Family Pride’s Blog

As many of may have heard, last week R Family Vacations, organizers of vacations designed specifically for the gay and lesbian community, announced that they would be rerouting their July 2007 R Family Cruise amid warnings of protests. Over the last several months, Gregg and Kelli were repeatedly warned by Bermuda officials that there was a serious and vocal contingent of local churches planning to protest our arrival at the Bermuda stop. Because of this, the R Family team decided to reroute the cruise to Port Canaveral and Key West.

I want to write to you to express my support for R Family Vacations and their decision to reroute the July 2007 cruise. As you know Family Pride has an incredible partnership with R Family that allows them to entertain your families while Family Pride provides critical education about our battle for equality.

I understand the difficult choices that those who plan events for our families are sometimes faced with and I unequivocally support the decision to reroute the July cruise. The fact that Gregg and Kelli’s number one concern is to ensure the safety and fun for our families on these very special vacations is to be applauded.

I understand that some people might be disappointed by the change in itinerary or concerned that we not back down to threats from hate mongers. However, Gregg and Kelli respect that not every family would want to be involved in such a highly charged encounter and made the decisions that protects ALL families. We support Gregg & Kelli’s belief that being political on a family vacation should be a choice – not required by all those on board.

Gregg and Kelli have promised families one thing – fun, inclusive family vacations for LGBT parents, their children and those who love them. They are not a political organization and I think we should understand that they are honoring the mission statement of their business. They do, however, provide very generous support to many of the LGBT organizations that do the important work of fighting for our equality – including Family Pride. Our exclusive partnership with R Family Vacations exists precisely because they want to support an organization that is best equipped to do the work of educating, activating, engaging and challenging people about their stereotypes and misinformation about LGBT people and parents. That is why, with R Family Vacations support, we will continue the work of making sure our families are accepted in every corner of our country and beyond.

As usual, Family Pride will be providing all of the educational content, training and workshops aboard the cruise and we will speak specifically about how parents can advocate on behalf of the children and their families in the face of hostile environments. I urge you to attend one or more of these workshops as a step in ensuring a better world for our families and our children.

I strongly urge you to express your support of our families by joining me and R Family Vacations on the July Cruise from New York. One of the best ways we can show the Bermuda officials the harm the hate mongers caused is to remind them of the success of this cruise and the lost opportunity for Bermuda in not hosting our wonderful families as tourists in their country.

I look forward to seeing you all on this cruise – and thank you in advance for your continued support of R Family Vacations. This unique business is vitally important for our community and I hope you will do everything in your power to ensure its success – including traveling with us in July to fun ports of call.

Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director
Family Pride

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