[Ryan]

For the June 2003 issue of Swerve: Winnipeg's Queer Newsmagazine, my editor has asked me to consider writing a short piece on the straight-but-not-narrow allies who have helped the GLBTQ cause over history: I can think of a few examples to start off:

1. Doris Wood, founder of PFLAG, 1978

2. Fred Small, songwriter and lyricist for the gay anthem "Everything Possible":
"You can be anybody you want to be
You can love whoever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And knw that I will love you still..."

3. Pierre Trudeau, Canadian prime minster who decrimnalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in 1969; he is famous for his 1967 remark while he was still the Canadian justice minister: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation"

4. Hungarian-Austrian writer Károly Mária Kertbeny (1824-1882), who was straight but lost a gay friend to blackmail-induced suicide and became an early gay-rights advocate, and he is considered the inventor of terms homosexuality and heterosexuality in 1868

So, who would YOU nominate to be added to this list, and WHY? In other words, what major contributions have straight people, around the world and throughout history, made to improve the rights and lives of GLBTQ people??? Send me your ideas and if I use them in the column I will credit you. Thanks.
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Ryan Schultz, Reference Librarian
University of Manitoba Libraries
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada