What can we as people of the LGBT community do in order to draw attention to the fact that we are still, in 2006, not granted the same legal rights as our heterosexual counterparts? For the second year, a gathering organized by www.gayfresno.com and Equality California www.eqca.org met at the offices of the Fresno County Clerk in downtown Fresno to make a statement by requesting marriage licenses as same sex couples. Valentines Day is a universal day of  love, marriage and commitment, the perfect atmosphere to continue our goal to bring awareness to the public eye. Love cannot continue to be defined by the bigoted, selfish and the religious right.

There’s a new edition to the Tower District, the independent bookstore Out Of The Closet Book & Gift Emporium. Tucked at the corner of Olive and Farris, between Palm & Olive, the store specializes in Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Trans publications. I sat down with Charlotte Jenks, managing partner of the store, and asked what made her decide to open her own business.
 
“Well, I closed Central California Pride Network. We just could not get enough grant money to keep it open. So I looked around to try to figure out what I wanted to do. I realized I was really burned out from being a social worker. The last five years working for our community we had very little money and not much support, not from our community, but from the general domestic violence community.”
 
Faced with the decision of what to do with her free time, Charlotte turned her attention to the things she herself enjoyed.
 
“Pam and I are both avid readers, and it’s really awful when you go to places like Borders or Barnes and Noble and they have the same old books every time. So we said to each other ‘Would you like to do that?’ and we decided we did, just that quick.”