GREETINGS FROM THE FAMILY PRIDE COALITION!
FAMILY PRIDE COALITION IN THE NEWS
New York Times
Triumphs, Defeats Mark Gay-Rights Battle
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Gay-Rights.html?
Washington Blade
All in the Family: Family Pride Coalition’s new director to appear at local parenting conference
http://www.washblade.com/2005/4-29/locallife/feature/family.cfm
365gay.com
Texas Moves to Ban Gays From Being Foster Parents
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/04/042005txFoster.htm
REGISTER NOW FOR THE FAMILY PRIDE COALITION’S TENTH ANNUAL FAMILY WEEK IN PROVINCETOWN!
The Family Pride Coalition is happy and proud to invite you and yours to the tenth annual Family Week in Provincetown July 30-Aug. 5!
Family Week provides an idyllic opportunity for our children to meet other children with LGBT parents, and for parents to meet other parents and share experiences. Because every family has different needs, several activities are planned for each day – your family’s schedule can be as full of activities or as relaxed as you choose.
The Family Pride Coalition has invited COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) back for another year of exciting programming for youth nine years and older. Together, we provide a large array of family activities appropriate and fun for every age. Registration for Family Week in Provincetown is available at http://www.familypride.org/events/familyweek2005.php
JOIN US FOR FAMILY PRIDE’S FOURTH ANNUAL FAMILY CAMP IN NEW JERSEY
The Family Pride Coalition is proud to host its fourth annual Family Camp on Memorial Day Weekend, May 27–29 in Newton, New Jersey (just 70 miles from New York City and 90 miles from Philadelphia).
This gathering of LGBT parents and their children will take place at the Fairview Lake YMCA Camp and Conference Center, 1035 Fairview Lake Road in Newton, NJ. The phone at the campground is (973) 383-9282.
The weekend-long event will include many activities appropriate for all ages, including tie-dying, candle-making, bug hunting, archery, hiking, boating, swimming and more. Also featured in the weekend’s events are a camp fire, an ice cream social and a family dance.
Families will dine together in the community dining room reserved specially for our families. Families will also be sharing rustic or modern cabins. These cabins go fast, so please register your family as soon as possible. To register or for more information on cabin rates, please visit: http://familypride.org/events/familycamp2005.php
TEXAS LGB FOSTER PARENTS TARGETED BY DISCRIMINATORY AMENDMENT
Rep. Robert Talton’s anti-gay amendment to Senate Bill 6, which would ban gay, lesbian and bisexual Texans from serving as foster parents and authorize the state to conduct investigations into the sexual orientation of current foster parents and remove children from any home with an LGB foster parent, has been referred to a conference committee for deliberation.
The passage of this amendment would tear apart loving and stable families, and further reduces the already too-small pool of qualified foster parents in the state of Texas. In addition to the emotional and social cost of destroyingTexas families, this legislation would also cost the state as much as $8 million a year by reducing the number of qualified foster parents and to conduct investigations into the sexual orientation of potential and current foster parents.
We need ALL Texans who care about children to contact the members of this conference committee and ask them to remove Talton’s amendment, which would ban lesbian, gay and bisexual Texans from serving as foster parents, from SB 6. His amendment would bring untold harm to thousands of Texas children. For a full list of the committee members and their contact numbers, please go to www.familypride.org
CORPORATE SPOTLIGHT – WELLS FARGO
The Family Pride Coalition is pleased to recognize one of its most valued corporate sponsors, Wells Fargo. Last fall, Family Pride honored Wells Fargo with its Corporate Community Responsibility Award for the company’s leadership in advancing equality for the LGBT community.
In addition to its generous support of the Family Pride Coalition, the workplace policies of Wells Fargo have created positive change in the corporate world, and have influenced other corporations to adopt similar non-discriminatory policies.
"Wells Fargo was among the very first corporations in America to recognize the key importance of diversity,” said Jonathan Weedman, Regional Vice President of the Wells Fargo Foundation. “Early on when it was unpopular and controversial, to say the least, Wells Fargo's meaningful and real acceptance of the LGBT community set a standard for companies across the U.S. Wells Fargo respects all cultures and backgrounds -- and it's not about who or how you love -- just that you work hard and give 100 percent to your customers, your colleagues and to yourself."
Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company with $388 billion in assets, is the largest corporate donor to Los Angeles-area non-profit organizations. In 2003, the company gave more than $38 million to support hundreds of non-profit organizations throughout California and its border banking regions that focus on community development, education, human services, arts and culture and other charitable causes
VICTORY IN VIRGINIA – CONGRATULATIONS, THANK YOU TO FISHER DAVENPORT FAMILY
After years of struggle, the Virginia Supreme Court recently ordered a state official to issue revised birth certificates to the adoptive gay parents. One of the plaintiff families in this case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia, was the Fisher Davenport family. Tim Fisher was the first executive director (in a volunteer capacity) of the Family Pride Coalition and his partner Scott Davenport is the immediate past co-chair of Family Pride’s board of directors. The two are the founders of the Family Pride Coalition’s Family Week in Provincetown.
We congratulate the Fisher Davenport family – as well as the other plaintiffs and the ACLU of Virginia – for this victory and thank them for their courage and perseverance.
To read more about the case, go to http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2005/04/25/2.