My mom does not even know that I am gay

Only you can decide that…

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, Crossroads Charlotte, a community building initiative, debuted its film, “Crossroads Charlotte: The Movie.” It included four vignettes about the possible futures of Charlotte by the year 2015. CRANE organizer Matt Comer attended as part of his duties covering the story for Q-Notes. He left the following comment on the new CrossroadsCharlotte.org website following the film, in response to the vignette, “Eye to Eye”:

I really identified with the character Sam. In the last vignette, Sam’s story is fully told: “My mom doesn’t know I’m gay.” The new friend I met, Glenda, urged me to speak about our conversation after the film. I sometimes feel as though Charlotte’s civic/government, social and religious leaders and institutions are kind of like Sam’s mom; they don’t know Charlotte has a gay community. As big a city as Charlotte is, one would think we’d have at least one openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) elected official. We don’t. The City doesn’t include sexual orientation or gender-identity in its non-discrimination policy; the County doesn’t include gender-identity. Neither the County nor the City currently offer domestic partner benefits to same-sex partners of LGBT employees (although the County has finally begun to officially discuss it). The region is still very conservative on religious issues. The only institutions who recognize LGBT citizens is the business community. Our city won’t grow unless LGBT citizens are fully accepted and given their full dignity and worth as valued people and community members.

Head over to CrossroadsCharlotte.org, sign up, join the LGBT Charlotteans group and watch the four vignettes (in order: Fortress Charlotte, Class Act, The Beat Goes on, and Eye to Eye). Respond to the story that moves you.

Does Charlotte’s future include the LGBT community? Maybe. You can make it happen.