Herland Sister Resources

This year’s Pride Week was one of the best ever. Large crowds, virtually no hecklers, not unbearable heat for the parade, and the police were almost friendly. What more could you ask for?

Some of the highlights of the week were:

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Can you believe Herland has had Spring and Fall Retreats for 20 years?
The very first retreat was held in October 1985 at Osage Hills State Park and the Saturday evening entertainment was by Mary Reynolds and Peggy Johnson.

Well, we are coming up on the 20-year anniversary of that first womyn’s retreat and we are going to celebrate in a big way. This October we will have our Fall Retreat at Eufaula State Park and we will have lots of special activites as we try to re-create some of the more popular events from past retreats.

We also want a special T-shirt design recognizing our 20 years of fun, friendships, and yes, even frivolity.

You can enter as many designs as you wish and we will contact you if we select your design. The winner will receive a free registration to the Fall Retreat and a free T-shirt, of course.

The design contest will be for the front of the T-shirt and should be no larger than 8.5 x 11 inches. (On the back of the shirt will be a chronological list of all the retreats and where they were held.)

Submissions may be electronic or hard copy and must be received by September 1, 2005. Please include your name and phone number or email address with each submission. (If we are unable to contact you, your design cannot be considered.)

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibit, “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933 - 1945,” examines the police terror that led to the arrest of more than 100,000 men under a broadly interpreted law against homosexuality and the torture and death of many of them. The exhibit of photographs, documents and artwork, and a companion exhibit, “Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust,” will be offered free to the public September 14 through October 23 at Untitled [ArtSpace], 1 Northeast 3rd Street in downtown Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma Holocaust Remembrance Exhibition is a project of Cimarron Alliance Foundation, supported by community partners including the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, The Metropolitan Library System, the Arts Council of Oklahoma City, and several other community and religious organizations. The project committee is chaired by Rob Howard and honorary co-chairs are Jim Roth, Oklahoma County Commissioner and Pam Fleischaker, Presidential appointee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council from 2000-2005.

The “Rescuers” exhibit features portraits by Gay Block and narratives by Malka Drucker of people who helped save the lives of Jews in Europe during World War II. Of the 105 portraits of European rescuers from 10 countries, 49 tell the story of their lives before, during, and after the war as they grapple with the questions of why they acted with humanity in a time of barbarism.

From 1933 to 1945, Nazi leaders waged a ruthless campaign against people deemed “enemies of the state.” Hitler’s regime, driven by a racist ideology, carried out the mass destruction of six million Jews in the Holocaust and implemented a murderous program of “race hygiene;” killing millions more to cleanse German society of Gypsies, people who carried hereditary diseases, the mentally and physically handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and others. Of the more than 100,000 homosexual men arrested, approximately 50,000 were imprisoned and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 were sent to concentration camps, where an unknown number of them perished.

The award-winning film documentaries, “Paragraph 175” and “Resisting Paradise” will be shown as companion pieces to the exhibits during limited screenings in cooperation with the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. “These exhibits are designed to teach us all about the Holocaust and encourage visitors to reflect on the moral and spiritual questions raised by these terrible events” said Jim Roth, Honorary Co-Chair of the Oklahoma Holocaust Remembrance Exhibition.

“The exhibit brings into sharp focus the end result of intolerance and hatred that left 11 million dead. The facts of this tragedy raise important questions for all of us about the inhumanity that led to this - and the inhumanity that exists in every society, even our own. In the “Rescuers” exhibit, we can see the courage shown by those who risked their own lives standing up to intolerance and violence,” said Pam Fleischaker, the project’s Honorary Co-Chair.

“Nazi persecution of Homosexuals 1933 - 1945″ exhibit has been touring nationally since 2003 and has been shown in Houston, St. Louis, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Ft. Lauderdale, San Francisco, and East Lansing Michigan. The exhibit is scheduled next in West Palm Beach, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, and Ithaca, New York.

For more information or to donate to The Oklahoma City Holocaust Remembrance Exhibition visit the web site at www.OKHolocaustexhibition.org.

Soliciting Volunteers for the Holocaust Remembrance Exhibition

The Oklahoma Holocaust Remembrance Exhibition (OKHRE) and Docent Co-Chair Margaret Cox are looking for docents (informed ushers) to aid visitors to the exhibit. Docents will receive a formal training on September 15, during one of two training classes to be held that day and evening; and will have ample opportunity to inform themselves at the website www.OKHolocaustexhibition.org. Docents may sign up for one five-hour shift, for one shift per week, or however long and often you wish. There will be two docents on duty at all times, so feel free to recruit a friend and schedule yourselves together.

Please contact Margaret at 405-413-2600 or by email at mocox1@cox.net. You may also go to the exhibition website, above, and sign up on the Volunteer page there.

Herland, PFLAG, and Church of the Open Arms (COA) are joining together to sponsor a support group for young lesbians and gays. The group will begin by meeting every other week, alternating between Herland and COA.

If you are between the ages of 18 and 30 and would like a chance to meet with other people your age, discuss issues of importance to you, and make new friends, please join us for the initial meeting at Herland on Tuesday, July 12, at 7 pm at Herland, 2312 NW 39th Street. The second meeting in July will be Tuesday, July 26th, at 7 pm at COA, 3131 N. Penn.

Please call Donna at 748-7301 or Ginger at 942-1535 for more information.

Two members of Canada’s military have tied the knot in the country’s first gay marriage to be recognized by the armed forces. The two unnamed men were married at an airbase in Nova Scotia last month. Same-sex marriages are currently legal in the majority of Canada’s provinces, with the country’s government keen to offer marriage across the country in the coming months.

The issue is currently being debated in Parliament, where it has faced stiff opposition from conservative legislators and religious leaders. The military, however, introduced guidelines in 2003 to allow lesbian and gay members to marry, the Canadian Press (CP) reports. The instructions ensure same-sex couples are treated as equally as their heterosexual counterparts and offered the same marriage rights available. CP reports the men were a sergeant and a warrant officer and that the marriage was presided over by a United Church of Canada minister.