Barb Hamp Weicksel

COMMENTARY: Stop the hate! Free Kate!

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
May 21st, 2013

Meet 17-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt:

• Sebastian River High School Senior
• Cheerleader
• Voted “most school spirited”

Meet the 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt:

• Expelled
• Arrested
• Charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16 years old

Kaitlyn "Kate" Hunt is - or I should say was – in a relationship with another female student. Kate and this other young woman started dating when Kate was 17 and a senior, and the other young woman was15.

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COMMENTARY: The hyphenated Americans

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
May 14th, 2013

Do you believe there will ever be a time in these United States of America when we will not be known as gay-Americans and just simply be Americans?

I ask because I feel that we have become a nation of hyphenated Americans. You know what I’m talking about: gay-Americans, African-Americans, Latino-Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Muslim-Americans, Japanese-Americans, just to name a few.

Do the hyphens keep us separate from one another? And if that is the case, then we will never be equal because separate but equal is never, ever equal.

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COMMENTARY: Coming Out 101

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
May 7th, 2013

With the coming out of NBA center Jason Collins last week, I’ve read enough opinion on “coming out” to last me a lifetime.

Gay, straight, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Muslim, black, white, Hispanic, Asian – absolutely everyone had an opinion. Everyone, of course, is entitled to their opinion. But my thinking is this: Unless you’re gay and you’ve experience all the emotions and fallout that comes along with “coming out,” you really can’t speak with any authority on the subject.

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COMMENTARY: No matter what you do, you’re gonna die

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
April 30th, 2013

I went to a Relay for Life luminaria ceremony on Saturday evening. If you have never been to one, you really should go, if for no other reason than to make you understand how very important your own life is.

As the ceremony started a lone bag piper started walking playing “Amazing Grace.” If you’ve heard the song played on a bagpipe, you understand the chill that passes over you when that first note is piped. The hundreds of people who were at this event became silent and we fell in behind the piper and started waking the track lined with these luminaria bags.

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COMMENTARY: Life is precious, so choose wisely

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
April 23rd, 2013

I was reminded once again this week on how precious life can be, and that reminder has changed me.

I've decided that I most certainly do not want to be an angry person. I don't want to carry anger and bitterness and hatred with me for the rest of my life. I don't want to feel weighed down with the burden of being angry at everyone who has decided that it's the gays who are to blame for what is wrong in their lives.

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COMMENTARY: Gays in Major League Baseball?

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
April 16th, 2013

After watching the new movie “42” about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball with the encouragement and wisdom of the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, I couldn’t help but relate it to Major League Baseball today.

Who of our current general managers has the courage to sign or encourage the first openly gay baseball player? And who of our current players, or one who is coming up, who are gay would have the courage of Jackie Robinson? And are baseball fans ready for an openly gay player?

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COMMENTARY: Fifty shades of red

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
April 2nd, 2013

The Huffington Post put the map, seen at the right, on its Facebook page on March 29, 2013.

Each area of red on the map shows where someone changed their Facebook profile picture to the Human Rights Campaign’s red symbol for equality. More than 2.7 million Facebook users changed their profile picture on Tuesday, March 26, according to Facebook statistics.

What struck when I looked at this map was the correlation of where the sparseness of red is on the map of red equality signs and where the red is on the map of the slave states, shown on the far left.

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COMMENTARY: “Hey world, I am what I am”

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
March 26th, 2013

Today is Tuesday, March 26, and by the time most of you read this, the Supreme Court justices will have heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which is a voter-approved initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.

On Wednesday, March 27, the justices will hear oral arguments on the federal Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage in the United States of America as between one man and one woman.

Before any of these decisions even take place -– by the end of June -- I want to remind each and every one of us who we are.

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COMMENTARY: Teach your children well

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
March 19th, 2013

In light of the Steubenville rape trial verdict, I’m wondering when it is we tell our children the cautionary tales about alcohol? Is it:

• While we’re sitting around a holiday table with our glasses full of wine?

• While we’re watching a professional baseball game with a bottle of beer in our hands?

• While we’re barbecuing with a six-pack on ice sitting at the ready beside the grill?

• While we’re mixing cocktails in preparation for an outdoor concert?

• While we’re getting dressed for a night of bar hopping?

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COMMENTARY: If you yell all the time, no one will listen

Barb Hamp Weicksel - SDGLN Contributor
March 12th, 2013

This is a crazy world we live in. People are quick to judge and quick to tell you exactly what is wrong with your life.

The gay community has fought for decades for fair and equal treatment under the law. We want to be treated with respect and have our voices be heard in a world than somehow seems to only hear what it considers to be normal - although what is normal is really up for debate.