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QBliss Readers, Fans, & Supporters,
QBliss Readers, Fans, & Supporters:
This past February, QBliss celebrated our 10-year anniversary, and the Celebration continues with this announcement.
For the past 10 years QBliss has been located in Plano, Texas, a suburb of the Dallas, Texas area. While we have enjoyed
our time there, it was time for a change and to grow.
Growth is important and we realized that we needed to find a new home that would help us continue our efforts to be a valuable
resource for our community, readers and supporters while reflecting the past, present and future!
After much planning, debating, talking, and even a bit of dreaming we’ve found our new home; The San Francisco Bay Area of California.
As a result of this decision the past two and a half months have been tough. QBliss has virtually been shut down, and this has been
a blessing and a curse. It has been difficult for our staff and writers, since during this time the world did not stop, we have all
had to watch as news and stories came to be and for the first time in our 10 year history we could not share or report these events.
Just like our historic election this past year, change was needed. Now the transition is nearly complete and it’s time for QBliss’ rebirth.
As we stated above, it is important as a community that we reflect change from the past, to the present, and to the future, we need to reflect!
As we make this announcement our community is celebrating PRIDE, we decided to make our announcement within days of the 40th anniversary
of what are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system
that persecuted them, in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, in the Greenwich village neighborhood of New York City, a police raid
took place at The Stonewall Inn. Creating a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations, known as the Stonewall riots, a defining event that
many say marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Present day we are still fighting. As we moved from the conservative state of Texas to the liberal state of California,
a birthplace of many movements we are reminded of this fight. On May 26, 2009, the California's Supreme Court upheld the state's gay-marriage ban,
while allowing 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place to remain valid, a ruling decried by gay-rights activists as a bitter-sweet victory.
We have heard so much over the past few years about change, yet as we see we are still fighting for change, for basic rights, equality, marriage,
the right to serve, to live, and to love, when I personally started QBliss 10 years ago, I thought we would have been so much further in our journey
for true equality. As I reflect on this I still dream of it, I still want it, and I know that as a community we must continue to fight and create change.
QBliss will continue to help with this when we re-launch:
• QBliss Online Edition: www.qbliss.net will re-launch on July 7, 2009!
• The 2009 QBliss GLBTIA Creating Change Community Award Winners will be announced July 2009!
• QBliss Print & Digital Editions will re-launch August 2009!
• QBliss Podcast Edition will re-launch August 2009!
I hope that you will come back and support QBliss as we continue helping to create change, and open this new chapter in our history.
I thank you all from the bottom of my grateful heart!
~Russell Olivera Jr.
QBliss Executive Director / Editor In Chief / Founder
June 24, 2009
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