Keep speaking out

As marriage becomes a reality for more and more gay and lesbian couples across the country, it is vital that we continue to speak out for equality.

What a week. Idaho. Virginia. Arkansas. Oregon. Marriage equality took positive steps in all of these states this weeks.

I loved watching hundreds of gay couples marry in Arkansas. I loved watching religious extremists in Idaho freak out when their ban on gay marriage was ruled unconstitutional.

And let the demonizing begin.

As all of these wonderful things were happening. anti-gay folk around the country became hugely fascinated with the newly-pro football player Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend. On TV for heaven's sake! One woman posted on Facebook that seeing those two kiss made her almost vomit!

Seriously?

Comment feeds filled with folks who just cannot imagine a world that includes gay people, let alone married gay people!

While all of this is going, we have to continue to speak out for equality.

While marriage equality spreads to more states, we have to continue to speak out for equality.

Please don't stop. Please don't stop your activism. Please don't stop calling people out on their bigotry.

The fight continues. The victories we have bring out more rage and more hate against gays and lesbians.

While that is happening, we cannot become silent.

This also goes for those who work to end animal cruelty or to promote veganism. The victories we have do not mean we can rest or become silent. They only mean that we have to keep fighting.

Thank you for reading!

Vida Vegan Con sessions Part I

I have written a couple of posts about my trip to Vida Vegan Con 2013 and wanted to share about a couple of more things. This post is Part I of II around some of the amazing sessions I attended. As a new blogger, I mainly spent time in sessions around blogging, writing, technical information and vegan nutrition. One of the amazing things about Vida Vegan Con 2013 was the huge variety of sessions.

Here are some notes from a couple of the sessions I attended.Please remember that these are just notes based on what I was listening to. My goal here is to give you a little look into attending a session. For more information on the folks giving the session, I included their website.

If the sentence is in quotes it's something I heard at the session from a fellow attendee.

First was Blog writing as writing by Gena Hamshaw. Gena's blog is choosingraw.com . She also currently has notes on her session at her blog.

Ideas from Gena about blog writing:

Common blunders of writing. First thing that an editor looks for is narrative scaffolding. Is there some type of architecture holding this together. A start, middle and end.

We have an obligation to make everything polished and professional.

Consult style guide.

Raise the bar.

Think about what you really want to say and what is in your heart.

About page: here is who I am. Mission statement.

Self edit. Edit yourself.Refining ideas on own. Better to sit on a post for a couple of days, edit it, then press publish.

Make post about the issue not you. Your point of view but not all about you.

Consistency matters more than frequency.

The next session I went to was Vegan Nutrition by Ginny Messina. Her website is http://www.theveganrd.com/ Here are some ideas she presented.

Know your facts.

Consider whole body of data, assign different weights to different studies.

What people think we eat: tofu, grass and granola

Demonizing food is fear based nutrition: never, ever eat this food

Science based nutrition : emphasizes foods we should have in our diet. Don't be afraid to have treats.

Supplements: calcium and B12. Collards highest in calcium.

Ethics beyond the plate: others issues beyond food: social justice, gender politics, etc

Making the most compassionate choices as possible.

Putting compassion into practice: Raising money for different causes. Being a good example. Making veganism look accessible and fun. Forgiving ourselves, forgiving others, compassionate to others.

Privilege! I can be vegan but not everyone can. We need to make veganism accessible to everyone.

Why do folks who care about social justice not care about animals? Be patient with people.

"I don't feel a lot of community with many who call themselves vegan."

"My biggest problem is people presenting a problem with no solution."

More to come. Thanks for reading!

My first bloggers conference!

Next month will be the two year anniversary of The Gay Vegans blog. I feel like a new blogger, and sometimes I feel like I"m not even a blogger yet! I have had a blast with The Gay Vegans and continually try to write well thought out, interesting and hopefully engaging posts.

So I am super excited to be going to my first ever bloggers conference, and it will be an all vegan conference! Holy cow! Vida Vegan Con is May 24 - 26 in Portland, Oregon and there will be hundreds of vegan bloggers from around the world. There will be incredible vegan food, lots of sessions where I can learn all sorts of things, and for me, just being able to connect with people whose blogs I love and who I want to learn from.

First things first. I have to get there.

ROAD TRIP!

I have never been to Oregon, or much of Idaho, so I am ecstatic to be able to cover new terrain. My friend and fellow blogger Ryan is flying in to Denver to join me for this trip that will take us from Denver to Portland via Boise, Idaho. So exciting.

I know we have plenty of blog readers in Idaho, so please let me know if there is a place we simply must eat at while driving through. We will spend the night in Boise so most likely will have dinner there. If we are making good time heading west on I 80 we might even take a quick meal break in Salt Lake City which would totally rock it!

I love road trips. I write about road trips.

This road trip will end in Portland, where I will immerse myself into an intense, vegan blogger's dream. So much to do, so much to learn, so many people I want to meet. I feel like a gay teenager going to his first Black Sabbath concert! (that was me by the way, back in 1982!)

Fortunately there are several folks attending Vida Vegan Con who are from Portland and they have been keeping all of informed as to the multitude of vegan experiences possible in Portland. It seems like there will not be enough time in the day! 

And on Saturday night, the Galarama! A huge party to raise money for Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest!

Whew!

My return trip will be solo so I am bringing camping gear to hit a place I haven't camped before, which won't be difficult to find.

Thanks so much for reading. I will keep you updated for sure.