"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."
~Mother Teresa~

All quotes for this section are taken from: "A Book of Bliss: thoughts to make you smile." Sourcebooks, INC. Naperville, Illinois. 2002.

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Gay historian Allan Berube, award-winning author of Coming Out Under Fire, died on December 11, 2007. He was 61.

His death was due to sudden complications following the discovery of two stomach ulcers, according to his close friend Jonathan Ned Katz, a fellow gay historian.

Berube was, for decades, an independent historian and community activist. He first came to progressive political activism in opposition to the Vietnam war, working with the American Friends Service Committee in Boston in the late 1960s, after dropping out of the University of Chicago. After coming out in 1969, he joined a "gay liberation collective household," and later moved to San Francisco to join a gay commune for craftspeople. He remained in San Francisco for many years, and was one of the founders of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project in 1978. His slide shows about women who dressed and passed as men -- and married other women -- were welcomed by enthusiastic audiences around the country.

Berube is best remembered for his groundbreaking work of gay history, published in 1990: Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. The Lambda Literary Award-winning book, which was later adapted by Arthur Dong into a Peabody Award-winning documentary, was often cited in Senate hearings on the military's anti-gay policies in 1993.

Martin Duberman, distinguished professor of history emeritus at the City University of New York, called Berube's book "superb ... not only in terms of his prose style, which was absolutely lucid and even elegant, but also in terms of the very fine-spun analysis. Allan was not one to create shallow generalizations about either a given individual or a series of events. He was utterly meticulous and utterly careful. No one will ever, I think, have to redo the book on World War II, and you can almost never say that about a historian or a given piece of historical research."

In 1996, Berube received a "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for his work.

For the past decade, while living in New York City and the Catskills, Berube had been working on a history of queer working-class men in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union in the 1930s and '40s, a project for which he received a Rockefeller Residency Fellowship in the Humanities from the

Berube traveled the country presenting slide shows about his current research, and lectured on gay and lesbian history at Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He wrote stories for numerous publications, including Mother Jones, Gay Community News, The Advocate, The Washington Blade, Out/Look, and the Body Politic. He also published articles in several anthologies, including White Trash (which included a rare personal essay in which he recounted his childhood in a trailer park in Bayonne, N.J.) and Policing Public Sex, in which he detailed the history of gay bathhouses.

"Allan took great pride in his role as a community historian," said John D'Emilio, professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of several books on gay history. "He loved the excitement that his talks and slide shows generated in an audience, and he loved that he, a college dropout, had written a book that made a difference in the world. He was an inspiration to everyone who knew him, as sweet and kind and genuinely moral a human being as anyone could hope to meet."

For the past several years, Berube lived in Liberty, N.Y., in the Catskills. There, he owned a bed & breakfast, and operated Intelligent Design, a store selling mid-century modern collectibles. Berube's partner, John Nelson, said, "Allan just loved it when people walked into the Liberty store, looked around, and were happy."

Berube was twice elected a trustee of the village of Liberty.

"Allan was extremely proud of helping to preserve Liberty's historic character," said Katz. "Allan initiated the successful nomination of Liberty's whole Main Street as a historic district, saved from demolition a major building with a classic 1950s façade, and bought and renovated the Shelburne Playhouse, one of the last remaining performance halls that were once part of the area's many hotels."

In addition to Nelson, Berube is also survived by his mother and three sisters.

For further comment, you can contact the following people:

Martin Duberman: martinduberman@aol.com John D'Emilio: demilioj@uic.edu Jonathan Ned Katz: jnk123@mac.com Wayne Hoffman: waynewriter@aol.com

Michael Guest, a tall, soft-spoken man with salt-and- pepper hair, looks every bit the diplomat. At the young age of 43, at the start of the Bush administration, he was named ambassador to Romania, and since he returned in 2004 he has trained new ambassadors before they ship out overseas.

But last month, after 26 years in the Foreign Service, he did something uncharacteristically undiplomatic.

Guest resigned from the State Department, giving up a career he loved, to protest rules and regulations that he believes are unfair to the same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers, giving them fewer benefits than family pets. He had spent the years since his return from Bucharest trying to win changes in policies, appealing directly to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but said his proposals were met with indifference and inertia.

"I've felt compelled to choose between obligations to my partner, who is my family, and service to my country," Guest told a crowd of 75 senior State Department officials, a few steps from Rice's office, at his retirement ceremony on Nov. 20, according to a transcript of his remarks. "That anyone should have to make that choice is a stain on the secretary's leadership, and a shame for this institution and our country."

Within the State Department, gay men and lesbians are widely accepted, in contrast to the military, where an admission of homosexuality is grounds for dismissal. But Guest and others say the State Department's regulations have not kept pace with the department's culture, especially as Foreign Service officers overseas face increasing dangers.

For instance, same-sex partners - or unmarried heterosexual partners - are refused anti-terrorism security training or foreign-language training and are not evacuated when eligible family members are ordered to depart. Unlike spouses, they do not receive diplomatic passports, visas or even use of the State Department mail system. They also must pay their own way overseas, get their own medical care and are left to fend for themselves if a partner is sent to a dangerous post such as Iraq.

Many of these rules, Guest said, could be changed with Rice's signature, which he said is not a matter of gay rights but of equal treatment.

John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, said a number of top officials attending the ceremony for Guest acknowledged that these issues should be addressed. "If everyone is saying we need to do more, then let's do more," he said.

The secretary and the State Department do not discriminate on hiring or promotions," said Pat Kennedy, the undersecretary for management, who also attended the ceremony for Guest, a longtime colleague. "These are complex issues. We are committed to giving our personnel the support they need to get their jobs done."

Aaron Jensen, president of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, said the group's leadership met with Rice in May 2005 to argue for a change in policies, but "we would like more leadership on this issue." He said surveys indicate that about 350 same- sex partners are affected by the regulations. There are 12,000 Foreign Service officers, and about 5 percent are gay, he said.

Immigration Equality is a national organization fighting for equality under U.S. immigration law for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive individuals. Founded in 1994 as the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, we have grown to a membership of 10,000 people in cities all over the country. We are run by a Board of Directors and have full-time staff in our National Headquarters in New York. Immigration Equality is funded by donations from our members as well as generous support from private foundations.

For more information on what jobs are available, and details on how to apply, email jobs@immigrationequality.org.

Towson University, a growing, visionary, metropolitan university, is seeking a dynamic, experienced, highly motivated individual to fill this key leadership position in the Center for Student Diversity in the Division of Student Affairs.

The Director of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Student Development will focus primarily on student development, retention, counseling, advising, training, cultural programming, and overall student success for Towson's diverse student body. The Director assists in providing vision for the center and leadership for a wide range of activities including the development of programs and services for LGBT students.

RESPONSIBILITIES: Include but not limited to working with other cluster directors to plan and implement activities designed to increase awareness and appreciation of cultural diversity for the campus community; work to create a safe, warm environment that welcomes and supports the success of LGBT students and allies; develop, coordinate, and promote leadership development and education programming for LGBT students, such as publications, personal development seminars, conferences, retreats, forums, and mentoring; advocate for issues that affect LGBT students through collaborative partnership with a variety of campus offices and programs; and work with student organizations and other institutional partners to create and execute a calendar of activities that focus on sexual orientation and gender identity to include Coming Out Day, LGBT Pride celebrations, LGBT speaker series, assist with the Diversity Retreat, Homecoming, Welcome to Towson, and other special events.

REQUIRED: Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in Student Personnel, Higher Education, Counseling, Multicultural Studies, or closely related field of study preferred; minimum of three years related experience; and demonstrated ability to work with a diverse student population, particularly LGBT students. A Criminal Background Investigation is required for the hired candidate and the results may impact employment.

SALARY: Competitive, minimum of $40,000 annually.

BENEFITS: Full University benefits include excellent health, life insurance, and retirement plans; tuition remission; and 22 days of annual leave, up to 14 holidays, personal and sick days.

Submit a resume with cover letter stating Title, Vacancy #E-318-07 and contact information of three employee references to TU Human Resources; 8000 York Road; Towson; MD 21252 (fax 410-704-2891). The selection process will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Title and Vacancy # must be included to be considered.

The Resource Center and its staff would like to wish all of it's community a very happy holiday season.