Rural Areas Are the Hidden Frontlines in the Struggle for LGBT Justice

[unhappycamper]

Rural Areas Are the Hidden Frontlines in the Struggle for LGBT Justice
IPS News / By Amanda Bransford
June 23, 2010

Washington, D.C. residents Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer weren't expecting to become filmmakers when they placed an announcement of their wedding in Wilson's hometown newspaper.

A similar announcement they had placed in the New York Times garnered only congratulations, but in Oil City, Pennsylvania, the reception to a same-sex wedding was not so warm.

"It was a fascinating contrast," said Wilson, when the Oil City paper received angry letters instead of good wishes.

Wilson went through high school closeted and had long felt unwelcome in his hometown, so the chilly reception to his happy news was no great surprise.

Then Wilson received something that did surprise him: a letter from Kathy Springer, the mother of CJ, a gay Oil City teenager who had been harassed so badly in his public school that he had quit in favour of home schooling and barely left the house.

[SocialistLez]

1. I saw that documentary.

It wasn't THE best documentary but I'm glad I saw it.

I couldn't live in a rural area simply because I like the city life. I could care less about people's thoughts about my sexuality.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. One of the local PBS stations

ran this Thursday night.

Out in the Silence

The Oil City woman running the local chapter of the American Family Association or Focus on the Family or whatever it was is odious even by their standards. Typically, the school board is of no use.

The student getting the raw deal at the high school in Oil City is an excellent babe, by the way.