Advocacy | Awareness | Action

The Center has received numerous requests for the text of the speech given by Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan at the recent NWA Pride Parade rally.  We called the city to get a copy of it.  The speech is actually the text of the proclamation secured by NWA Pride to commemorate “Pride Week.”  The Center also secured a proclamation declaring June “LGBT Pride Month” to coincide with our All OUT June celebrations.

Of particular note is Mayor Jordan’s adept use of symbolic language in his proclamation. He referenced the generally acknowledged beginning of the LGBT rights movement by saying “Today we break down the stone walls of discrimination that are barriers to our ability to secure a fully-cohesive community.” His speech not only referenced the culturally significant Stonewall Riots, but it also clearly described how equality is the birthright of all Americans.

Thanks Mayor Jordan!

WHEREAS:  We march today, and we take a stand today to stand up, to stand proud and to stand together; and

WHEREAS: Pride Week celebration contribute much toward reducing misunderstandings, discrimination, isolation and barriers faced by individuals in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community; and

WHEREAS: The city of Fayetteville supports efforts to ensure that everyone has the right to live in conditions of dignity, respect and peace; and

WHEREAS: We all are created equal and it has been long- proclaimed that we are equal as Americans and that everyone deserves the same rights; privileges and opportunities- that is our birthright and that was the promise that demands fulfillment, and

WHEREAS: There is a necessity for individuals to no longer be referred to merely as an act, as a category, or as a secondary citizen instead of being referred to and treated as an equal person deserving of equal rights, and

WHEREAS: Today we break down the stone walls of discrimination that are barriers to our ability to secure a fully- cohesive community; and

WHEREAS: The use of the social weapon of ostracism wielded merely because someone is exercising legal rights of freedom, liberty, and equality is no longer an accepted option; and

WHEREAS: Presidents, legislative representatives, justices and judges, Mayors, Governors, and the people have long praised the American value of equality, and with that affirmation, we should assure that we do not desire to limit the equality of some- where there is unequal treatment there is no equality; and

NOW THEREFORE, I Lioneld Jordan Mayor of the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas do hereby proclaim June 21-27, 2010 as   “PRIDE WEEK”

In Fayetteville, Arkansas and all citizens to join me

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas to be affixed on the 26^th day of June 2010.

Attest:               ____________________________________ Mayor

__________________________  City Clerk