We got a letter from Corey Hidlebaugh recommending we link to soulforce.org. Here’s Soulforce’s mission statement:

The purpose of Soulforce is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.

Corey also sent us a letter, which doesn’t fit the main OutNotes section (coming out letters to friends and family), so I’ll post it here:

Dear Friends,

Let me tell you my story.

I’ll never forget the night a man named Dennis Jernigan came to minister to my church. I was only thirteen, but I was passionate for an experience with God. He led
the congregation in songs that he had written, and each one seemed as if it had been written for me. There was something about this man that seemed so familiar to me
but I could not pinpoint it. It seemed as if we both had a secret we wanted no one to know. During the middle of his presentation, Dennis stopped singing and began
to tell his story. As I listened I could feel blood rushing to my face. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. It seemed he spoke directly at me. He was telling my
story. Dennis was talking about being gay.

(more…)

We’ve received some great news tips from Jim in Florida that I would like to summarize…

First this bit on the Tampa Bay County Commisioners:

Well I’m sure you know about how our wonderful County Commissioners in June refused to acknowledge Gay Pride here [following commisioner Ronda Storms suggestion], and refused to allow a Gay Pride display in several of the county buildings….resulting in the parade not be approved and so on. Well, you can’t “Tread on Me” and not slip and fall. Someone with enough money, and really great attorneys is taking the Hillsborough County Commissioners to task on this…. and has filed a lawsuit against all the Commissioners but the one for violation of our Consititutional Rights.

There is more info and lots of links to news reports over at Sticks of Fire.

Next we would like to join Jim in congratulating Equality Florida (recently added to our links page) for their efforts in this and past elections. But of course we must also share Jim’s dissapointment in the results of the Texas election.

Finally, Jim gave us a lead on a story concerning QueerTampa.com’s use of an image depicting George W. Bush morphing into Hitler. Queer Tampa offers this reply:

In a recent issue of www.queertampa.com we linked to an article on infowars.com which questions the mental stability of George W. Bush. The graphic linking to that article features an image of Busch morphing into a Hitler type character. The image was indeed provocative. The original purpose of the image was to provoke interest and thought. Oddly enough, what it did was spark the very behavior that such an image is intended to rail against. The fact that some now feel a need to silence us only supports the concern that fascism is a real threat in America.

…along with some select quotes…

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”. - Albert Einstein

“If This Were a Dictatorship, It Would Be a Heck of a Lot Easier, Just So Long as I’m the Dictator” - George W. Bush

“If Tyranny and Oppression Come to This Land, It Will Be in the Guise of Fighting a Foreign Enemy” - James Madison

“You Can Fool Some of the People All of the Time, and Those are the Ones You Want to Concentrate On” - George W. Bush

If you would like to contribute news or your thoughts to Out Notes, as Jim has, there are number of different channels. You can use our contact form, you can comment on a blog entry, or get in touch with us through MySpace. We are still looking for some more regular columnists; let us know if you are interested.

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.

The following suggestions have been made for OutNotes links section:

http://www.webtool4free.com/gayforum

PFLAG

National Youth Advocacy Coalition