Gay Elder Circle Monthly Meeting – March 8, 2020
As we continue to step into 2020 we have much to look forward too. During our February monthly meeting we had a robust discussion on meeting content and meeting expectations. Further discussion will continue at our March meeting.
We look at inclusion on the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Here in California everyone is welcome. On the East coast long standing Irish organizations still exclude LGBTQ+ Irish participation. The classic celebration of Irish culture has been muddled over the years with excessive alcohol consumption, Irish stereotypes and commercialization of stereotypical Irish culture. However you choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day we reflect on these words from noted Irishman Roger Casement:
“Self-government is our right. A thing born in us at birth; a thing no more to be doled out to us or withheld from us by another people than the right to life itself – than the right to feel the sun or smell the flowers, or to love our kind. . . . Where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits of their own labours. . . then surely it is braver, a saner and a truer thing, to be a rebel . . . than tamely to accept it as the natural lot of men.”
