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It’s no secret that we lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) folk rely greatly on our straight allies for their friendship and support. What is less obvious, however, is that LGBT people also function as allies to other communities.
I reckon that LGBT people haven’t yet created many formal organizations such as “LGBTs for [fill in cause]” because we have had to spend so much time and energy defending our right to learn, live and love legally. But that doesn’t mean that LGBT people haven’t always participated as individuals in every cause under the sun. We’ve just done it invisibly, and our contributions as LGBT people have gone unrecognized as such.
But that is changing. Each positive gain that LGBT people make in civil rights protections and social acceptance relieves us of an old burden and allows us to turn at least some of our attention from our own troubles and serve as allies to others – LGBT allies to communities and interests that are largely comprised of straight, cis-gendered folks.
My belief is that the more we LGBT people organize and become visible allies to communities not primarily focused on LGBT issues, the more those communities will recognizing us as the decent people we really are and not some fear-mongered phantom enemy.
Below are a few examples of LGBT groups and organizations that are allies to non-LGBT-centric communities.PFLAG. I’m going to start close to home and mention first the Bellevue, Washington chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Famailies and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Although PFLAG is primarily a support, advocacy and education organization populated by straight allies current and future, the Bellevue chapter has numerous LGBT people in its active membership (me included). In 2009 the Bellevue chapter participated in Turkey Trot, a fundraising event for HopeLink.
Since 1971, Hopelink has served homeless and low income families, children, seniors and people with disabilities. Hopelink’s mission is to promote self-sufficiency for all members of our community; we help people make lasting change.
Signage at the HopeLink food bank illustrates that it is consistently utilized by, among others, members of the Latino and Russian/Slavic immigrant communities. Members of the Russian/Slavic community in particular have been potent organizers of anti-LGBT actions in Washington. They perhaps more than any local ethnic community need the opportunity to knowingly receive humanitarian assistance from LGBT people and LGBT allies, and in so doing be given the opportunity to reassess hurtful stereotypes.
OUT for Sustainability. This past Sunday, over 80 LGBT people (up from 8 last year) from the Seattle area joined our straight brothers and sisters in coordinated Earth Day work projects. (You can read my EARTH GAY post here.)
OUT for Sustainability engages and mobilizes the LGBTQ community to advance social and environmental sustainability.We believe the LGBTQ community can be a leader in creating a thriving ecosystem for us all. Through events and education, we engage members of our community to become change-makers on social and environmental issues.
Through various programs, consulting and advocacy, we move our community to integrate social and environmental values into our individual lives, our local communities and our shared world.
Projects included habitat restoration in Pigeon Point Park (above) and habitat restoration and clean-up of Duwamish Waterway Park (below).
Rainbow World Fund. Although it’s been in existence for 10 years, I only became aware of RWF through its recent earthquake relief work in Haiti. Come to find out that RWF has been partnered with CARE for several years in ongoing child health and urban garden projects there, as well as earlier disaster relief. Other ongoing projects RWF is engaged in include safe water in Honduras, land mine removal in Cambodia and HIV prevention and case work in South Africa.
Rainbow World Fund (RWF) is an all-volunteer international humanitarian service agency based in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and friends community. RWF’s mission is to promote LGBT philanthropy in the area of world humanitarian relief.Founded in 2000 by members of the San Francisco LGBT community, RWF works to help people who suffer from hunger, poverty, disease, oppression and war by raising awareness and funds to support relief efforts around the world. RWF works in the LGBT and friends community educating people about world need. Along with raising our community’s consciousness, RWF raises funds to support humanitarian relief projects. RWF provides a united voice, a visible presence, and a structure to deliver charitable assistance from the LGBT community to the larger world community.
10 Comments
Very valid pointI remember – it was 1980 – working for United Community Centers in Brooklyn. I was the only (openly) gay man volunteering, and absolutely the only non-communist, non-socialist protestant white person on board.
All the blacks and Jews went out of their way to make me feel welcome. The director told me that they did not consider my civil rights one of their concerns, but they were eager to accept my help and felt that they could learn more about my community from embracing me as a volunteer.
Wow. Remember, that was back in the really bad old days when people still thought we were all perverts, etc.
I contrast this with the Lutheran church which gave me highest marks as a camp counselor during my college summer breaks…until they found out I was gay…at which point I was gone within 5 minutes.
For years and years, I held a tremendous amount of fury and contempt for the Lutherans – never helped them in any of their social justice projects, never even went to their endless bake sales and flea-markets. Snubbed any Lutheran who had the audacity to dare to speak to regal, royal moi. Ground them and their stupid theology into the earth beneath my spiked heels.
Turns out they just apologized, in writing, to all they had wronged and now welcome me as a full member of their church – clergy or lay.
Wow. How many doors and windows did I slam shut these last decades out of fury?
Maybe this is the way to gain support among minority communities which are so deeply in the thrall of hate-filled Christians?
I think it is a wayto cooperate with those other groups as an equal colleague to pursue common interests without being forced into the powerless sort of position you were in with the Lutheran church. ”Strength in numbers” really means something in this context. When we act as individuals, we’re at the mercy of the institutions we volunteer for. But if we come to them in well-defined groups, it’s not so easy for them to accept our gifts of time then toss us aside like trash.
Something tells me that the doors and windows you slammed shut were part of what helped make the church come around. If you had just meekly submitted to their bigotry all these years, they wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. Sometimes fury is completely justified and the proper antidote. At least I hope that is the case, since I also harbor ample amounts of it from the way I’ve been mistreated over the years by family, government, church and social institutions. I use it to fuel my pro-equality activism.
Pride FoundationThe Northwest’s major LGBT foundation has a long history of reaching out to and supporting allied communities. I remember years ago when Mt. Zion Church, one of the major African-American congregations in Seattle, burned down Pride Foundation was one of the very first donors to the rebuilding campaign. It was the right thing to do for a neighbor and it strengthened a strategic alliance with the black community that has payed dividends for many years.
thank you!i didn’t realize that about the Pride Foundation. Thank you for putting them on the LBGTs-as-aiies map for me!
Good threadYou might also note that, in many communities, MCCs also do various kinds of community service and also participate in local ecumenical councils. For example, MCC Washington for many years has sponsored a meal program for homeless women (of any orientation, that wasn’t the issue) and their kids. I can’t help but think that this kind of community presence matters over time.
Thanks for highlighting the importance of building bridges and forging alliances.
Peace,
noahsdad
Oh, excellent to know about MCC!Are you speaking about Washington state or DC?
I suppose that this is true for many church congregations, including those openly inclusive of LGBT people. But of course some are more community-minded than others, so I’m delighted to hear that about MCC.
Thanks for this.I primarily blog at Daily Kos because it’s mostly straight. It’s just sort of become my niche to try to engage straight people in our issues. I firmly believe that. I was a little taken aback when I saw a blogger criticizing Courage Campaign’s strategy for Prop 8 repeal, by saying, “They want to knock on the door of people who hate us…”
This criticism I presume was aimed at CC’s effort to canvas in areas where Prop 8 showed strong support. And it was very bad criticism in my opinion.
For one, it seemed to presume a “Yes on 8″ vote was evidence of hatred. Although certainly some are hateful, I’d be more inclined to say more often ignorance or apathy.
And though I hate Karl Rove with all my heart, and this is genius is over-rated, one strategy he made popular and may be strong, it hit your opponent where they are STRONG. Some polls show a 10% gap between men’s opinion on marriage equality and women’s.
So why are we not focusing on people like football players like Steve Young and Scott Fujita who are supporters of marriage equality. If we could get a message out it’s not “unmanly” to support LGBT equality, we could probably shave a few points off their electoral advantages.
But truthfully, being over at Kos today and yesterday has been a chore. So many straight people just don’t get it. They’re all up in arms even about today’s peaceful civil disobedience. It’s kind of depressing.
Oh, my mistake:I should have made a new paragaraph here:
and been clearer, the blogger was a popular gay SF blogger, not a member of Kos, as it might be implied by my post. My point being, the gay blogger seemed to think they could win repeal by only talking to our friends and not “knocking on doors of people who ‘hate’ us.” I just throughly disagreed with that point. We have to place ourselves outside our comfort zone, challenge ourselves to reach out to possibly unwelcoming circles, and try not to let the ignorance get to us. Remember many people may say “hateful” things due to institutionalized homophobia they are not even fully conscious of. Our society is pretty steeped in it.
LGBT Folks Involvement in Science There are a number of LGBT folks who are active in efforts to promote science and critical thinking. Recently the nation’s most well known skeptic and magician , James Randi came out of the closet at age 81. In the interview I am linking below, Randi who is known as The Amazing Randi points out what skepticism has to do with homosexuality and our fight for equal rights in this interview from The Gay Wisdom Blog:
“People may or may not be aware of the magician and professional skeptic, The Amazing Randi, but he has recently decided to come out and we think it’s a fascinating conversation…listen here. He comes out as a gay man and has a rather nice conversation about it with the interviewer. He has always been a personal favorite of mine, a debunker of scams shams and magical thinking, including the $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge…which has yet to be awarded.
I can’t help but wonder if the caricature portrait of Arthur C. Clarke (another gay man and long-time White Crane subscriber) in the background on the right might be an old boyfriend?
The conversation in the interview takes some interesting turns when they posit that rationalism (i.e. non-deism) might be as powerful a tool in the gay rights struggle as assimilationist gay religiosity and gay “spirituality”; Both have an interest in debunking pseudo-science (i.e. Right Wing creationism). Here’s the quote:
“I think there is something that skepticism can do with homosexuality. A lot of cultural conservatives use a kind of pseudo science to argue against gay wrights. And people who rail against pseudo science should want to argue against it even if it has to do with culture war questions like gay rights. Cultural conservatives use junk science to argue that gay parenting leads to mentally ill children.
They use fake science to argue that being gay is not natural; that homosexuality is an aberration when in fact you find it widely among many different species. So, in a real way I think gay issues are skeptic’s issues.” D.J. Grothe, President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, the international educational non-profit founded by celebrated social critic and activist James Randi.”
http://whitecrane.typepad.com/…
DC,but from what I can tell, it’s not at all unusual across the denomination. You’re right–it’s just what other churches do all the time. I know it has led to neighborly relations with other churches (of other denominations). And who knows? If you look at the list of clergy who supported gay marriage in DC, MCC was just one of many. I have to think that, just as polls show that preconceptions soften when people actually know someone, the same phenomenon happens institutionally. ”Perfect love casts out fear.” People from other churches got to know us over time, and so the lies could not take root.
Peace,
noahsdad