LGBT POV

Friday morning, openly gay LA City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl kicks off LGBT Pride Week in Los Angeles with a special presentation in City Council Chambers to celebrate 40 years of LGBT pride in Los Angeles. The public is invited to this free event.

This year’s presentation will honor Roots of Equality, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, and Christopher Street West for their contributions to the LGBT community. (Full disclosure: I was among those honored one year.)

Rosendahl said in a statement:

“I’m pleased to kick off Pride Week by honoring three organizations that have had a positive impact on our City’s LGBT community, and on Los Angeles as a whole. I have seen so much progress in my lifetime, but we still have so much work to do to achieve equality and justice, here in California and around the world. I’m proud to acknowledge those who are helping to advance the cause.”

9:00-10:00 am – Reception sponsored by Christopher Street West, 3rd Floor Rotunda

City Hall,
 200 N. Spring Street

10:00 am – Presentation, Council Chambers, Room 340

Please click inside for more info on the honorees.

Roots of Equality was one of several youth-oriented activist groups to emerge just before and after the passage of Prop 8. As with most of the new groups, they worked in coalition with others on street activism and lobbying, taking the lead in visibility campaigns centered in downtown Los Angeles. One of their most significant post-Prop 8 efforts was a thoughtful and heartfelt exhibit last November of pre-Stonewall LGBT history.

The remarkable exhibit -The Making of Our Pre-Stonewall LGBT Movement – will be unveiled during a Pride Month kick-off event hosted by the City of West Hollywood on Tuesday, June 1 at 5:30 p.m. in the lobby of West Hollywood City Hall, 8300 Santa Monica Boulevard. The exhibit will be on display at City Hall throughout June.

Please click inside for more info and photos from last year’s exhibit.

This afternoon from 4:00-6:00pm, Roots of Equality is hosting a panel discussion on the Gay Press, featuring yours truly and author Mark Thompson, who has a new book out on his days as an editor at The Advocate.

In fact, Mark was my editor when I wrote for The Advocate under the late editor-in-chief, Richard Rouilard in the early 1990s. And boy, do we have stories! This was also the time of ACT UP and Queer Nation – and it was a time when LGBT people of color were rightly pressuring local gay publications such as Frontiers and the Lesbian News to be more inclusive. We will also discuss the future of the LGBT press now that blogging is so ubiquitous. Hope you can join us. Please click inside for more info, including places to park.