GSA not just for gays

Gay-Straight Alliance is a student organization at the University of West Florida that is open to anyone of any sexual orientation.

Their purpose is “bridging the gap between the gay and straight community,” says Liz Southworth, the president of GSA.

GSA is planning on hosting a myriad of new events this year including getting into politics.

“We had ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the Florida gay adoption ban as the big news stories over the past couple of months,” Southworth says.

Besides getting into politics, GSA also has special nights such as Stitch and Bitch every other Thursday, book club every other Thursday, and exercise your rights on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

“I go to every meeting and every event that I can,” junior applied mathematics major, Kayla Wankowski says. “And now I’m doing exercise your rights every Monday and Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the gym. It was a program started about a year ago just to get more GSA members active and practice wellness.”

GSA is also planning a week long art gallery for later on during the spring semester which will include student artwork along with photography and other specific galleries brought to campus.

“Currently, we have lots of projects we’re working on,” Southworth says. “The big one that’s going to happen is the gallery week we have planned coming up. It’s basically a week dedicated to what we’re calling ‘Art for Equality and Diversity.’ There’s going to be student projects, we’re doing a big ‘No Hate,’ ‘It Gets Better’ night and we’re using ‘Art for AIDS Awareness’ which is a community-based organization.”

The biggest program GSA will be putting on this semester will be the Ally program.

“The Ally program is a diversity training program that we do annually here at UWF,” Southworth says. “What it’s aimed at is to provide safe places on campus that people could go to, say if they’re going through the coming out process or even if they’re somebody who’s a straight ally whose friend is going through the coming out process and they don’t know how to deal with it. This way we have people trained to help people go through those issues. We try to aim it at faculty, staff, and students.”

GSA meetings are held every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. upstairs in room 272 in the Commons. They welcome everyone.

“We provide a safe place for LGBT youth and questioning people,” GSA vice president Aileen Mayato says. “We’re all inclusive, so it’s not just for people who are gay, bisexual, lesbian, or transgender. We do accept all people, we really like our straight allies.”

A new year for gay rights

It’s a new year and the fight for full equality will not slow down as a predominantly Republican congress moves in.

There were a couple of triumphs in 2010 to be proud of, I would like to point out.

In September, a Florida appeals court completely threw out the ban on gay adoptions. For over 30 years, gay men and women could not adopt in the state of Florida, Sept. 22 will definitely be remembered as a happy day for many gay couples wanting kids. The court ruled the ban on gay adoption was unconstitutional.

Then, another huge advancement was on Dec. 18, during winter break. We were all most likely home with our families when it was announced that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law was finally repealed after a long struggle through congress and senate. I watched with my father as each senator spoke their vote with a final 65 for repeal, 31 against repeal. I then checked to see how Florida’s senators voted and was ashamed to say George LeMieux is one of our senators. I saw he voted against the repeal and right away sent him an e-mail stating I was very disappointed in him for his vote. I have yet to get an e-mail back, even though I did ask for a response. I then e-mailed Bill Nelson to thank him for his continued support for LGBT rights.

It was a great day to watch Barack Obama sign the repeal of DADT on Dec. 22. It was a nice Christmas present to all the gay soldiers fighting in the war still hiding their identity. Even though it is not completely in effect, just yet. It will not go into full effect until Defense Secretary and Congress sign off that the military is prepared to put in a repeal and then it will be 60 long days until the ban is officially taken out of the law books. It’s been 17 years too long.

I think this past year was fantastic. The fight was tough and long and we’re not finished yet. Next fight…marriage equality.

Happy New Year GSA!! Let 2011 be even bigger and better than 2010!