How fitting that the first Gay & Lesbian Times e-blast, which provides our readers with the latest GLBT news, should arrive in over 7,000 inboxes during Sunshine Week, a national initiative spearheaded by the Society of Newspaper Editors that seeks to, quite literally, throw light on open government, the public’s right to know and the right of the press to inform them.

First Amendment advocates and journalists collaborate on the Sunshine Week initiative because freedom of speech and freedom of information are essential to not only political, social and intellectual progress, but also to healthy decision-making in general.

Take the crystal meth epidemic. The “party and play” phenomenon, known as PNP, has devastated the lives of many gay men in the last few years. And we’re not just talking about pocket books and dopamine receptors. PNP has contributed to a surge in syphilis and HIV infection rates among gay men, because the loss of inhibition that accompanies crystal meth use often leads to unsafe sex, like sheep to the slaughter.

The Gay & Lesbian Times can report on the crystal meth epidemic until we’re blue in the face, but it is also our duty to call the community to action. In the last year, we’ve rolled up our paper and beat our readers over their heads with numerous editorials asking them to pay attention to and take a stand against havoc-wreaking issues like crystal meth, bareback sex and HIV/AIDS. We do this because issues like drug abuse and unhealthy behavior shouldn’t be swept under our community’s collective rug. A healthy community addresses its own failings and seeks to resolve them.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the death of John McCusker, a local businessperson and committed GLBT activist whose death from heart failure was due in part to his drug use. John’s death was devastating – the man was a hard worker, he was kind, and he was a huge asset to our community. Reporting on the facts of his death angered people who felt our position as the community’s voice was to focus on the positives about John and downplay the negatives. We found that to be unacceptable, because we wanted our readers to have the full picture, and, more importantly, we hoped that accurately conveying the details of this high-profile community member’s death might serve as a wake-up call to others that drug abuse has no place in our community as we move along our path toward full equality – a path that John fought hard for. When Bishop Robert Brom denied John’s funeral in any Catholic church in our diocese, our community rallied behind the McCusker family, honoring John’s legacy by fighting against the horrid insult until Brom grudgingly backed down. And the Gay & Lesbian Times was there with our pen and pad ready to report to our community.

The Pride sex-offender scandal last summer is another case in point: Our leaders need to be held accountable for their actions. When, on the eve of the festival, Christian neo-cons used the Megan’s Law Web site to identify registered sex offenders who worked for Pride, it was again our duty to address the issue. Shirking it would have risked the integrity of more than three decades of GLBT community progress. The Pride board’s mishandling of the situation was another issue we needed to delve into. A truly healthy GLBT community doesn’t leave skeletons behind when it steps out of the closet, and Pride has taken admirable steps since last summer to earn back the community’s trust.

Many of us who work in the gay media have been asked the question, “But if the gay community is seeking to be accepted by the mainstream, why does it need its own news sources?” Simply put, we are a community, linked inextricably by our sexuality and gender identity, and there will always be issues that are more relevant to us than to other segments of society. The Gay & Lesbian Times tracks those issues as they develop across the world and condenses them into one publication for the GLBT community to utilize as a resource. We serve as an essential one-stop shop – a companion, a compliment, to other media – helping all of us to make healthier, better-informed decisions. Whether it’s endorsing candidates or addressing inadequacies in GLBT health care, our place is to aid the very political, intellectual and social progress reflected in the mission of Sunshine Week.

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