Welcome to Gaia! ::

I am so upset. I can't find it anywhere on Yahoo or on Gaia (not that I've looked to hard here yet). But I think you should all know.

Yesterday my group was watching the Laramie Project because it was the anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death.

We found out there's been another very bad attack, in NYC. On Sunday night, Michael J Sandy was lured to a place and attacked by at least 3 men, then chased out onto the Belt Highway, where he was struck by a car and severely injured. Last I knew, he was in critical condition in a coma. His family is struggling with the decision to move him from the ventilator.

Here are a few articles...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/nyregion/12attack.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/461009p-387712c.html
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2011074,00.html

My heart is broken. And right around the anniversary of Laramie?
Please, tell everyone you can. I haven't seen it on Yahoo, I've had to dig up the articles I could find. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places... but I don't think this is getting much publicity, and it should. It makes me mad that I can't find it on Yahoo, so mad! We can't let this just slip under the rug. After so much was made of Laramie... Please, spread the word.

My group is holding a candlelight vigil tonight, despite the threat of snowstorms just an hour north of here ^^;;

I feel so heart-sick.

We held our vigil last night, although it was really windy and our candles didn't want to stay lit. It was great to see so many people coming together. We think we might do this every semester, maybe just a general vigil against hate crimes of all types.
As an update, Mr. Sandy passed away yesterday afternoon, on his 29th birthday.

I think it's important to bring things like this to view. Even though it's happened before, it's important not to forget.
A GLBT hate crime is reported in NYC every 36 hours. For all of those reported, how many more aren't? There's a silence surrounding these things, and while you can't have all of them in the news... I've been all about breaking the silence. HRC chose this year's Coming Out Day theme to be "Talk About It", to end the silence. My group has brought awareness to gay issues, but it's also important to talk about other things too, like women's rights. So many women are abused regularly. I'm in the v****a Monologues this coming spring to recognize the silence surrounding vaginas. The Women's student union on campus is having "Take Back the Night" which is about violence toward men and women and is a place to talk about abuse or other bad things that have happened to you that you usually can't talk about. Today I did a walk for Suicide Prevention/Awareness, especially for GLBT teen suicide. Maybe I'm starting to become an activist, but silence is death.


sorry for all the seriousness, haha ^^;; but I feel like we need it sometimes