Sunday, September 9, 2012

#VegasPride 2012: La Comunidad

So Las Vegas Pride Weekend has been quite the fun weekend. However, it's also been quite productive. Yesterday, we noted the interesting turn of events on the politics of pride. Today, I'm hoping we can dig more into some good policy.

#nvp2 crowd @PLANevada talking w/ #Vegas @LambdaLegal reps ab... on Twitpic

@LambdaLegal's Marco Castro-Bojorquez talking #latism &a... on Twitpic

@PLANActionNV's @Astrid_NV talking unified push 4 #latis... on Twitpic

On Friday, PLAN hosted a pre-parade party and welcomed several guest speakers to come over and discuss what's happening in our community. One guest speaker was Marco Castro-Bojorquez from Lambda Legal. And not only did he talk with us about Latin@/LGBTQ outreach, but he also shared with us this amazing short film about three Latina mothers and their children's coming out experiences.



It was a great way to show everyone how and why forging cross-community alliances is so important. Oh, and so was the little pep talk by the always fabulous Astrid Silva of PLAN Action. Since she knows a thing or two on community outreach, she shared her experience on forging alliances to work for the common good.

And getting back to Lambda Legal, they also provided an update on the Sevcik v. Sandoval marriage equality law suit. Already, court watchers are seeing it as potentially a major breakthrough case for marriage equality. This really sets up Nevada to take center stage in the ongoing struggle for marriage equality. But since we're talking about a federal law suit here, it will take several years before it heads to the US Supreme Court.

In the mean time, Nevada LGBTQ community activists have plenty of work ahead in educating people on the need for marriage equality. The same goes for workplace equality, even though the Legislature has acted on that, along with a host of other issues still facing our community. And again, that's why we need to reach out to other oppressed minority communities in order to work toward the common goal of ending all wrongful discrimination.

That's why it was beautiful seeing the diverse crowd at PLAN's Las Vegas office on Friday. Hopefully, this weekend won't be the last time we see a civil rights intersection like this.

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