This is a TalkBack against the Savannah River Site. Y’all won’t print it, but right as you go into Aiken barricade, there is a big sign Come Celebrate National Gay Pride Day with Us. Is the Savannah River Site taking taxpayers’ money and paying for a gay pride celebration? Gives you a serious case of road rage to go in the barricade to work and this sign glaring you in the face. I challenge you to take a picture of this and put it in the a paper and run a survey and ask the employees that have helped to build this country’s security and defense system about it being a slap in their face. Challenge you, Aiken Standard. We’ll see if you print it.

Help me answer this question…what exactly is a slap in the face? It appears to me to be an example of freedom – in speech and expression. Wasn’t our country’s defense system created to defend this very freedom? Or perhaps our defense system only exists to protect this one dear reader’s freedom of speech and everyone else should just shut up. Yep. I think that’s it.

SRS stigma

The employees of SRS were believed to be non-productive and wasteful. Now, we have the added stigma of being believed to be homosexual, thanks to the GLOBE initiative. We were told to shut up when we spoke out against it. I am ashamed and embarrassed by this.

I have a couple of problems with this. First, how does having an LGBT organization at your company automatically mean that everyone working there is homosexual. Seriously. That’s ludicrous. Secondly, the fact that you’re ashamed and embarrassed by GLOBE (It’s not an initiative. It’s a group, sweetie.) is your problem, not ours. That’s the whole point of the group, in case you haven’t noticed. The point is to raise awareness. A lot of people in our area, including people at SRS and definitely people I work with, think of “the gays” as something we don’t have around here; they’re only in Massachusetts and California, apparently.

I don’t work at SRS and don’t know any LGBT employees at SRS personally, but from what I can tell, GLOBE is doing a great thing. More organizations like this are needed in the CSRA. According to their website, SRS GLOBE (SRS Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Employees) seeks to “further increase awareness of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employee issues at all levels within the SRS, and support of the SRS in pursuing management practices and diversity in the Site work force.” I hope for the day when the CSRA has LGBT groups accessible to everyone, Gay-Straight Alliances in all schools, and an open community where no one has to live fearfully in the closet. There are plenty of people in the Augusta area that need help, friendship, and support from other people in the community and don’t know where to go to find it.

So great job, SRS GLOBE! You’re doing great work.

If you are a member of SRS GLOBE and would like to share what you’re working on, please email editor@gayinaugusta.com. For that matter, if you live in the CSRA and would like to contribute to the site, send an email as well. Contributors are always welcome.