The Brite Signal Alliance, a student club at Sinclair Community College, is holding an outdoor rally to promote equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals on April 29.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t a bunch of gay people getting together and talking about being gay,\u201d club Vice President Sean Watkins said.\u00a0 \u201c(This is) respected members of the community, elected officials, speaking about the need for equality, the need for diversity, to accept people as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speakers include City Commissioner Nan Whaley, Dayton Public Schools board member Joe Lacey and representatives from the Greater Dayton LGBT Center, Equality Ohio, TransOhio and Parents, Families\u00a0and Friends of Lesbians\u00a0and Gays (PFLAG).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe chose people we thought would present a positive message,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n
Embracing sexuality<\/strong><\/p>\n Watkins, an openly gay student, said the club helps students not just accept their sexuality, but also embrace it.<\/p>\n \u201cI see the group as being a way to get ourselves out there in the community, to be involved, to say this is us,\u201d Watkins said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re human beings, part of the community as a whole, and we deserve to be treated with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n The club, originally called the Gay\/Straight Alliance, helps students of all orientations feel good about who they are and move from tolerance to acceptance, according to club advisor Robbin Hoopes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether you\u2019re gay or straight, everybody has something about them that\u2019s unique, thank God,\u201d Hoopes said.\u00a0 \u201cThat difference is part of the whole mosaic.\u201d<\/p>\n Equal rights<\/strong><\/p>\n One goal of the rally is to raise awareness of gay rights.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople think it\u2019s a rainbow world out there right now, but it\u2019s not,\u201d Hoopes said.<\/p>\n Watkins said that because he is gay he cannot marry somebody he loves despite the fact that he is a veteran.\u00a0 He believes marriage laws are one of \u201ca plethora of things that delegate GLBT to second-class citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn an ideal world we wouldn\u2019t have to have a rally about this,\u201d Watkins said.\u00a0 \u201cIn an ideal world we\u2019d all be equal anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Public event<\/strong><\/p>\n Nine guest speakers, five community organizations and several student speakers will participate in the rally.\u00a0 Between students going to classes and others walking by, the club expects a few hundred people to attend at least part of the four-hour event.\u00a0 Watkins thinks students should come regardless of their viewpoint to hear the message of equality.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if we don\u2019t (have a big turnout) the fact is we got ourselves out there,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Brite Signal Alliance, a student club at Sinclair Community College, is holding an outdoor rally to promote equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals on April 29. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a bunch of gay people getting together and talking about being gay,\u201d club Vice President Sean Watkins said.\u00a0 \u201c(This is) respected members of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[1135,764,1134,708,1131,1133,1132,1976,30],"class_list":["post-4734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-civil-rights","tag-diversity","tag-equal-rights","tag-gay","tag-glbt","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbt","tag-meagan-ewton","tag-rally"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1em","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4735,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734\/revisions\/4735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}