all the small things we each do to create change.
Check out Civil Rights history and learn how the Blacks gained equality as human beings and there will be found ideas for us because it’s far from a perfect world and our local community is in need of hope.”

Here is the comment that I posted in response;

“I whole-heartedly support the vision outlined in this post. I believe that we are poised at a great time and place to have a real opportunity of community building. I think that we are making historic strides toward gaining our place at the table and hope that we can capitalize on this momentum. We have Pride events in Little Rock, Eureka Springs and Conway. We have a community center in Northwest Arkansas underway. We have our first elected representative. We have ACLU-Arkansas winning landmark cases for us. We have bars and nightclubs for socializing. We have DSRA that hosts a rodeo that attracts visitors from surrounding areas. We have this site and a couple of GLBT print medias. We have activists groups, GSAs, political groups, gay and gay-friendly churchs and religious groups, AIDS Service Organizations, book and movie clubs. We have an infrastructure in place to mobilize this community and we can not let divisiveness become our undoing. I propose that we have a townhall meeting for the GLBT community where we invite ALL of the community, business owners, activists and organizations. We get EVERYONE together and strategize on how we can unite this community for the common good. No elected leaders, no bylaws, no finger-pointing, and no drama. Just honest-to-goodness brainstorming on ideas like creating an umbrella coalition of various GLBT groups so that we can share information and resources, creating a GLBT chamber of commerce so that we can support our own and planning for a local community center to provide meeting places for various groups and a safe social setting for our young people. I think you are right that we should look to the civil rights movement as our guide. The African-American community has always been as diverse and multi-faceted as the GLBT community--- there have always been many different opinions on how best to achieve equality and social justice, but they UNITED and became one strong movement because of it. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” I say we get together and find our voice and demand our rights to live, love and be.”


I am glad to see that others in our community also see the need to come together and strategize on ways that we can unite our efforts. Here is information on an upcoming conference that is being planned and I challenge everyone that has an interest in our continued progress to give it their support and attend. It is time for us to quit “wishing” things were different and start “working” towards making change happen.

UCA PRISM is hosting a Queer Coalition Conference to be held atHendrix College on February 16-17, 2007. This conference will bringtogether many LGBTQA organizations in the state to have a dialogueabout our movement and to build effective skills for networking,communicating, and utilizing outreach in our respective communities. Organizations co-organzing this conference include UCA PRISMGay-Straight Alliance, Hendrix Unity, the Conway League of QueerActivists, Henderson State University Queer-Straight Alliance, theCenter for Artistic Revolution, and more.The cost of the conference is $10 which can be mailed in or paid theday of the conference. This price is negotiable for limited incomeparticipants. Registration forms are REQUIRED for each participantand must be submitted by January 22, 2007. This form, along with aninvitation letter and a preliminary conference schedule can be foundat the Queer Coalition Yahoo! Group:http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/queercoalitionMake sure to join this group to receive the latest updates and alsojoin our Facebook Group if you haven't already:http://uca.facebook .com/group. php?gid=2219322160(You do not have to be a member of a Queer organization to attend. We welcome ALL people!)