The National Flashback: Top Stories Of 2009

Source: Official Portrait

Talk about a bipolar year – America inaugurates the first president to make sweeping promises to the LGBT community, then promptly decides to put off fulfilling them; four New England states plus Iowa make marriage equality legal, then Maine’s legislation is repealed by popular vote. They say 2009 was the capstone to the worst decade in history, and a lot of this year’s top stories make me wonder whether or not American LGBTQ folks have come out ahead after the victories and setbacks of the last 12 months. I think I’ll settle with “there’s still more work to do.”

Marriage Equality

First Iowa’s Supreme Court declares same-gender marriage legal, then a flurry of legislative actions in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire (plus court action in Connecticut, and a year-end city council decision in Washington D.C.) make you think the “domino effect” might just be real. Then Maggie Gallagher and her NOM goons brought us Question 1, a re-run of Prop 8 in Maine, and the Catholic Archbishop of D.C., Thomas Wurel threatens to stop feeding the poor if he has to pay domestic partnership benefits to his LGBT employees. At least George Taekei had fun.

Obamania’s Bad Hangover

Why is traditionally-spineless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) the biggest elected LGBT advocate in D.C., even if it’s almost by default? Judging by the news coverage of the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act, Sen. Reid was the major force in moving the biggest LGBT legislative victory through the Senate. Meanwhile, Obama promised us the world in his 2008 campaign, but when push comes to shove on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, supporting LGBT rights at the state level, and generally changing the federal bureaucracy’s stance on teh gays, he generally fell flat. Even Rep. Barney Frank, the usual “LGBT lion” in D.C. got into a few catfights with LGBT activists in and out of the government, and generally seemed a bit out of touch. Cleve Jones’ and David Mixner’s “hair of the dog” cure to Obamania, also known as the National Equality March, fell equally flat, with little grassroots momentum to show for their railing against the HRC and other members of Gay, Inc.

Religious Groups Get Religion

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) general assembly ok’s lesbian and gay ministers in committed relationships (despite the tornado that hit the Minneapolis Convention Center), and the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota nominates an lesbian minister to head the diocese, although she’s ultimately not elected.

Flashback: Stonewall
Pulling some sh*t straight out of the 1970′s, police in Fort Worth, TX and Atlanta, GA raid gay bars claiming a range of offenses including drug dealing and excessively strong drinks (a violation of Texas’ alcohol regulations) prompted the raids. In both raids, bar patrons complained of police using homophobic slurs, and one patron in Fort Worth was slammed into the floor and handcuffed by officers during the raid, causing him brain damage. Police claimed the “gay panic” defense.

The (Death of) LGBT Media

This year, the same forces that have been slowly bleeding the Star-Tribune dry hit the LGBT community like a wrecking ball. Due to financial difficulties – and, former employees say, gross mismanagement – the Washington Blade and the Southern Voice closed their doors along with four other LGBT magazines ownded by Windows Media after their parent company went belly-up. This, along with the gutting of The Advocate’s staff, the magazine’s reduction to an insert in Out, and the nation-wide decline of LGBT bookstores stood in sharp contrast to the continued ascendance of queer news blogs like the Bilerico Project, Pam’s House Blend, Joe.My.God, Towleroad, and (of course) TheColu.mn.

The Unfinished Story

As the year wound down, the House and Senate wrangled over competing health care reform bills designed to make care cheaper and dramatically more available to all Americans. In itself, successful reform would represent a boon to the community, since there are plenty of poor LGBT folks out there. The bill passed by the House, however would make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of “personal characteristics” in the delivery of healthcare, and would eliminate the tax penalty to workers who provide coverage for their same-gender partners under their employers’ health insurance policies, make HIV drugs more available for people with low incomes, and direct the federal government to begin gathering health data on the national LGBT community for the first time in history. However, these important provisions are all missing from the Senate bill, and it’s far from certain whether or not they’ll make it through the conference committee process.

U.S. Senate Confirms Sharon Lubinski as First Openly Gay U.S. Marshall

Openly gay Sharon Lubinski, currently Minneapolis Police Department Assistant Chief, has been confirmed by the United States Senate as U.S. Marshall, the Minneapolis Star Tribune Blog reports. The announcement was made Monday morning by Senator Amy Klobuchar.

“Sharon Lubinksi will be an excellent U.S. Marshal. It was a pleasure to recommend her to the President, and I was honored to vote for her,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “Her mix of experience managing a large, urban police department and working in a rural sheriff’s office makes her uniquely qualified for this position. I know she will make Minnesota proud as she serves in this role.”

According to the Star Tribune:

Lubinkski was formally nominated for the post in October by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in a flurry of pre-holiday legislative activity last week. U.S. Marshals oversee federal courthouse security, protect witnesses, transport prisoners, and catch federal fugitives.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak released a statement as well praising Lubinski and Klobuchar:

“In her 20 years of leadership in Minneapolis , Sharon Lubinski has shown that she possesses a unique blend of toughness, caring and competence,” Mayor Rybak said. “She has been a shining of example of what a Minneapolis police officer — or any police officer — should be. While I am sad to see her leave the Minneapolis Police Department, I am thrilled that she will be sharing her talents with all of Minnesota as our state’s newest U.S. Marshal.

“I thank Senator Amy Klobuchar for wisely recommending Chief Lubinski for the post, and President Obama for nominating her. Minnesotans will be well served as a result of their actions,” Mayor Rybak concluded.

Hate crime hits Minneapolis’ Northeast neighborhood

Image: Mykl Roventine

Violence erupted outside the U Otter Stop Inn in Minneapolis’ Northeast neighborhood early Sunday morning in what victims are calling a hate crime. Lauren DeLand says she and her partner Joe Sullivan and three other friends left the bar at closing and once outside became the targets of anti-gay slurs and fists swung by two young men.

DeLand says the group had a brief encounter with one of the men inside the bar when he asked a member of the group if she would like to buy marijuana from him. The woman declined and the group thought nothing of the situation.

As the group packed Sullivan’s bike into a friend’s car at bar close, the same man asked them for a ride home. When the group declined, the man called the group’s driver a “faggot.”

Sullivan responded, “Do you have a problem with queers?”

The man said “Yes,” and approached Sullivan. Sullivan told the man to step back while Sullivan backed away.

That’s when the man charged at the group and knocked two women to the ground and then started punching Sullivan.

DeLand said at that point a bouncer came out of the bar and and attempted to calm the man down, saying to the group, “It’s alright, it’s alright, I know this guy.”

But the man rushed back at Sullivan and began to punch him again. As DeLand and others tried to pry the man off another man who had been with the first assailant joined in. The two men repeatedly called members of the group “faggot” and “nigger.”

DeLand said that while she tried to assist Sullivan, her leg was broken in two places. She also said that while the conflict continued the group urged the bouncer to call 911 and assist in restraining their attacker.

The group then quickly jumped into their vehicle to take DeLand to the hospital. Sullivan suffered cuts and bruises and a black eye. The other members of the group has scrapes and bruises.

DeLand said they attempted to leave earlier. “We wanted to leave but they kept coming,” she told TheColu.mn. She said the two men were white, in their early twenties. One was about 5’6″ and the other about 5’8″.

In an email, DeLand said she wanted the community to know what happened. “I believe that crimes of this nature are all of our problems,” she said. “I am furious that I will be prevented from living my life to the fullest for over three months, and I don’t want something like this to happen to my friends ever again.”

DeLand said the group is asking the Minneapolis Police Department to investigate the case as a bias crime and DeLand said the group has contacted OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group for assistance.

Sgt. Bill Palmer, a Public Information Officer for the MPD, told TheColu.mn that the incident was being investigated as an assault only, and that a decision would come later on whether or not to label the attack as a hate crime. “There is documentation that homophobic and racial slurs were used in the incident,” Palmer told TheColu.mn early Tuesday afternoon. “The determination of a ‘bias crime’ is up to the state attorney. It’s not up to the investigator to decide.”

Denise Freeman, the owner of the U Otter Stop Inn said she is appalled that this would happen on her property and defended her staff.

Freeman said she doesn’t employ a bouncer but instead has a friend at the door who checks identification. She says that the bartender “heard a ruckus and checked out the back door. By that time, the fight had been broken up and police were pulling up.”

“My clientele has never had a problem in the 12 year’s I’ve been there [at the bar],” Freeman said. “My motto has been ‘we are not prejudiced against anyone except assholes.’”

But she admitted that the situation is upsetting. “I wish I would have been there. I’m absolutely livid over this,” she said. “Anyone who treats anyone else poorly is not welcome in my bar… If this was a hate crime, if there were people coming through my bar looking for gays, I want to know, because I will never let them back in my bar.”

Additional reporting by James Sanna

Queer Protest Protested — By Queers

An LGBT rights march on Sunday was protested by Bash Back! Twin Cities, an anarchist-leaning queer group who are probably best-known, locally, for picketing a Human Rights Campaign fundraising gala in Minneapolis two months ago. But despite a screaming match between march organizers (using megaphones) and the eight BB! protesters, not everyone in the larger protest actually realized they were being counter-demonstrated.

The spat is over the same issues behind the HRC picket — BB! holds that pro-marriage activism like the march, organized by Join the Impact – Twin Cities, actually hurts the community because it overlooks the importance of issues including healthcare reform, police abuse, discrimination, and employment discrimination in the lives of poor LGBTQ folks. Join The Impact – Twin Cities was started around this time last year in response to the passage of Proposition 8 in California, and helped organize Minnesotans to attend the National Equality March last month, in Washington D.C. Recently, the group has whithered somewhat and Dan DiMaggio, one of the lead organizers of Sunday’s rally, said he hoped it could provide energy to re-launch the organization.

When two protests of around 60 people, combined, try to shout each other down, it feels like you’re witnessing a boxing match between two blades of grass and their roots – together, both groups barely filled a quarter of the plaza between Minneapolis’ City Hall and the Hennepin County building in downtown Minneapolis. Still, this fissure over strategies for getting to equality runs straight through the LGBTQ community nation-wide — the night before the National Equality March, a group affiliated with Bash Back! defaced the Human Rights Campaign’s building with pink paint and glitter, and a Memphis, TN chapter of BB! claimed responsibility for defacing a billboard featuring a gay former marine and the caption “I’m gay and I defended your freedom.”

As BB! followed the JTI-TC march from a short rally in downtown Minneapolis, down Washington Avenue to Bedlam Theatre in the West Bank, chant and counter-chant echoed off the high-rises. “What do we want? Equal Rights!” was met with “No Assimilation!”; “Don’t get married, for-ni-cate!” answered “We de-mand equa-li-ty!”

Before the march left Government Center, some JTI organizers and some BB! members talked – separately – about the possibility of sharing megaphones and combining marches, but that idea seemed to die quickly. As the march began, DiMaggio of JTI flatly refused to let BB! share the stage.

“It’s hard to have a dialogue with these people,” DiMaggio said. To illustrate his point, he quietly tried to get the attention of a BB! member walking by. When they didn’t respond to his half-hearted call, he turned to me and said “see? That’s what dialogue with them is like!”

In the end, JTI organizers’ megaphones were more than a match for eight voices — as I walked through the small crowd of JTI marchers, many in the middle had no clue there was a counter-protest going on.

For some who were aware of the BB! members following the march, the company was alternately annoying and upsetting.

“I didn’t appreciate them at all,” JTI marcher Jessica Davis told me at Bedlam Theatre after the march had ended. “They should have had their own march if they don’t agree” with the march’s emphasis on marriage equality.

“It feels like it hinders our efforts,” Justin Grey Day, a marcher with the JTI-TC group, said in reference to the BB! group’s attempts to drown out the larger march’s chants.

Despite the low turnout, DiMaggio was optimistic that JTI would grow, and spoke of plans to “re-launch” the group in December by inviting the Twin Cities’ LGBT community to help shape the agenda and issues it would pursue.

“We’re going to do our reseach,” DiMaggio said, “And we’ll come back in December with some concrete proposals.”

Services for sexual violence survivors shrink in Hennepin County

Pawlenty’s budget cuts and an economic recession are threatening LGBT-specific services for survivors of sexual violence, but advocates say they will work hard to keep those services open — and they will need the community’s help to do so.

It’s not like sexual violence is an isolated problem, impacting only a few. Statistics from the FBI show one in three women in the US will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, and one in four girls and one in six boys will experience sexual violence by the time they hit 18 — and these are just the reported cases. Problem is the health system can be downright hostile to LGBT survivors of sexual violence.

Maybe your parents’ friend keeps trying to grope you when they’re visiting. Maybe your date slips something into your drink at the bar and takes you home. Maybe your significant other forces you to have sex when you don’t want to.

You want to get help, but the ER nurse won’t believe that a woman did this to you. Or they call you a “freak” because your driver’s license assigns you one gender, and you live another. Or they ask why you don’t use birth control even though you’re sexually active. Or your dad finds out that you’re gay, because he’s listed as your emergency contact.

If you went into any hospital in Hennepin County this week to get help after being sexually assaulted, you’d be able to speak to an advocate — 24 hours a day, seven days a week — who would help you talk to the ER staff and who could defend you if need be. These advocates are either lesbian, gay, bi, or trans themselves, or are extensively trained allies, and they’re free of charge – no insurance needed. Come January, though, you could be all alone — these 24-hour advocates, provided by Minneapolis’ Sexual Violence Center, look set to loose a contract from Hennepin County at the end of this year that provides around 10 percent of their funding, another casualty of the state’s economic crisis.

“This is in no way a reflection of the Center’s performance. Hennepin County is in a budget crisis, and any services that are not legally mandated are getting trimmed,” said County spokesperson LouAnn Schmaus, ticking off the causes — falling property values and, most damaging of all, Governor Pawlenty’s unilateral cuts – known as unallotments – to local government aid and to the General Assistance Medical Fund.

For the last several years the county has faced “a constant struggle” to get the budget in line with the dollars coming in from the state, Schmaus told me earlier this week. It’s a number that’s been dropping every year, she said.

The Sexual Violence Center is paid $45,000 per year by Hennepin County to fund a 24-hour crisis line in the county, that dispatches advocates to help survivors of sexual violence as young as 12 navigate the medical system, according to Executive Director Pamella Zeller.

“Any time a victim walks into any hospital in Hennepin, Scott, or Carver counties, we’re paged,” said Jude Foster, the SVC’s Minneapolis program director.

The SVC also offers one-on-one counseling to survivors, support groups (including an LGBT-specific support group), a monthly free legal clinic for survivors trying to press charges, and community education.

“It’s incredibly important to have queer-specific programs,” Foster said. “When you’re vulnerable and talking about your sexual abuse history, the last thing you want to do is confront prejudice….we can interface directly at that time of intervention to help liaise between health care providers and a survivor.”

The SVC also trains forensic nurses and law enforcement officers throughout the metro area “so we can hopefully avoid those situations before they come up,” said Foster.

Zeller says the SVC is looking to fill the gap with “aggressive fundraising,” but prospects aren’t good for keeping their Hennepin County operations fully funded.

“We’ve had layoffs,” says Schmaus, the County spokesperson. “We’ve had a hiring freeze in place for years; we’ve reduced or eliminated contract services; our employees have taken leave without pay…Even with all these cuts, the property tax portion for people who live in Hennepin is proposed to be a net $664 million increase” to patch hole in Hennepin County Medical Center’s budget left by the Governor’s unallotments.

“Since [sexual assault advocacy] is not a state- or federally-mandated service, we’re considered expendable,” Zeller says. “But I cant’ think of a more violent crime than sexual assault!”

Zeller and others affiliated with the SVC have been meeting with Hennepin County commissioners, who will decide the fate of the $45,000 contract after hearings on the 16th and the 20th, to try to build support for rescinding the potential cuts. The commissioners, Zeller said, were sympathetic, “but they said basically because of major GAmC cuts and other major Human Services cuts, [Commissioner Peter] McLaughlin told us “we don’t know where money is going to come from…we can’t promise anything because the county it in pretty dire straits.”

Zeller urged anyone who supported the SVC to testify about the impact of it services at one or both hearings held by the county commissioners on November 16th and 20th. To sign up, contact the Clerk of the County Board by email (board.clerk@co.hennepin.mn.us), phone (612-348-3081), or mail (A2400 Government Center, Minneapolis, MN 55487)

Moorhead mulls domestic partner registry

Same-sex couples living in Moorhead, Minn., might soon have their relationships recognized by the city. The Moorhead Human Rights Commission passed a resolution last week urging the Moorhead city council to enact an ordinance creating a domestic partner registry.

While state law prohibits local governments from offering domestic partner benefits, the municipalities can create a registry. Minneapolis has had such an ordinance since 1991, and Duluth and St. Paul enacted ordinances this year. As Phil Duran of OutFront Minnesota explained at the commission meeting, “All of these ordinances are largely symbolic.”

Josh Boschee, president of the board of directors of the Pride Collective told the commission, “It would allow for all families to be recognized in the city of Moorhead… It would create an environment where employers would be able to offer benefits.”

Laurie Baker, a mother, taxpayer and resident of Moorhead urged the commission to draft an ordinance for the city council. “I want to see Moorhead as one of the communities taking the lead in Minnesota.”

The commission passed the resolution and will be sending a draft ordinance to the city council. And just days before a city council election, the issue has become a campaign topic. The vast majority of candidates at a forum last week expressed support for the measure.

Below is a video segment from the Human Rights Commission meeting:

President Obama Signs Hate Crimes Legislation

Source: Official Portrait

Thirteen years in the making, Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd finally get their due. In a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, President Obama signed a bill into law, named after the two men, that added crimes based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability to the federal list of hate crimes.

Shepherd and Byrd were brutally murdered in separate incidents in 1998: Shepherd because he was gay, and Byrd because he was African-American.

The bill adds the possibility of additional punishment for someone found guilty of killing or causing serious harm to another person based on any of these attributes, which was previously limited to crimes based on race, religion, national origin, or ethnicity. Most importantly, though, US hate crimes law gives the Justice Department the ability to step in, and conduct their own investigation if local authorities are either unwilling or unable to look into a hate crime, or provide local authorities with assistance. In addition, under programs set up by the legislation, grants are available to help local law enforcement agencies combat youth violence and train officers to deal with these kinds of crimes.

The bill was first introduced in 1996 by the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), but only passed this year after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed for the bill to be amended to a “must-pass” Pentagon budget bill.

“After more than a decade, we have passed inclusive hate crimes legislation,” said President Obama. “I promised Judy and Dennis Shepard [parents of Matthew Shepherd] that this day would come and I’m glad they could join us for this event.”

(Thanks to Andy Birkey for watching this event live)

District 202 Names New Executive Director

Curt Prins, formerly the Board Chair of Minneapolis’ LGBTQ youth organization District 202 has been named its new Executive Director. The organization closed its offices and drop-in center at the beginning of the summer because they had become prohibitively expensive, Prins told TheColu.mn in a June interview. Since the closure, District has been in what Prins called a “cocooning phase,” re-assessing its programing and surveying the needs of the LGBT youth community, Prins said in an interview today.

“We’re shifting the organization from being a social justice organization to being a social entrepreneurial organization,” Prins said. He cited the birth of the Trans Youth Support Network, or TYSN, as a good example of this new approach. “We’ve given birth to a lot of great organizations…prior to TYSN, District had a quite significant and focused trans programming. Now that TYSN has stepped up to the bar [we dropped that programming],” Prins said.

In the June interview, Prins told TheColu.mn that because many LGBT youth were looking online to find community — to chatrooms and social networking websites, primarily — District would be turning to a mix of online outreach efforts and face-to-face outreach efforts, including youth parties, classes, and other activities.

Despite the organization’s “cocooning” phase, Prins said District 202′s budget was healthy. “Not a lot of people want to donate when the organization under wraps, but when you cut that many fixed expenses out of your budget, you’ve got a lot of flexibility,” he said.

“By letting go of the center we were able to shift our funding allocations,” Prins said. In the old budget, 79 percent went to administrative and facilities costs, he said.

“In the new budget model, 68 percent will go directly to programming,” he said. “Programming could include the zombie dance [held October 17th] to sexual health classes to theater group. It’s opportunities for face-to-face interaction with youth…youth are creating community with their peers and the greater twin cities community.”

District 202 will also be seeing to build better relationships with the corporate community in Minnesota, Prins said.

Prins has been on District 202′s board since February of 2005.

Project 515′s Smidzik to resign

Source: Project 515

Laura Smidzik, executive director of Project 515, an organization whose mission is to ensure that same sex couples and their families have equal rights and considerations under Minnesota law, announced on Tuesday she will be resigning at the end of the year.

“Project 515′s success over its first years would have been impossible without Laura’s leadership and we will really miss her,” Lee Anderson, Project 515 Board chair, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Laura has chosen an exciting new life direction and we wish her all the best.”

“Meanwhile, Project 515 remains committed to seeking equality and fairness for all Minnesota families,” Anderson said. “We have begun to develop our 2010 legislative strategy, which will build on our success last session. We look forward to another successful year.”

A press release about the resignation praises Smidzik’s accomplishments:

During her time with Project 515, Smidzik managed the organization’s efforts to lead Minnesotans in a broad discussion about the discrimination that exists in Minnesota laws. These efforts have begun to change the debate at the Capitol. The 2009 legislative session saw several advances in correcting the discriminatory language in Minnesota’s statutes, including passage of the “Protecting One’s Home” bill (Chapter 160; SF 1208), which was signed into law. Smidzik also led the organization’s outreach efforts to metro and Greater Minnesota communities and helped its overall support network grow significantly.

Smidzik will be joining the ministry and will begin studying at United Theological Seminary in January. The board has formed a search committee and will begin soliciting for a new executive director in the coming weeks.

Not Enough Money to Keep Kids Safe?

Are some school districts too poor to protect their LGBTQ students from harassment? By now, everyone knows the story of Alex Merritt, the Anoka student who fled homophobic bullying from two teachers last year.

What most people don’t know is that a law that would help students like Merritt – who is straight – get help from their schools to combat anti-LGBTQ harassment was vetoed in May by Governor Tim Pawlenty. Now it sits in the legislature, waiting for supporters to decide if they can organize a vote to override the Governor’s veto. But researchers investigating bullying against LGBTQ students say these students are more vulnerable to harassment in rural schools, in part because rural districts are more likely to be poor and lack the resources to train teachers and staff to prevent bullying.

Getting the bill through the legislature was “astounding,” said Monica Meyer, Public Policy Director for OutFront. “We had legislators who’d never voted in favor of protections for LGBT people before voting to pass the bill. [They heard] a lot of youth telling them that schools weren’t safe — their stories about being harrassed, about being treated poorly and no-one intervening really sunk in.”

One of the bill’s chief sponsors, State Senator Scott Dibble (DFL-Minneapolis), blasted the governor’s veto. “We were happy with the language of the bill…but it was the result of a negotiation with the governor, an agreement which he turned around and reneged on!”

A few weeks ago, researchers from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, better known as GLSEN, published a study in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence confirming that LGBTQ students face significantly greater hostility and have access to many fewer resources in rural schools, as compared to their peers in suburban and urban schools.

“Poorer districts may not have enough staff or professional development money to help address these issues,” said Joe Kosciw, one of the GLSEN researchers who wrote the study. “Also, If a school district has less money, there may be a higher student/teacher ratio, so there are less staff to catch harassment when it happens.”

Preventing bullying is good business sense for Minnesota schools, who get funding from the state based on the number of students they have, says Kosciw. “One of the things we know from our research is the more a student experiences harassment, the less likely they are to go to school, and the more likely they are to drop out.”

Dibble agrees, but says Kosciw’s claim that poorer districts can’t fund anti-bullying staff training is ridiculous. “I completely reject that argument. Any claim about fiscal impact is just an excuse not to deal with the problem. We specifically appropriate funds for this purpose”

So why don’t poorer districts do more to protect their LGBTQ students?

Alan Horowitz, the head of St Paul Public Schools’ Out for Equity office, says that federal education requirements and the demands of the state test that students must take to graduate leave little room to teach anti-bullying measures to teachers.

“The rigors of No Child Left Behind are so demanding in terms of teaching to the test,” Horowitz said, “that regardless of budget situation, you only have a limmited number of staff development days. The touchy-feely things -that includes the LGBT stuff, the race stuff, the sex stuff — falls by the wayside.”

For now, the coalition of 43 organizations and behind the Safe Schools bill may be biding their time until the next governor, says Dibble, although the groups have yet to decide on a course of action.