The Fellowship officially ends next Friday, so I've spent this week working to finish things up.
In Resource Room news, Wolfe Video donated a bunch of posters, catalogues, and $5 gift cards to the room. I asked people for their favorites. There's a full catalogue on the GSA Facebook, and here are the winners of the poll:
Big Poster
Big Poster
In addition, there will be Boys Don't Cry and Paris is Burning. They'll all be in frames donated by the Counseling Center, and the posters can be switched out for some of the other great options over time if people want something new. :)
The paint crew is finishing up a new coat in the back room today, which is going to look great, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs is also helping out with some new resources. Woo!
I've also been helping with a survey about LGBT policy on the Rhodes Campus, which has been informative, and through Sabrina Brown and the Office of Multicultural Affairs, I was able to participate a little in the process of the creation of a new pamphlet from the Communications office that will showcase some of the awesome diversity at Rhodes.
Next week will really be finishing things up. Lots of cleaning and putting things up on the walls after the paint crew finishes helping us out.
Just a reminder: Turn in your mentor or mentee applications as soon as you can! They can be found on the blog (check the top tabs) and soon on InRhodes.
Finally, another rant on the Chick-fil-A foolishness if y'all can forgive me. It's floating around that this is an issue of free speech, which I guess stems from proclamations from Chicago and Boston that Chick-fil-A chains aren't welcome. Seems like Mr. Cathy can take legal action to fight the proclamations from Chicago and Boston if they actually move to prevent a chain opening. I disagree with the mayors of Boston and Chicago, although I appreciate the sentiment and the vocal support of our community. Ideally, Chick-fil-A would open there and then suffer and close from lack of business. The thing is, Boston and Chicago just provided a nifty excuse to have an entire day devoted to expressing homophobia via the consumption of pretty delicious fast food and sauces.
It seems to me that nobody really went to Chick-fil-A yesterday in the name of free speech, as much as people shouted about it. Instead, people went to support the opinion expressed. Yesterday was about the continuing fight to deny LGBT people equal rights before the law, not about the law's failure to protect Mr. Cathy. Nobody threw him in jail, tried to throw him in jail, or took away his rights. Ironically, Mr. Cathy was in fact donating to organizations that would continue to fight legal progress and move to take away the existing rights of a marginalized group of people. LGBT people and their friends, family, and other allies became upset when a man decided that he would use the charitable arm of his company to support groups that not only fight LGBT rights but also try to convince LGBT people that they can change and fix themselves, as if they're broken. The community and its allies are strong enough to raise enough fuss about something to get a reaction. Yesterday was that reaction. It was thousands of people telling the LGBT community and its friends that homophobia is still a socially acceptable form of discrimination, a "valid opinion." Let's not pretend it was anything other than that.
