NM GLBTQ Centers Participates at NM Rights Summit

Photos by MaryEllen Broderick

http://www.democracyfornewmexico.com/

Posted by David Stocum

Yesterday Board President Richard Scramstad and I attended the Summit on LGBT Rights New Mexico. The summit organized by an Ad Hoc committee was held at the University of New Mexico Law School and was attended by approximately 100 community leaders and activists. I’d like to share my impressions of the day. I have posted a more newsy account at the SW LGBT Press Online site at http://nhcv.blogspot.com/2009/06/community-leaders-and-activists-create.html

It was very evident yesterday at the summit that our New Mexico GLBTQ community is a diverse group with strong opinions as to how to best move forward toward full equality. By the end of the day it was also apparent that we can have respectful yet passionate conversations about what full equality means and how we get there. It is also clear to me that each of us while doing our specific work needs to be mindful of the larger movement we are a part of. We all have contributions to make, no one person or group can achieve full equality alone.

We all see things through the filter of our life experience and current focus. My lens is having grown up in a small town in upstate New York in the 60s and 70s. I graduated high school almost a year to the day before the Stonewall riots. The lens is also community centers as a vehicle to support and empower the GLBTQ community.

A couple of themes ran through the Summit that resonate with the New Mexico GLBTQ Centers mission to “reduce homophobia and enrich the lives of individuals living in New Mexico who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning through education, advocacy, support, example, and collaboration,” and our vision of six regional community centers with mobile outreach to more rural areas of New Mexico. Those themes were the need to reach out to the rural parts of the state outside the Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Santa Fe corridor and the desire for a more unified sense of community getting away from north vs. south, Las Cruces vs. Albuquerque etc. Will this be easy, will this be accomplished by one organization? Quite simply no. It will require all of us and I mean all of us to put collaboration ahead of competition and the greater good ahead of geography. We have all been guilty at one point or another of letting our egos or agendas get in the way of the best interests of the community (GLBTQ New Mexico) that we all serve.

While we have a lot on our plates, getting community centers off the ground, New Mexico GLBTQ Centers pledges to do whatever we can to support the other organizations serving GLBTQ New Mexico for the good of all of us.