People call us an abomination.
They quote The Bible and tell us ‘man shall not lay with man.’ Leviticus 18:22, I know the verse and chapter by heart because it is regularly slung at us (they forget the verses that tell them to love).
They call us names; freak, faggot, queer, dyke (they mean to break us down and alienate us from our community and each other). They tell us that AIDS plagues our community for a reason (they mean to say that we deserve it and deserve to die).
They tell us to keep it in the bedroom and stay quiet about it (they mean to shame us into hiding).
This Center is a monument against that hatred. It is a beacon for every kid who needs to know there’s someone like them. This Center is a is a community of people who stand together and say stigma will not solve, we choose love over hate, help over harm.
I’m asking you to give because I’ve sat in LGBT Life Center and cried with parents because they wanted help – not because their child was gay, but because they wanted to be better parents for their gay child.
There are so many causes and reasons to give – many of which you need to be affected by personally in order to understand how they help, but I promise you there’s not an LGBTQ+ person you know that hasn’t been uplifted by the work of an LGBT Center. Whether it was a direct service The Center provided or by making our community more connected, loving, and healthy, the work of this Center and all centers is displayed in the rapid progress we have made against hate, stigma, health barriers, and HIV/AIDS.
Things are better than they were 40 years ago, but our work is not done.
Please give generously today and help us continue to build a better tomorrow,
Happy holiday from our LGBTQ+ chosen family to yours,
Stacie Walls
CEO, LGBT Life Center
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