Frontlines: The Latest from OutServe-SLDN

Leaving Las Vegas

Filling you in on the Las Vegas and Colorado legs of our trip last week was one of those things that kept getting pushed aside. We were busy those three days in Las Vegas, so busy that we didn’t linger in the casinos—although we did hit the Liberace Museum. We came to listen and to ask for help. We did a lot of listening—at a small dinner organized by Las Vegas attorney Kevin Kelly, at a panel discussion the next night organized by Candice Nichols, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada—but we did some talking, too. Those of us involved in this struggle tend to assume that others are as aware of it as we are. In fact, they’re not. One of the things we wanted to learn from the people we met was how to raise awareness of the issue. How can we engage more Nevadans and Coloradans in our fight, and keep them engaged? How can we bring the entire Nevada Congressional delegation, not just our great ally Shelley Berkeley, to our side? Hard questions, with no easy answers, but our team is at work on it. In the morning Sharon Alexander and Julie Kruse will be on Capitol Hill meeting with the staff of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada.) We didn’t have to worry about getting Jim Davis engaged. He’s a terrific example of why DADT must be repealed. He retired as a captain after twenty years in the Air Force under DADT, including a tour in Iraq and has the medals to prove it. He now practices law in Las Vegas. Channel 8’s Eyewitness News reporter Chris Sladana interviewed us for a long news segment, and Jim was really great. He told the reporter, “When we get called to duty and go to war—when we get called into combat, that’s what we focus on and do our job. It doesn’t matter who we wake up with.” You can read the transcript here, and if you’ve got a fast connection you can watch the show. We need guys like Jim to speak for us, and I hope he’ll do a lot more. Oh, yes, the Liberace Museum. Las Vegas Pride was celebrating their early kick-off with a big party at this memorial to all things Liberace. They invited us to come over after our panel discussion. In Las Vegas we also spent more than an hour with the managing editor of the Las Vegas Sun, Mike Kelley, and the next morning we had breakfast with the publisher, Brian Greensun, who’s a major force in Nevada politics and business, one of the most important businessmen in the state. We want him on our side. We also met with Molly Ball at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. We don’t expect stories to come out of all of these meetings; we just hope the journalists understand what we said and remember it. One of these day’s they’ll find a use for it, some may become active advocates. And so it was on to Colorado: more breakfasts, more meetings with editorial boards, more “meet and greets”—and we hope from all that that more Colorado men and women are ready to join us in the fight—and ready to put pressure on their representatives in Congress, too. Again we found people who really weren’t much aware of DADT and we set out to tell them and make new friends. We showed a clip from the 60 Minutes program on Darren Manzella at a reception in Denver. We met with representatives of the Gill Foundation; the nation’s largest private foundation focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights. It was founded by Tim Gill, who started Quark, a major player among software companies. We’re hoping the foundation will increase their support. This is an expensive fight we’re involved in, and we need more money to pay for it. We did essentially the same thing in Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs as we did in Las Vegas. We asked questions and we answered them. We talked to Iraq War veterans in every state we visited. Two of the soldiers are still on active duty. Without exception they all want DADT repealed. David Hall & Aubrey Sarvis

05-08-08