I was surfing the web this morning when I came across the news that there is an awesome contest going on in Chicago sponsored by the Chicago Public Schools, Walgreens, True Star magazine and Power 92 radio station (WPWR-FM/ 92.3).

The contest is for high school students to "show their graphic, visual or writing skills by participating in the Expressions Against HIV/AIDS Arts & Literacy Contest, designed to heighten awareness of this disease among teens, who, along with young adults, represent the most at-risk HIV/AIDS age group."

So, if you have any ideas or pre-written or sung pieces that you could put in an envelope, I would do so now because the deadline is December 31st!

Why shake off your turkey coma to fight the spread of HIV? Because prizes include "$1,000 each to three grand prize-winning students, with another $1,000 going to each of their respective schools. Walgreens will award $100 gift cards to each of nine finalists, and the first 200 students to enter the contest will each be given a $10 Walgreens gift card. "  Not a bad deal, huh?

For more info call  312-588-0100.  Best of luck!!

So, recently it was brought to my attention that becoming certified to teach abstinence-only education in high schools may not be a very rigorous process, and that nearly anybody could do it.  This seems to me to be very dangerous.  Yes, the concepts are fairly basic, but I doubt that everyone is qualified to answer students' questions about sex, STD's, and healthy relationships without some proper research and training. 

However, if you go to the Abstinence Clearinghouse website, and you scroll down to the bottom, for the low, low price of $50 dollars you can take a test "advised on" or written by "A group of 40 professionals in fields such as child psychology and developmental education."  My my my...over forty unnamed professionals and an online test which you can retake for $25 if you don't pass the first time.  They are obviously being very careful who they let advise our students on sexuality...I hope you can sense the sarcasm. 

This is ridiculous!! And the money goes to the Absinence Clearinghouse in South Dakota which will go to help create abstinence-only programs throughout the nation.  Apparently they have "experts" that can help you obtain CBAE funding for your programs in your state...and you can pick up some purity rings on their online store BUT NO CONDOMS. 

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I did a little social experiment before I went to see this movie, and I think the results are important to share with you guys.  In the group of friends that I polled, most of them are well-educated seniors at Ohio State University, but none of which are gay.  I first asked, “who knows who Harvey Milk was?”…not a one.  “Who knows what the Stonewall Riots were?” …still none. “Who knows who Matthew Shepard was?” …1 out of 4. “Who knows what Act Up was?” …none. 

I think the educated people in America are failing to recognize and failing to remember that a gay rights movement ever took place in the United States.  What’s scarier, is that I don’t think the answers would be much different if I had asked random young gay people the same questions.  Without our history, we do not exist as a subculture, as a culture, and we are doing a disservice to our community. 

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Ok, I know this is super, super, super late news.  But, bear with me cuz  I just got over a pretty traumatic finals season.  And I’m sorry I didn’t really participate in the Blogathon…I was celebrating by not jumping in front of a bus at the price of meds.

Right.
On Saturday, November 15th, all across the nation people rallied behind the gay marriage issue and the recent passage of Proposition 8 to demand equal rights for GLBT citizens.  In Ohio there were protests in most major cities and on college campuses throughout. 

                     
In Columbus, over 500 braved the 40-degree weather and the rain to voice their opinions, to make their presence known, and to push the issue of marriage.  I feel that many more people would have taken time out of their schedules to protest if it weren’t for the weather.  However, it was very inspiring to see that so many people: friends, distant acquaintances, and strangers did stay outside and shout and wave their signs and try to make a difference until they couldn’t feel their hands or their feet.  There was no organized anti-protest as well, which is usually a source for contention and violence in other Columbus demonstrations that I have been to.  I couldn’t hear the speaker well because of the layout of the City Hall, and my friends and I agreed that it wasn’t much of a protest if everyone’s back was to the street and all you saw were umbrellas, so we stood on the sidewalk holding our signs and getting passer-bys and drivers to recognize why there were so many people at city hall.  The reaction was energizing; once people read signs such as (There is nothing wrong with love; Love not H8; Can I vote on your marriage?; and Keep your laws off my crotch, Bro) they started honking in support.  People would drive around again to read more signs, give us a thumbs up, pump a fist at us, or just smile.  There were a few negative reactions, but I feel we reached a lot of allies and made our presence known.  We haven’t accomplished anything by freezing our buns off, but we now know that we can get 500 people in Columbus together in less than a week, we can activate straight allies and we know that people care about equality and justice. 

Good news: proponents of Abstinence-only education to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa are freaking out about the prospect of president-elect Obama’s plans for foreign policy. 

So here’s a little background.

Soon-to-be-ex-President Bush’s foreign policy regarding HIV/AIDS has been commendable simply for the fact that it has raised awareness and provided billions of dollars of funding to promote HIV prevention and programming in developing African nations. 

That said, the policy that Bush has employed in Africa has been based on abstinence education and teaching fidelity in marriage.  Naturally, the nut-jobs that think abstinence-only education is the most effective policy in the US were equally excited about these policies.  I’m proposing that Bush fanned the flames of a growing epidemic.

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Team Ohio took to the hill yesterday and it was R.A.D. As Ohio Advocates, we talked to staff of Sherrod Brown and Deborah Pryce about the importance of comprehensive sex/sexuality education and the importance of denying funding of abstinence-only until marriage education.

The experience was incredibly empowering. After training for the entire weekend, doing research, coming up with a plan and educating ourselves on the issues, I really felt that we came off confident and informed – because that’s exactly what we were. I’m going to have to shout out to Team Awesome, which was my smaller group of Ohioans that took on the staff and the views of Deborah Pryce. JAC, Caryl- you were there for all the policy talk that I just don’t have the background for. You were clearly informed on what was on the table, but more importantly you were constantly reinforcing our arguments through the funding facts. John V- You provided very important statistics about Ohio’s populations- it seems that those stats were the most powerful and shocking for the staff, and something that they might share. As for me, I’m going to pat myself on the back because I feel for the first time in a long time that my personal story may be put to use in helping other youth.

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