Campus Pride & Time Out Youth present their annual awareness event on Sun, Feb 20 to "push the Queen City forward" on LGBT issues

(Charlotte, N.C.) -- Campus Pride and Time Out Youth will present LGBT advocate Judy Shepard at their annual awareness event “Believe in Youth” on Sunday, Feb. 20, 3 p.m., at Myers Park Baptist Church’s Heaton Hall, 1900 Queens Rd. The event is free to educators and youth; $15 suggested donation otherwise.

Right: Flyer for Judy Shepard's Campus Pride/Time Out Youth event. Click to enlarge.

Shepard, mother of slain hate crime victim Matthew Shepard and author of the new book, “Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed,” will speak to the audience with a special Q&A following. Special music will be provided by Charlotte’s One Voice Chorus. Following the event, there will be a VIP meet and greet with Judy Shepard at The Bar at 316, 316 Rensselaer Street, open to the public; $5 suggested donation.

The annual “Believe in Youth” event is being presented by the national, Charlotte-based Campus Pride, a nonprofit organization for student leaders and campus organizations working to create safer, more LGBT-friendly colleges and universities, and Time Out Youth, a local LGBT youth service and support organization working in the Charlotte area for 20 years.

“Campus Pride and Time Out Youth have partnered to bring Judy Shepard to Charlotte to shed light on the ongoing crisis that faces LGBT youth and community members both locally and across the country,” said Steve Bentley, executive director of Time Out Youth. “Judy’s amazing advocacy on behalf of LGBT people provides a unique perspective and a call to action for movement on LGBT equality.”

“In the past few years, our nation has come a long way in achieving progress for LGBT people – from federal hate crimes legislation to the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ LGBT Americans are finally starting to see more full equality,” said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride. “That progress, however, has yet to hit Charlotte. Though the Queen City has come a long way, our community has much further to go especially for youth. We hope Judy’s message will help push this city forward.”

Catapulted onto a national stage following the murder of her son, Matthew, in 1998, Shepard has dedicated her life to advocacy on behalf of LGBT people. Determined to prevent Matthew’s fate from befalling others, she established The Matthew Shepard Foundation. She and the foundation are ongoing educational partners with Campus Pride as well as have worked with several organizations from the Human Rights Campaign to Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

For more information about Campus Pride programs and services, visit www.CampusPride.org or email info@campuspride.org. For more information about Time Out Youth programs and services, visit www.TimeOutYouth.org or email info@timeoutyouth.org

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On the next edition of Outbeat Youth radio, we celebrate being on the air one year and welcome special guests Judy and Dennis Shepard who will share their memories of their son Matthew who was died twelve years ago this month after a vicious hate crime attack. After Matthew died, the Shepard family started the Matthew Shepard Foundation with the intent of trying to prevent hate violence and to support LGBT youth. The Matthew Shepard Foundation is an educational partner of Stop the Hate.

Tune in on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 8PM to KRCB Radio 91 FM streaming live world-wide on the Internet at www.krcb.org. For more information, go to www.outbeatyouth.com Follow us all month long on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Download past shows in iTunes.

NEW YORK TIMES FEATURES CAMPUS PRIDE

How to Find a Gay-Friendly Campus?

CAMPUS PRIDE'S NATIONAL LGBT COLLEGE FAIR PROGRAM

THEY ARE HERE TO RECRUIT YOU
Colleges Reach Out as Never Before
by John Schwartz

READ THE ENTIRE STORY ONLINE
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18guidance-t.html

The scene was similar to one that plays out thousands of times a year in gyms and auditoriums around the country: a college fair. The folding tables, the school banners, the admissions officers with a student representative or two, and the brochures and tchotchkes laid out. The only thing that might have made this one appear out of the ordinary was the preponderance of handouts with rainbow designs, and the fact that the fair was being held at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Greenwich Village. This college fair, and several like it around the country, was devoted to recruiting gay students.

“Actually going out and recruiting a gay student — that’s a very new thing for colleges,” says Shane L. Windmeyer, the co-founder of Campus Pride, a national organization that promotes safe college environments for gay students and sponsored the event.

While Ivy League schools are often represented, the fairs also attract lesser-known institutions like Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Scott A. McIntyre, associate director of admissions there, says that his university attends some 500 fairs each year, and that including one for gay students made sense.

We all know that Kathy Griffin loves the gay community, but if there was any question about that, it was answered on last night’s episode of My Life on the D-List. Kathy decided that in order to fulfill her quest to make it to the A-List, she needed to become an activist, and what better way to do that than to protest Prop 8? Well, we can debate that, but her heart is in the right place. In any event, there were a few segments during the episode that resonated with me, so I wanted to discuss them here. (btw, I realize the reference may be a bit dated for this audience, but this entry title and Kathy's sign are references to the 1979 movie Norma Rae starring Sally Field).

First, and perhaps least insightful of my observations (though I don’t necessarily claim that any are particularly sage), I was surprised to hear one woman with whom Kathy spoke while she was canvassing against Prop 8 say something along the lines of, “I have no problem with gay relationships. They can have unions, which gives them the same rights as marriage.” Right? WRONG. Kathy, fortunately, was armed with the famous factoid that marriage provides over 1,000 federal benefits that civil unions do not. This made me wonder, though, how many people have this sort of misinformation? And if they had the correct information, would it have changed their votes? What a lovely illustration of the need to educate the public, no?