Turning anti-gay hate into love with a Loring Park memorial to Joel Larson

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Friends and family of Joel Larson have started a campaign to remember the energetic and dynamic young gay man who lost his life to anti-LGBT hate in Minneapolis’ Loring Park in 1991.Larson’s loved ones are seeking a park bench with the inscription, Let us turn our backs on hatred. Teach love, to be placed in Loring Park to remember him. It will also serve to remind visitors of a dark time in Minneapolis history for LGBT people and how love has made things better, safer, and less unequal in the Twin Cities.“Yesterday, Joel’s sister Janet said to me, ‘Where do you begin to describe someone who was larger than life?’ That was Joel,” Larson’s friend Awen Briem told TheColu.mn. “I could elaborate about Joel’s out of bounds fabulousness, his dancing, his handsomeness, his beauty, his unmatched style… but at the core I was drawn to Joel because he showed up in the world authentically and he didn’t seem to care much what others thought… And if he did, he didn’t let it show.”Larson, a handsome young man from Urbandale, Iowa, — a suburb of Des Moines — had moved to Minneapolis the January before his murder. He loved New Wave bands, Madonna, died his hair, and occasionally wore eyeliner, as was the style at the time.(Photo via Remembering Joel Larson)Larson’s sister, Janet, remembered his attention to detail. Continue Reading

Safe Schools bill passes Minnesota Senate

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The Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act passed the Minnesota Senate on Thursday.After a contentious debate inside and outside the Minnesota Legislature, the bill passed a major hurdle and now heads to the House where the bill passed last year. The House will have to concur with the changes made by the Senate, then the bill heads to Gov. Mark Dayton who has said he will sign it.The bill is a comprehensive plan to tackle bullying in Minnesota’s public schools. It provides a clear definition of bullying, protects all students while listing 19 categories of students often singled out for bullying, creates a school climate center and council to provide up-to-date anti-bullying research to school districts, and focuses on bullying prevention as opposed to punishment.Republicans tried everything to derail the bill. Amendments were offered to delete the current bill and replace it with North Dakota’s anti-bullying law, to strip the bill’s School Climate Center and School Climate Council out of the bill, to allow bullies to confront their accusers, to add a mention of First Amendment rights (already included in the bill), to mandate that parents be contacted before a school refers students to resources, to exempt contact sports from anti-bullying requirements, and to mandate parental notification when a student is accused of bullying other students.Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie proposed an amendment that would have mandated a pilot project in up to 9 schools for several years instead of the anti-bullying law applying to all school districts.None of those amendments were successful.Some changes were made to the bill, however. The bill’s purpose statement was stripped out, which is often done as the bill moves through the process. Continue Reading

Minnesota Senators introduce ban on “ex-gay” therapy, identical bill now pending in both houses of the state legislature

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Minnesota senators have introduced a bill that would prohibit those with professional licenses from engaging in “reparative therapy” in regard to sexual orientation and gender identity for those under the age of 18. If the bill passes, therapists who provide such therapies to youth risk losing their licenses to practice.

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