This commentary originally aired on WAMU, American University Radio in Washington, D.C.

By Ciara Smith

Most moms dream of one day seeing their baby girl in a beautiful white dress walking down the aisle at her wedding. And most moms dream of the grandchildren who may come later.

Girls are princesses to their moms. So, how do you tell a mother that her princess likes other princesses?

In light of the recent suicides and harassment of gay youth, Dan Savage, noted writer and media pundit created a media campaign to focus on telling lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth that their quality of life will improve after middle school and high school.  

Savage founded the It Gets Better Project in September 2010.  The project involves creating a video archive of messages of hope in order to emphasize that life as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender person gets better. The website explains, “[It’s] a place where young people who are gay, lesbian, bi, or trans can see with their own eyes how love and happiness can be a reality in their future. It’s a place where LGBT adults can share the stories of their lives, and straight allies can add their names in solidarity and help spread our message of hope.” (See videos below.)

Daryl Presgraves, Public Relations Manager for the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) supports the campaign. He said, “It’s a wonderful opportunity for adults who are not in school to show their support for LGBT youth. But, we also have to go beyond just telling kids it will get better.  We have to find ways to go into schools and help.  We are losing young people to suicides, dropping out, and low performance because they don’t feel safe.  This is a travesty.”

The It Gets Better Project aims to empathize with youth who have been harassed. The pledge on their website reads: We are the kids who were bullied because of who we are or who we were perceived to be. We have at times lost hope or struggled to imagine our future places in the world. We are friends, family, and allies of anyone who's ever felt like they didn't fit in. And we are now happy, healthy, successful adults, of all sexual orientations, who have seen that It Gets Better.

I want to give a shout out to the Vox Teen Blog, and specifically their recent post about attending an art show organized by L.O.V.E. (Lifting Our Voices for Equality) Coalition. The art show was to raise money for an LGBT Youth Community Center in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the post, 1.6 million homeless teens identify as LGBT and as of now, there are no LGBT safe houses in the entire southern region of the United States. Wow.

We can see evidence of this prejudice towards LGBT youth in the recent events in Mississipi. Just a week ago, 18-year-old Constance McMillen won a discrimination case against her high school. Her high school had canceled its prom because Constance wanted to bring her girlfriend as her date.

So while the south is making slow progress, Gay Pride celebrations are taking place all over the world, and LGBT Safe Houses are popping up in many places. In Massachusetts, for example, the organization Safe Homes of Central Massachusetts provides resources and a safe environment for 14 - 23 year-olds who identify as gay or lesbian. A non-profit called Twenty10 is spreading resources to young people in Australia. Their website reads, “If you are under the age of 26 and identify as gay, lesbian bisexual, queer or transgender or are same-sex attracted, gender diverse or intersex, Twenty10 can help you access the support you may need.”

You can sense this movement taking off; a movement to make youth feel safe, welcome and at peace with their sexual identity.

By: Joseph Christopher Rocha

This week I joined hundreds of gay and lesbians veterans (even one active duty gay vet currently stationed in Iraq), flooded the halls of U.S. Capitol as part of Veterans Lobby Day on Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT). But our stories of valor and patriotism were not all received by willing and interested ears.

Three years ago Don't Ask Don't Tell silenced me from reporting repeated abuse by fellow soldiers and my unit chief, all because they suspected I was gay. But when I told my story to Congressman Dan Lungren's (R-CA) Legislative Director Kevin Holsclaw, he dismissively replied, "The Representative does not support social experiments in our armed services." One floored comrade recounted how the most pressing inquiry on Representative Dana Rohrabacher's (R-CA) mind regarding DADT, was whether or not she had ever "engaged in homosexual acts" during her career.

by the audacity of representatives and their staffers to look veterans in our eyes and tell us they couldn't care less about our mental health, job security and human dignity, I hurried off Capitol Hill, hoping my one o'clock might be more fruitful.

I dialed the 202 number as I exited the cab and hurried into a coffee shop across from the White House. Inside I scanned the crowd. What does a Deputy Director to the President even look like?
Read more...

A recent Los Angeles Times/USC poll found that a large portion of voters oppose efforts to place the same-sex marriage issue back on the ballot next year.

Views on same-sex marriage were polarized based on political party, with 66% of Democrat respondents believeing it should be legal and 71% of Republicans thinking it should not. Nonpartisan voters backed same-sex marriage 59%-34%.

Overall, 51% of California voters favored marriage rights for same-sex couples and 43% were opposed to same-sex marriage. Most noteably, almost 60% of Californians did not want to revisit the issue in 2010.

In November of 2008, Californians voted 52% to 48% to limit marriage rights to one man and one woman. Same-sex marriage advocates have been split over whether to push for a new vote next year or wait until 2012, when the presidential election will draw more voters to the polls.

Supporters of gay marriage are also strategizing in other states. On Tuesday, voters in Maine repealed a state measure that had granted marriage rights to same-sex couples.

(via The Los Angeles Times)

[This week's feature spotlight focuses on LGBT issues.]

Part 2 of 2

Emerging in the most radical wings of the gay rights movement right now is a movement called Beyond Marriage. Originally proposed by Joseph DeFilippis, Executive Director of the New York-based Queers for Economic Justice, the movement urges the LGBT community to think beyond the conventional nuclear family model.