We here at The Weekly consider ourselves a family. When you spend as much time as we do holed up in the basement of Co-Ed, huddled over screens, over-caffeinated and over-tired, you can see how that happens. “The Weekly Family,” as we call it, breeds solidarity. This sense of community fosters empathy and understanding, shaping both the dynamic of our team and the content we produce in the newspaper.

So, when we decide what stories we’re going to print, we thoughtfully consider their impact on you, our larger community, our larger family. What are the things you care about? What stories do you want to see covered? Although we try, we know we will never get it all in. We will never cover every story worth being told and will never please everybody.

This week may very well be a week that we don’t please you, dear reader. We may make you uncomfortable, or feel that we are “pushing our agenda” on you. Some of our staff has heard The Weekly jokingly referred to as “the liberal media” on campus. After this edition of the paper, those accusations may very well proliferate. This is our response:

The Weekly staff is comprised of all kinds of people: Straight, queer, black, white, liberal and conservative. We don’t agree on everything, but one thing we do agree on is that we are a family. We know that we have to support and uplift each other because the very creation of The Weekly depends on it. We are linked in a web of mutuality, every writer, editor, photographer and graphic designer. When one weakens, we all weaken.

However, we understand that this mutuality does not stop when we leave the office. Our Weekly family is just a small microcosm of the defining reality of our existence as human beings: we are connected.

We feel, therefore, that when we ostracize and alienate our family in the LGBT community, we disrespect ourselves as well. We do not see equal rights and equal voice for LGBT persons as an issue of liberal versus conservative values; we see it as an issue of human rights.

We didn’t focus this issue on Coming Out Week because we are liberals — we did it because we are human beings and because those LGBT in our community are part of our family. We hope that someday the need for a special edition of The Weekly devoted to LGBT and ally stories won’t be so crucial, but at this time in history, it certainly is.

Now, more than ever, we need to hear the stories of LGBT persons. Our state and our society is still deeply divided on issues of equal rights for the LBGT community, and it is largely because if you don’t want to, you don’t have to hear their stories. So goes the privilege of living in a heteronormative society whose principal narrative is that of heterosexual relationships and heterosexual desire.

We here at The Weekly believe that narrative equality can lead to social equality. It is our hope that those who are not familiar with LGBT or ally stories may read and learn about people they may not normally meet. We hope that this knowledge will foster tolerance and equality both on and off campus. Perhaps it will even encourage you to find out more on your own. In this way, we hope to extend the kind of solidarity and support that we have in The Weekly family so enjoy.

 

The Editorial Team

weekly@gustavus.edu