community
co-chairs of the event, Ben Aguilar and Kyle Nageotte, about how the awards started and where it has come in 25 years. “It started 25 years ago in an official capacity,” Aguilar said. “I believe some awards were given before the dinner became this formatted event and 25 years ago, the organization was not where it is today, so it was a smaller, more intimate event. Fast forward 25 years later and now we have close to 450 people attending the dinner.”
AND by tim parks During his career as a lawyer in
San Diego, Tom Homann certainly made an impact in and for the LGBT community during the 1980s. He took on cases that directly impacted us, ranging from the San Diego Sheriff’s Office refusing to hire gay and lesbian deputies to representing two sailors with AIDS that were to be discharged without medical benefits by the Navy. In taking on these fights, he gave a
voice to those who felt marginalized and had nowhere to turn. The legacy of Homann’s work continues some 27 years after his death from AIDS through the Tom Homann LGBT Law Association and is celebrated annually with the Tom Homann Law Association Awards (THLA), which are being held this year in conjunction with its 25th Anniversary. The Rage Monthly spoke with
THE 25TH ANNUAL TOM HOMANN LGBT LAW ASSOCIATION AWARDS
JUSTICE FOR ALL
Nageotte and Aguilar both became involved with THLA while still in law school through its mentorship program that matches up LGBT attorneys and law students. Nageotte said the dinner and the organization have grown more in the last five years, as he explained. “We have more members than we’ve had before and we’re more active than we’ve been before,” he said. “I think a lot of that has to do with what we saw over the last five years with marriage equality and trans rights coming to the forefront. And with the election of Donald Trump, we’ve seen a resurgence of the organization with more members than we’ve had before and support from large law firms.” Each year members of the com- munity are presented with awards for Community Pioneer, Service to the Community and the Co-Presidents’ Award. This year Nageotte is the recipient of the latter and said that he was “very surprised” and that “it’s incredible” to have the honor bestowed upon him. And Aguilar gave us the details on the criteria that award recipients must fit in the selec- tion process. “There’s a few different categories that we look at every year,” he explained. “We request nomina- tions from our members. So every year we get a few nominations and then we select based on how involved and how active they have been in the LGBT community, what they have done to advance LGBT rights, either
locally or nationally.” Someone who definitely fits that
bill is Rufus Gifford, an openly gay politician who served as Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee in Washington D.C., prior to being appointed Ambassador to Denmark by President Obama. Aguilar cited the positive impact on the evening’s keynote speaker having served in politics and how that reflected upon the community. “His platform was an international platform given that he was the Ambassador to Denmark and that he was really visible during his tenure,” Aguilar said. “He was not shy about putting it out there that he is openly gay, that he was about to get married to his partner, so that was interesting especially given that he didn’t know what kind of reaction that he would get in his position in Denmark.” Both Aguilar and Nageotte feel that
there is certainly a big takeaway that attendees can leave the event with, which Nageotte expanded on. “The long march of our history is towards inclusion and justice for all members of our society,” he said. “As Bill Clinton said, ‘We built that bridge to the 21st Century,’ we were a little slow on it when George W. Bush was president, but when we had President Obama, we saw so many barriers for the LGBT community fall. It was significant for the world community to see that the United States is a place of inclusion and a place where people can be who they are and have equal rights in the law.” “I hope that people who come to our
dinner and hear Gifford speak will go away with knowing that while we as a community, and we as a nation, have taken a step back, we still can have hope.”
The Tom Homann LGBT Law Association 2018 Annual Dinner will be held at The US Grant Hotel in Downtown San Diego onThursday, April 12. For more information or to purchase tickets and table sponsorships, go
tothla.org.
8
RAGE monthly | APRIL 2018
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
