Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity-Targeted Violence in Iraq (10/4/09)

Forum on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity-Targeted Violence in Iraq
Sunday, October 4, 10:00am
The Chapel

First Unitarian, in conjunction with the Unitarian Universalist UN Office (UU–UNO), will be hosting 6 justice forums this congregational year. The topics of these forums will focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues, which is in keeping with the spirit of this year’s church-wide social justice project, “Our Bodies, Our Spirits, Our Lives”.

This Sunday, October 4th Diana Sands, LGBT Program Associate at UU–UNO(www.uu–uno.org), will discuss their Action of Immediate Witness at the 2009 UUA General Assembly in response to the “emergency faced by people in Iraq: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI)-Targeted Violence.”  In addition, Scott Long, Director of the LGBT unit at The Human Rights Watch will be on hand to discuss HRW’s report on this very issue, of which he was a principle author.  Copies of the report will be made available during the forum.  We will be discussing this topic in the first forum with many other issues to follow in subsequent months.

The forum will run from 10 am until 10:45 am in the Chapel and will be preceded by a pancake breakfast starting at 9:30 am