Images

Ally Profile: John Delaney

Image July 14, 2014 We Are Straight Allies 1 Comment

John Delaney_FP_Print
After serving as Jacksonville’s mayor from 1995-2003, John A. Delaney became the University of North Florida’s fifth president in 2003. As mayor, Delaney spearheaded major initiatives including The Better Jacksonville Plan, a $2.2 billion improvement plan that gave the city new public facilities and other amenities. He also created the Preservation Project, a massive land conservation program giving Jacksonville the distinction of having the largest urban park system in the United States. Prior to that, he served as the chief assistant state attorney, the number two prosecutor for Northeast Florida and as the general counsel for the City of Jacksonville.

As UNF President, John A. Delaney oversees a campus of more than 16,000 students, 600 faculty and more than 1,000 staff. The 1,381 acre campus in Northeast Florida is considered a driver in the region, with an annual economic impact of nearly $1 billion. Under his direction, UNF reaffirmed its commitment to students, by offering individualized attention and offering transformational learning opportunities.

Delaney is considered UNF’s chief fundraiser, nearly doubling the university’s privately funded endowment. In April 2013, the Power of Transformation campaign exceeded its goal, raising more than $130 million. The campaign was publicly launched in 2009 with an ambitious goal of $110 million. His presidency continues a distinguished career as a public servant. Delaney has also served on numerous non-profit and corporate boards. He and his wife Gena have four children and twin grandsons.

John explains why the Human Rights Ordinance in the city of Jacksonville is important, not only to him, but to the city of Jacksonville: “If we want a strong workforce and a strong educational system, we need to recognize the rights and contributions of LGBT individuals in the workplace and throughout society. It’s the smart thing to do as well as the ethically and morally right course to follow.”

Families

Ally Profile: The Calise Family

Image June 15, 2014 We Are Straight Allies Leave a comment

Calise_FP_Print Meet Matthew and Jill Calise. Matthew J. Calise is a native of Jacksonville, Florida and a proud supporter of his hometown. With a diverse upbringing, he found a passion in the arts. Matthew graduated from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and now proudly serves on the Alumni Board. He has been a long time friend, volunteer, and advocate of Theatre Jacksonville, Players by the Sea, and the 5 & Dime Theatre Company. After high school, he attended Florida State College at Jacksonville where he received his Associate in the Arts degree. Matthew then moved to Tallahassee to pursue one of his dreams of graduating from Florida State University with degrees in both marketing and management. He began his professional career with the Wounded Warrior Project, and is now a marketing coordinator for Swisher International, Inc.

Jill Flowers Calise was born in 1954 in Norfolk, Virginia, to Max and Lantha Flowers (a proud Navy family) along with their first daughter, Cindy. Jill attended Duval County Public Schools, Cedar Hills Elementary, JEB Stuart Jr. High School and N. B. Forrest High School. She pursued a teaching degree at the University of Florida and attained a Masters Degree in Educational Leadership from the University of North Florida.

Jill considers herself a patriot and LOVES America. She is passionate about teaching and loves the students she serves. She goes home every day from teaching to two of her other great passions, gardening and her little dog, Gizmo.

We are incredibly grateful that Matthew visited our booth at One Spark this year and bravely chose to share his family’s story with us. Matthew’s parents, James (Jimmy) and Jill Calise, were married a little more than 25 years ago. It was through her sister, Cindy, and her daughter, Jill Anne, that Jill met Jimmy in 1987. One month before their wedding day, Jimmy learned that he was HIV positive. After sharing the news with Jill, he thought maybe they should call off the ceremony. After careful consideration, Jill knew she still very much wanted to marry Jimmy. Above all, they loved each other very much and she knew that would get them through any challenge life had ready for them.

In 1988, Jimmy and Jill married and the next year in May of 1989, they had Matthew. His name means, “gift from God.” Jimmy and Jill lived as a couple for 8 years before deciding that Jimmy needed to openly live his truth. So, when Matthew was 7-years-old, his father came out to him as gay. At the time, Matthew says he didn’t fully understand what ‘being gay’ meant, but he clearly remembers how challenging life had been for his parents because of this fact. Jimmy was disowned by by some of his family members and friends. Matthew also found it difficult to be open with his friends about who his father was.

It wasn’t until Matthew was almost to middle school that his father’s HIV had progressed into AIDS. Knowing that he didn’t have much time left, Jimmy’s only hope was that he would live long enough to see Matthew graduate from high school. Matthew was just shy of 16 when his father passed away. To honor the impact that Jimmy had on their lives, the wonderful father he was, and the great man he had been, Matthew and Jill each got a tattoo that they display with great pride. Jill and Matthew are still very close. She tells those she meets, that they are “as thick as thieves.”

Their story seems uncommon, but they are not alone. Today, many people live ‘under cover’ for fear of discrimination, abandonment, or threats of violence simply because of who they are, or who they love. We have lost millions of spouses, loved ones, children, sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers due to complications from AIDS while millions more currently live with HIV. In their statement, Matthew and Jill explain why it was important to them to join the ‘We Are Straight Allies’ community, “In our family, we believe that it takes a village to raise a child. We also believe it takes a village to make a change and create a movement. Today, we become a proud part of that community. One that believes in both love and equality for all.”

We appreciate the Calise family’s willingness to share their story in hopes that our community will begin to celebrate our differences, rather than fear them.

We’d also like to thank the Florida Times-Union for also sharing Matthew and Jill’s story with their readers on this very special Father’s Day.

To learn more about HIV/AIDS, please visit AIDS.gov

Communities

Celebrating Shavuot

Image June 4, 2014 We Are Straight Allies Leave a comment

Shavuot is the Hebrew word for “weeks” and refers to the Jewish festival marking the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, which occurs seven weeks after Passover – the exodus from Egypt and the liberation from slavery. Shavuot, like many other Jewish holidays, began as an ancient agricultural festival that marked the end of the spring barley harvest and the beginning of the summer wheat harvest. In ancient times, Shavuot was a pilgrimage festival during which Israelites brought crop offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem. Today, it is a celebration of Torah, education, and actively choosing to participate in Jewish life.

This year, according to the Jewish calendar, Shavuot is celebrated from sundown June 3rd through sundown on June 5th. Since Shavuot is an ancient pilgrimage holiday, most of the celebration rituals focus on the community – namely, the celebration of words. Traditionally, those of Jewish faith study the Torah beginning at nightfall of the first day of the festival. Today, the community gathers for the reading of the 10 commandments, along with the stories of Ezekiel and Ruth. In Christian tradition, this celebration, known as Pentecost – the coming of the Holy Spirit, happens on June 8th. In that gathering Words suddenly dissolved and multiplied into hearing and speaking the 70 different tongues of all humanity.

Today, We Are Straight Allies celebrates our many threads of connection with the belief that the Holy Spirit moves through all languages, through all people to unify each “I” with the Divine collective of “We”. With that, we re-created Rabbi Olitzky’s image in Hebrew, as a symbol that Equality is universal…that nothing is more important than our humanity.

Berakah. Shalom. Ahabah. [Blessings. Peace. Love.]

Rabbi Olitzky_FP_Hebrew Gracious translation credit goes to Rabbi Olitzky.

Communities, Families

Ally Profile: Ronald Breaker

Image May 26, 2014 We Are Straight Allies 1 Comment

Ronald E. Breaker is a native of Jacksonville’s Eastside. He served 21 years in the United States Army, retiring as Chief Warrant Officer 2. Mr. Breaker then served for 13 years as a Department of Defense Civilian, retiring in September 1996 as a GS 13. He returned to Jacksonville with his high school sweetheart and bride of over 48 years, Barbara Lewis-Breaker. They currently reside in Historic Springfield. Presently, Mr. Breaker works as a freelance photographer. He studied photography with New York Institute of Photography in 1965 and University of North Florida in 2001. Ronald and his wife are the proud parents of four children and four grandchildren.

In his own words, Ronald shares his journey towards allyship:

My journey to this point as a straight ally has been one of reevaluating my thoughts and beliefs. When the LGBT community started framing their plight as a civil rights issue I disagreed and would often say, “they choose to be gay, and could stop if they wanted to. Being black is different, I don’t have a choice.” When I think of people I have known as early as 3^rd or 4^th grade who were gay, I realized gay people could no more change their identity than I could change mine.

We live in a changing world, and when the military realized that, they knew their policies of discrimination against women and eventually LGBT members of the military had to change. It is very hard for a lot of us to accept these facts, but I believe, when you know better you do better. To that end, If Jacksonville is to become a first class NFL city it cannot discriminate against any of its citizens. Injustice against one of us is injustice against all of us.

See a video clip of his statement here:

Families

Ally Profile: Frieda Saraga

Image May 7, 2014 We Are Straight Allies 2 Comments

Frieda Saraga, mother of five children — all adults one gay son, two twin daughters who are lesbian and a son and daughter who are straight — they all love one another very much and supportive of one another.

My husband, Leonard and I have been married 62 years and certainly did not envision having such a diverse family–we both had a great deal to learn. Since they are all in their 50’s and a little beyond, there were no GSA’s, no local PFLAG chapters and no internet available to us for information but we had the main ingredient–we love our children very much. We began realizing that being gay or lesbian was even much less accepted by many and I began to hear jokes and remarks that were hurtful and suddenly I stopped friends who were making those remarks and tell them these remarks are not ok to use–we have gay children I became an advocate without realizing it. Our friends realized they still loved our children and being gay was just one thing about them. Jacksonville was even more conservative if possible than in this day and age and many religion biases.

Growing up I remembered prejudice for being Jewish–as a child having children stick me with pins to see if I had blood like everyone else–ideas that parents had raised their children with and to realize my children and many of their friends might go thru greater prejudice made both my husband and myself aware that something had to change. After being in retail business with three stores for thirty years we were both at a loss as to what to do when we grow up–I started volunteering at the HIV testing clinic –this was twenty years ago when the gay population was being so infected with the virus. i took the counseling training with the encouragement of my son who felt I would have compassion for the gay population that was coming in to be tested and have remained an HIV testing counselor during my 16 years at Planned Parenthood and the last four years testing every week end in the Bay Street jail with inmates.

At the same time a wonderful co-facilitator, Judy Higgison and myself were asked to take over an HIV support group called Positive Attitudes that met every Tuesday evening and for the past eighteen years we have been with many wonderful men and women thru the years–thankfully for the last few years we have seen people live their lives unlike the first ten years when we saw so many pass away. The group is based on attitudinal healing and we both have gained even more than we have given. As this was all happening, about twenty years ago, our son, Scott, again suggested that perhaps we could have a group that parents of glbt children could meet together, thus the beginning of PFLAG of Jacksonville.

We found a place to meet and thru the years we had to find other meeting places and put something I believe about a support group in a small spot in the paper and a phone number with no address for the security of those who might attend. Those first few years each monthly meeting brought mostly mothers of gay children who were crying and so many were torn because of religious beliefs. Within time we became a chapter of PFLAG National and thru the years have met every month, have a hot line and have become a viable organization which gives support, education, and advocacy in the community concerning GLBT issues. We work hand in hand with JASMYN and are active with many organizations in the community.

I have presented programs for companies, college classes and other groups. Our biggest project being our Scholarship program–the only one in the state of Florida that has awarded over $250,000 to GLBT students since 1996. Imagine conservative Jacksonville in north-conservative Florida having a program that you would expect to find in a more liberal south Florida!

My husband and I have had the privilege of being such a part of our children’s lives and having their partners and friends become our extended family. Their older brother and sister are always advocates on these issues–we have a family that has embraced one another for who each person is and the key word LOVE prevails always.

Life brings many journeys –love and caring- made us speak for those who could not speak. I have been overwhelmed by the respect and love we have received from the community. For parents who refuse to love their child for who they are, and not embrace them with love, they have lost the gift of the journey we have traveled –not always easy–but so worth it–we have grown as a family to love and respect differences, not just likenesses.

See Frieda’s video statement here.