SAN FRANCISCO—Lavender Lounge Studios has produced an inspirational video featuring members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to show its support for the It Gets Better Project. The video is available on the Sisters’ YouTube page. (For a direct link to the video, click here.)
"As activists and spiritual leaders of the community, I felt the Sisters really needed to be involved in this project," said Mark Kliem, video director at Lavender Lounge Studios and a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for almost 20 years.
What is the It Gets Better Project? Many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. The It Gets Better Project presents positive images of what the future may hold in store for them. Noted writer and media pundit Dan Savage founded the It Gets Better Project this past September as a unique way for supporters everywhere to tell LGBT youth that things will better.
ItGetsBetterProject.com is a place where young people who are gay, lesbian, bi, or trans can see with their own eyes how love and happiness can be a reality in their future. It’s a place where LGBT adults can share the stories of their lives, and straight allies can add their names in solidarity and help spread a message of hope.
Lavender Lounge's Kliem explained more about why the Lavender Lounge and the Sisters felt the need to support the It Gets Better Project: "We all grew up feeling isolated and alone, thinking we were the only person with these feelings. But we now have communication tools to prevent that isolation, and hopefully the message will reach the right people.
“Gay kids shouldn't have to be bullied,” Kliem said, “and we need to dismantle the insensitive, hurtful, and unfair mechanisms in churches, schools and government that cause kids to take their own lives."
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is an order of queer nuns. Since their first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday 1979, the Sisters have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. The group “uses humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.”
