This Monday, June 2, The Center, American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) and the Imperial Court de San Diego are joining forces to put together a welcome home the troops rally when the USS Constellation and her battle group return to San Diego. This will be the last voyage of the San Diego based Constellation, which is expected to be decommissioned this year. The aircraft carrier and its battle group, which includes the cruisers Bunker Hill and Valley Forge, the frigate Thach and the destroyer Milius along with the Bremerton, Washington, based Rainier, are carrying over 8,000 sailors and Marines, many of whom are based here in San Diego.

“This is our opportunity to let our LGBT service members know that we support them and are happy to have them safely home,” AJ Davis-DeFeo of The Center’s public policy department told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “It is also our opportunity to show our opposition to the discriminatory policies of the Department of Defense and to urge them to lift the ban.”

A small group of GLBT community members were out earlier this month to welcome home the Abraham Lincoln when it returned from the war, and they are hoping that this event will draw even more support from the community.

“We want to be visible to those who are manning the rails especially,” Ben Gomez of AVER added. “We want to have a lot of visibility with rainbow flags and signs saying ‘gay sailors we are proud of you’ and ‘welcome home.’ It’s our way of being a part of their welcoming home process, and although we cannot be on the pier we just wanted to let them know we are out there for them and we want to be a visual thing for them when they pull in.”

The welcome home rally is scheduled to begin at 7:00 a.m. With Mayor Murphy encouraging people citywide to take the morning off to come out and welcome home the troops, large crowds are expected. Members of the GLBT community are encouraged to meet at the same place they did for the Lincoln’s arrival, on Shelter Island Drive directly across the street from Humphrey’s on the Bay.

The idea for the welcome home rally originally appeared in a column by Nicole Murray-Ramirez in the Gay and Lesbian Times. AVER took the lead in organizing the event, which is also being supported by the Imperial Court.

“The court is proud to participate in welcoming home the young men and young women who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, many of them gay and lesbian,” Murray-Ramirez told the Times. “Putting aside your support of the war or not, these are young men and women that we should feel proud of and I think it’s important that we welcome them all back, especially our gay and lesbian troops who can never be openly welcomed home by their loved ones.”

For more information about the rally, contact Ben Gomez of AVER at (619) 291-4043 or AJ Davis-DeFeo at The Center at (619) 692-2077, ext. 212.