OTHER VOICES WEBINAR – RECORDED THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2023
Pride Month Webinar
A conversation with CRAIG WIESNER, Commissioner, San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission
&
BENNET MARKS, LGBTQ Rights Pioneer / Founder, Apple Gay & Lesbian Employees Organization
• What Happens When Anti-PRIDE Becomes a Campaign Platform?
• What Does It Mean for Large Corporations to Embrace PRIDE … and Then Back Off When Threatened by Right-Wingers?
• What Can Allies & Activists Do to Protect LGBTQ Rights?
Related links:
Bennet Marks is active with BAYMEC, Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee, a four-county LGBTQ political action committee (PAC). It is the only political action committee dedicated to this purpose in the central coast counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey.
CRAIG WIESNER is co-founder of Reach and Teach, a shop in San Carlos dedicated to peacemaking, sustainable living, and inclusion that offers books, toys and fair-trade gifts from around the corner and around the world.
Craig has been deeply involved in social and economic justice issues and the peace movement for the last 25 years. He is married to his long-time partner, Derrick Kikuchi, with whom he shares his life, business, and dog Holly. Craig was appointed to the San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission in November 2015.
BENNET MARKS worked as a software engineer, technical writer, and manager at Apple and Google. He has been an LGBTQ activist most of his adult life. In 1986, he founded Apple Lambda, the Apple Gay & Lesbian Employees Organization. He, along with other members, worked with Apple to create a workplace non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation, domestic partner benefits, and other policies for equal treatment of LGBTQ employees. He mentored and worked with employees of other Silicon Valley companies to develop similar policies at their workplaces. At Google, he was one of the founders of the Gayglers, their LGBTQ group. He has served on the board of BAYMEC (the South Bay LGBTQ PAC), NCTC (a queer San Francisco theater company), and other organizations. He lives in Sunnyvale with his husband Kim Harris, and their Norfolk terrier, Edison.
Other Voices host PAUL GEORGE has been the Director of Peninsula Peace and Justice Center for 34 years and has been a grassroots activist and organizer his entire adult life, starting as a 16-year-old. Paul created Other Voices over 25 years ago as a “community conversation” featuring voices and issues ignored by corporate media. Paul has been producing and hosting monthly installments ever since. For most of that time, Other Voices was a monthly TV program; since the COVID pandemic, Other Voices has continued as a Zoom webinar.
Recorded June 22, 2023
