Pride-awareness-commitment Week Huge Success
Pride - Awareness - Commitment Week Huge Success
The Lesbian and Gay Men's PAC (Pride - Awareness -Committment) Week series of events was a resounding success thanks to the efforts of the PAC Week Group and to the many supporters of this attempt to raise public awareness of the existence, needs, and concerns of the lesbian and gay men's communities at the University of Michigan and throughout the city of Ann Arbor and its environs. From October 5-1 2 the PAC Week Group offered a Gala Recognition Program and Reception; performance nights for wimmin and gay men; workshops; readings by Craig Harris, Allison Bechdel, Sarah Shulman, and Renee Hansen; Blue Jeans Day, including a Rally and March, and a celebratory dance. At the Recognition Program many groups and individuals were offered heartfelt thanks for their concern, support, and work throughout the years since 1970, when lesbians and gay men organized Gay Liberation and subsequently the Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office at the U - M in 1971. Receiving special recognition were AGENDA; the Michigan Daily editorial staff; Cheryl Munn-Fremon, U - M's Director of Consulting and Support Services, Information Technology Division; Colleen Dolan-Greene, U - M Asst. Vice-President for Academic Affairs -Personnel; Sylvia Hacker, U - M School of Public Health Assoc. Professor of Nursing and of Population Planning and International Health; Sandra Cole, U -M Medical School Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and educator and consultant in Human Sexuality; Ann Marie Coleman, Guild House Co-Director and Ann Arbor City Council member; Don Coleman, Guild House Co-Director; Parents - FLAG/Ann Arbor; Lesbian-Gay Radio Collective; Lesbian and Gay Men's Rights Organizing Committee (LaGROC); Black Lesbian Womyn and Gay Men in Struggle; the PAC Week Group; PAC Week funders; volunteers and paid staff members of the Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office; Jim Toy, longtime community activist and LGMPO Gay Male Advocate; past LGMPO Lesbian Advocates; and Billie Edwards , community activist and current LGMPO Lesbian Advocate.
Tribute was also paid to people who could not be at the Celebration: those taken by death, those who could not risk being present at this public event, and those whose contributions may never be known except to those who gave them. Hand in hand, absent and present, dead and living, we move forward. We can, and we will, do nothing less.
Gay Liberation's Purpose is to provide information, counseling, and related social services for people concerned about sexual orientation. We maintain a hotline for crisis intervention, peer counseling and referral. We help provide factual information to offset prejudice and misinformation about lesbians and gay men. We work to obtain human and civil rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation. We help lesbian and gay men's groups organize. And we are a link to other community groups.
Community Services include: a Hotline for crisis intervention, peer counseling, referral. Education: workshops and conferences on lesbian and gay male concerns, with an emphasis on how people in the "helping professions" and "teaching professions" can work positively with lesbian and gay male clients, patients, & students. Speakers Bureau: phone for information. Human & Civil Rights: information and referral to help people who are being discriminated against because of their actual or presumed sexual orientation or because of their presumed "cross-gender" characteristics; lobbying for human and civil rights. Community Organizing: information and assistance in organizing groups, setting goals, addressing conflict, linking with other groups and resources.
Gay Liberation Meetings vary according to purpose. We do most of our work in subcommittees. Call us for time and place. Gay Liberation includes U-M students, staff, and faculty, and people from the larger community.
Gay Liberation, c/o 4117 Michigan Union, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; 763-4186.