Gay rights student club to march on city hall

Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and its allies will be wearing purple and marching on city hall this Wednesday, Oct. 20 in memory of the recent suicides of several gay youth.

LGBT organizations from all over Austin are involved in the events planning, including Austin Community College's Equality Now club.

The event will feature a vigil, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in front of Austin City Hall. Several speakers from organizations such as Equality Across America, Queer People of Color, and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network of Texas relating their personal experiences with homophobia.

Omar Lopez, president of ACC's student group, Equality Now, is hoping that the media attention that the recent suicides have created can spark a real change.

"It is very important for us to use this opportunity to create awareness so that their (the recent youths who committed suicide) lives were not lost in vain and that this doesn't happen again," said Lopez.

Equality Now, a gay rights student club formed in 2008, were a major part in organizing the Oct. 20 event.

"Through our networking we can try our best to get someone the help they need," Lopez said.

The group is also currently looking for liaisons to all ACC campuses.

"We want to make sure to spread our resources and to soon be able to spread our meetings across the other campuses," Lopez said.

Equality Now also took part in organizing the Harvey Milk Day march last May and is sponsoring an anti-bullying week the third week in November.

It is important to Lopez that the club celebrates diversity.

"The LGBT minority is the most diverse. We are such a large group, it's amazing that we don't have more power," Lopez said.

Equality Now, which has about 20 members, meets the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at the Student Lounge on Rio Grande Campus at 6 p.m.