Lavender Magazine Pride Award 2010

June is PRIDE month and is designated as a time to honor our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender men and women. As a parent of two gay sons and advocate, we take every opportunity to do so, especially this month. Lavender Magazine has been incredibly generous to us over the past year and once again showed their ongoing commitment to their mission by issuing their annual Pride Awards. We were in the company of some incredible people and organizations who also shared the Awards stage: Comcast Corporate Award, Bruce Meyers and Gordon Severson for their feature length documentary - It Doesn't Define Us, MN Red Ribbon Ride, Park Tavern for their welcoming business, The Whelihan Experience for artistic expression, and us for our book and the work we do. That evening was especially special because we were in a room with over 200 people with one of our favorites, Bradley Traynor - better known as Wanda, introducing us. The crowd was definitely in its celebration mode but it quieted down for our short speech of acceptance. We talked to several people after the ceremony and went away convinced yet again that our book and our work is important. We were a symbol for some in the room of the support they yearn for in their families, workplace, church and society at large. It is for all of those people and others we have never met that we continue our message of love and acceptance.