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Controversy at a couple High School’s reported by the Advocate:

Pro-gay school poster sparks parent protest
A Troy High School classroom poster with a message reading “gay people are everyday people” has ignited protests from some parents at the suburban Detroit school. One of the parents, Anthony Cruz, 49, said he expects about 80 people to join the protest at the next Troy school board meeting, on May 17. He said the problem with the poster is that the school is supposed to concentrate on academics and leave other matters for after-school time and activities. Instead, the classroom poster has “a captive audience” in students, Cruz told The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak. He has two daughters at the school.

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Student suspended for attending prom in a dress
Kerry Lofy had no qualms about wearing a black spaghetti-strap dress to his high school prom–he thought it would be funny. Turns out, his school didn’t. The 18-year-old senior at Lake Geneva Badger High School in Wisconsin was ticketed $249 for disorderly conduct, suspended from school for three days, and told he must miss his last track meet. “Things got a little crazy,” Lofy said.

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Hi. I was taking a look at your website, and I was hoping that you could add our organization as a link on your site. We’re working hard to increase our visibility in the community, and could use your help in letting people know about our services.

The Gay & Lesbian National Hotline (website: www.glnh.org) is the only non-profit and nationwide toll-free hotline that provides free and confidential telephone peer-counseling and local resource information for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning people of all ages.

We have the largest resource database of its kind in the world, with over 18,000 local listings for cities and towns all across the United States. Included in that list are youth groups, support and social organizations, gay-friendly religious groups, sports groups, doctors, lawyers, counselors, places to go out at night and much more.

We also provide direct-service peer-counseling over the telephone if someone is going through a difficult time and needs someone to talk to.

Our services are completely free and totally confidential.

Our website is www.glnh.org and our toll-free telephone number is 1-888-THE-GLNH.

Thanks for your help in letting our community know about our services. If you have any question, please feel free to contact me by reply email.

With Pride,
Brad Becker
Executive Director
Gay & Lesbian National Hotline

Here is another link suggestion, the site is in Portuguese: E-jovem. You can get a rough idea of what the site says with Google’s translation.

Microsoft has reversed its stand on a gay-inclusive non-discrimination bill in Washington state and AMERICAblog has declared victory. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent out a letter detailing the corporation’s change:

After looking at the question from all sides, I’ve concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda. Since our beginning nearly 30 years ago, Microsoft has had a strong business interest in recruiting and retaining the best and brightest and most diverse workforce possible. I’m proud of Microsoft’s commitment to non-discrimination in our internal policies and benefits, but our policies can’t cover the range of housing, education, financial and similar services that our people and their partners and families need. Therefore, it’s appropriate for the company to support legislation that will promote and protect diversity in the workplace.

Accordingly, Microsoft will continue to join other leading companies in supporting federal legislation that would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation - adding sexual orientation to the existing law that already covers race, sex, national origin, religion, age and disability. Given the importance of diversity to our business, it is appropriate for the company to endorse legislation that prohibits employment discrimination on all of these grounds. Obviously, the Washington State legislative session has concluded for this year, but if legislation similar to HB 1515 is introduced in future sessions, we will support it.

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Here is another letter we received:

12 years ago I turned away from God.
Yet I knew that ignoring him/her wasn’t going to help.
I guess with such complicated things as religion, it was okay to turn away.
Especially from places where it’s forbidden.

So I asked God one night, “Give me a sign!”
“Tell me if what I feel is true.”
A burning bush?
Lightning?
A pillar of fire?
Something, anything to help interpret this confusing world.
All I have is an aching heart to follow.

That same night, a knock came to my door.
It was a close friend. He cried on my shoulder.
He had asked the same question, but to his parents that night.
And in the arms of friendship and comfort, everything was better.

12 years ago I found God. In the corner of my bedroom, weeping. “Will things be better?” he asked. “We’ll have broken hearts to mend and overthrow monsters of fear.” I said. And he just smiled.

M-

The following suggestions have been made for OutNotes links section:

http://www.webtool4free.com/gayforum

PFLAG

National Youth Advocacy Coalition

We’ve received some letters that aren’t actually “coming out” letters, so I’ll start to post them here in the news section. Here is the first:

Hi Mom,

It’s been 5 years almost to the day that I lost you, the hardest part about this is wondering if you hear and or see me from where you are. I can only hope you
can and know that I love you so deep and miss you everyday, but if you can hear my thoughts you already know that.

My life this year has been very up and down, more downs then ups , my love life is pretty FLAT to say the least , this whole issue about learning to love
and trust again is very big and a hard personal issue to conquer. When I lost you I lost not only my best friend and mother but I lost my apart of my soul that
can’t be replaced.

There are times I sit at night (which is usually the loneliest of times for me) thinking of you and the things we used to talk about, your advice was not really
considered at the time, but now I wish I would have listened to some of it, your wisdom was soulful, I have been threw so many changes in my life since I lost you and
a lot of confusion, I only wish that you where here to confide in.

You know that I still can’t look at your picture yet without breaking down and crying a river of tears, I know this sounds so petty lame but, I feel lost and
secluded, but on the other hand I know that is my own fault for isolating myself for so long on an emotional& physical level.

Mom I will end this with a poem.

Love and hate run hand and hand
When I think of you I think of the love I lost.
When I think of you I think of the hate for the man who caused this lose and wish him all pain at whatever cost.
Time can only mend the pain I feel they say, but for better or worse that day has not yet come and I still await that day.
The sun rises and falls for every new day and with each new day I pray and say to god “why me?” Why did I have to be left alone with this pain; it gives me
nothing to gain.

Only the fondest of memories of you can warm my heart from this pain and for that I try to focus on and for that reason I know that this hate will eventually fade to
something of the past.

Till then I will hold strong and stay in faith that this pain will end.

If I ever see you in heaven again know this to be true my love for you as my mother is very strong and will last forever last.

You’re Son
Darren

The Advocate has an interview with America’s Next Top Model Michelle Deighton

Sexy bisexual Michelle Deighton went from the wrestling ring to the top six of this season’s America’s Next Top Model. The 19-year-old tells all about coming out, facing the judges, and catching a skin disease in the middle of a modeling competition.

As mentioned the first of the press releases went out on Tuesday, and it went pretty well. The site had 3400 visits Tuesday with lots of visitors coming from Oh la la Paris (nsfw), kottge.org, and Yahoo! picks. I commented on some of the other links that we’ve come across. So far we have mainly gone after online & alternative press (mostly blogs), so we’ll see what the print & mainstream press thinks next. New letters are trickling in, no donations yet though.

Ways you can lend OutNotes a hand:

1. Share your coming out letter
2. Add a text link or a button to your web page
3. Become an editor of Out Notes News
4. Donate
5. Spread the word by emailing your family and friends

From Yahoo News:

In what some community leaders hail as progress against pro baseball’s anti-gay image, a pitcher who is open about his two lesbian mothers has reported that they are a non-issue among his teammates.

Valentine told Newsday reporter Jeff Pearlman about his biological mother Deb Valentine, and his other mother, Doreen Price, who raised him since his birth in Las Vegas in 1979. The couple has been together for 30 years.

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The first of the press releases are off (an edited version will be sent out more later), so we’ll see how that goes. OutNotes is one of the featured sites on the Yahoo! directory; I imagine that will bring big traffic when people start to wake up!

Here is the rough draft for the site launch press release, crticism and suggestions are welcome:

New Web Site Launched, OutNotes.com, a Place to Share ‘coming out’ Letters

A new resource for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual communities launched yesterday. OutNotes.com consists of a collection of letters that people have written to friends, family, and loved ones to ‘come out.’ The site is already receiving letters of appreciation from people who have come out, and others who are still struggling to come out:

These letters brought tears to my eyes because I understand that these people are bearing their souls at the expense of everything they hold dear. I wish them all well and only hope that they have an easier time of it than I did.

OutNotes.com is beginning to grow in size; as letters have begin to pour in since yesterday’s launch. The letters vary considerably: from short and to the point, to heart-wrenchingly said, to humorous and witty.

Most people would never assume I am the way I am. You see me and I look all-american. I look like the girl next door, who’s gonna fall in love with Prince Charming and go on to start a family with one golden retriever and 2.5 children.

Well I am that girl. But I won’t be falling in love with Prince Charming. You see I’ve already fallen in love, with PrinceSS Charming. I’m a lesbian. I always have been.

The site also has a ‘news’ section for site related information and news from the GLBT community; allowing for further interaction with a comment enabled weblog style. The sites ‘about’ section sums up the purpose of the site, and points out the struggles that gay rights advocates face:

this site is about you. it is about your friends. it is about your family. it is about your loved ones. chances are you or someone you love has struggled with their sexuality. this site is about these people breaking out of the shackles of an oppressive society and reaching out to the ones they love. it is a collection of letters written in search of acceptance. if you have come out, are struggling to come out, or had someone come out to you; this site is about you. if you aren’t in any of these groups, chances are that someone is struggling with coming out to you or your community; and this site is about you.

gay rights are currently a major civil rights issue around the world. everyday gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people struggle against a bigoted society. if the letters on this site can reach out to even one person and help them realize that these are real people looking for their acceptance, then it has succeeded. if it can give inspiration to one person who is struggling with their sexuality, then it has succeeded.

http://outnotes.com

There is some great discussion over at mefi about the site.

These letters brought tears to my eyes because I understand that these people are bearing their souls at the expense of everything they hold dear. I wish them all well and only hope that they have an easier time of it than I did.

OutNotes has also allready been linked to from a number of other sites. I’ll add a coment with a link to each one I come across; please do the same if you find one.

I whipped up a couple little buttons; guess I’ll have to create a ‘promote’ page for the site, but they can live here for now. Feel free to create your own OutNotes buttons; let me know and I will add them to the site to share with everyone.

You can paste the following code into your site if you want to use one of these buttons:

<a href="http://outnotes.com/"> <img src="http://outnotes.com/outnotes-100×32.gif" border="0">< /a>

or

<a href="http://outnotes.com/"> <img src="http://outnotes.com/outnotescom-100×32.gif" border="0"> </a>

The password protection is gone, next comes the announcements and press release. So spread the word: outnotes.com is live!

If you have a web site we would love for you to link to Outnotes. We’ll have some buttons ready soon for you to use on your site. For now, if you want to add a text link you can paste one of the following bits code into your site:

<a href="http://outnotes.com/">I ♥ outnotes.com</a>

<a href="http://outnotes.com/">Out Notes</a>

<a href="http://outnotes.com/">Support OutNotes</a>

<a href="http://outnotes.com/">Share Out Notes</a>

<a href="http://outnotes.com/">OutNotes: Share the Love</a>