Colorado Nonprofit to Advocate for Gay Causes

If you’re gay and living in Colorado, One Colorado wants to hear from you.

The new nonprofit organization launched an online survey meant to capture the pulse of Colorado’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community last weekend. It has already had thousands of responses.

“So far, it’s been pretty impressive,” said interim executive director Lea Ann Purvis.

The confidential survey, directed toward GLBT people across the state, asks about various topics, including discrimination and church affiliation.

“The questions generally are trying to get at what are people’s issues and how passionate are they about them,” Purvis said.

She said the issues, in many instances, run parallel to what most Coloradans worry about — unemployment, transportation and education all make the list.

The survey will run throughout the month.

Read more: denverpost.com!

Gay Madonna Fan Arrested in Denver

From the Denver Post:

Jerome Schroeder expected to leave the Pepsi Center after watching Madonna perform last month and go home happy. Instead, he was arrested and locked up after an incident he blames on anti-gay bias.

The Denver radiologist, who was ticketed for trespassing, believes the officers who arrested him had an “anti-gay attitude.”

He has filed a complaint with Denver’s independent police monitor.

A Denver police spokesman said he couldn’t comment on the case while it is under review.

Pepsi Center spokesman Brian Kitts said Schroeder was arrested after police and security guards responded to a complaint that he scuffled with someone.

“There was shoving between the parties, and that is enough for us to try to separate them,” Kitts said.

Schroeder said he, his boyfriend and a female friend sat behind a man and woman at the concert and the man seemed agitated.

“The guy left several times during the concert, and each time he yelled some anti-gay slurs to us, which we ignored.”

Schroeder said he accidentally spilled a few drops of water on the couple and the man screamed at him. Schroeder told him to relax and enjoy the show.

“Then they left and we were relieved,” Schroeder said.

A few moments later, a group of police came and told Schroeder and his friends that the Pepsi Center wanted them to leave.

When he pressed for an explanation, they told him to leave or be arrested, he said. He put out his hands and said, “Arrest me.”

Eventually he was taken downtown and booked. He posted a $100 bond and was released at 5:30 a.m.

The Pepsi Center’s Kitts said: “The bottom line is that there was a small altercation between him and another fan. Normally our procedure is just to separate the fans, but when he was questioned by police and our security guys, he ramped it up pretty quickly.

“He claimed that he was being mistreated because he was gay.”

National Conference on LGBT Equality Set for 2009

GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has announced its will be partnering with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Academy for Leadership in Action at this year’s National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, which will be taking place in Denver, Colorado, from January 28 through February 1, 2009.  They are inviting all who would like to attend the conference and be a part of this incredible skill building and learning opportunity.

In it’s 21st year, Creating Change is the largest and most diverse gathering for the LGBT movement. GLAAD will be contributing it’s media training expertise, through some of their most seasoned trainers, in a series of more than thirty courses for those who attend, all of which will provide an excellent opportunities to build leadership skills for LGBT and activists and organizations.

Rashad Robinson, Senior Director of Media Programs for GLAAD said, “GLAAD is proud to partner with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force again this year and provide media advocacy workshops and skills-building opportunities for the movement. Creating Change is one of the most important annual events in the movement. It’s a time for us to celebrate our successes, evaluate our work and build our skills to continue moving forward.”

To learn more about Creating Change and the Academy and to register for this year’s exciting conference, go to www.creatingchange.org.

Afterthoughts From the Democractic Convention

Here is one person’s outtake of the DNC, out of the thousands, but, A very interesting one.

I have now been home nearly 24 hours, and I’ve had a chance to digest the experience of the Convention; one of the key hallmarks of the event is that there’s so much going on that you don’t have time for a whole lot of reflection midstream. I suspect there’s more reflection to be made, but before we go to far past the event, I thought I’d recap what I now know that I didn’t a week ago.

Read the rest of this at blueoregon.com.

From a Mile High – Explore Denver’s Gay Side

You might not have noticed them at first glance — they weren’t holding hands or waiving rainbow flags — but there were gay people all around Denver as the Democratic National Convention began.

Allida Black, a lesbian from Arlington, Va., was among those who blended so well into the crowd. She sat Sunday morning along Denver’s picturesque 16th Street Mall for an interview with John Irvine, an ITN correspondent who was asking how boisterous Sen. Hillary Clinton’s supporters might become on the convention floor.

Black, a Clinton delegate who’s been asked to help keep her brethren from upstaging Sen. Barack Obama, said she expects little commotion despite the unusual precaution.

“My job is to make sure that the sense on the floor is respectful and not profane and not rude,” Black said. “I think you can make your voices heard in a way that is strong and passionate and clear. But you can’t guarantee that there won’t be uproar,” Irvine said as a helicopter whirled overhead and police officers rode motorcycles along the mall.

“No, I can’t,” she said. “But my job is to go to people and say, ‘Don’t go there with me. This is not about you. This is about Hillary. This about the people who voted for her.’ And we voted for her as a woman of character, a woman of strength, a woman of political convictions, a woman who can lead, a woman who does not pout.”

A few blocks away, atheists Jan Abbott and Debbie Lane were protesting the interfaith service DNC officials coordinated inside the Colorado Convention Center.

Read the rest at southernvoice.com.

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