Jacob "Jake" Reitan (born 1982) is an LGBT activist who founded the Soulforce Equality Ride.
Jacob "Jake" Reitan (born 1982) is an LGBT activist who founded the Soulforce Equality Ride.
Reitan was born in 1982 in Mankato, Minnesota, into a Lutheran family and is one of four siblings. [1] He has described being the target of anti-gay harassment as early as seventh grade, and first found his anxieties about his sexual orientation eased in the tenth grade when his English teacher Gwen Walz announced her classroom was "a safe space for gay and lesbian students@. [2] He came out to his sister, then Gwen Walz, and then his parents while a junior at Mankato West High School. [2] [1] He came out to his classmates during the summer of 1999, as senior year approached. After experiencing harassment during his senior year, he told the school principal he planned to come out and found a gay-straight alliance before graduation. To serve as faculty advisor to that organization, the principal chose geography teacher and football coach Tim Walz, a future Minnesota governor and the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz [2] [3] He graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, majoring in Communication Studies and Political Science. He received his masters from Harvard Divinity School and his J.D. degree from the University of Minnesota Law School. [4]
After some experimentation in 2005, he and Haven Herrin launched Soulforce's Equality Ride Project in 2006. He was arrested for trespassing at Liberty University in March where he said: "We want to come to the school today to say, 'learn from history.' We have a right to be here, because this school teaches that being gay is being sick and sinful. We have a right to question and to show how we are children of God." [5] A few weeks later at West Point, just before being arrested, he said that "We're going to take this country by storm and in five years' time, it's going to be a different country because of us." [3] When he, Herrin and a third friend attempted to enlist in the Minnesota National Guard to protest the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, he was not immediately rejected, but told his arrest at West Point would need to be resolved first. [3] [6] Advocate Magazine named him as one of its People of the Year for 2006 [7] and Out Magazine named him one of the Out 100 people of 2006. [4] [8]
Reitan is featured in the documentary film about the 2006 Equality Ride, Equality U . [9]
He wrote a regular column called "Faith in Action" that appeared in Lavender , a Minnesota LGBT news magazine. He and his family appeared in the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So . [10] [11]
On December 22, 2010, at the invitation of the White House, Reitan joined other LGBT rights activists to witness the signing of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. [12]
When questioned in 2024 about his dealings with Tim Walz while in high school, Reitan praised him work both in supporting LGBT students and confronting bullies. [13] In support of Walz, Reitan appeared briefly along with several other of Walz's students in a video shown at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. [14]
Currently, Reitan works as an attorney at Reitan Law Office with offices in Mankato, Chaska and Minneapolis, Minnesota. He represents clients in the areas of a personal injury, Social Security disability and worker's compensation. [15]
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, including advocating for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. The organization has a number of legislative initiatives as well as supporting resources for LGBTQ individuals.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1998.
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization affiliated with the Republican Party which works to educate the LGBT+ community and Republicans about each other.
Minnesota State University, Mankato is a public university in Mankato, Minnesota, United States. It is Minnesota's second-largest university and has over 145,000 living alumni worldwide. Founded in 1868, it is the second-oldest member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and is commonly referred to as the flagship institution. It was established as the Second State Normal School in 1858 and officially opened as Mankato Normal School a decade later. Minnesota State University, Mankato is a significant contributor to the local and state economies, adding $827 million annually.
The origin of the LGBTQ student movement can be linked to other activist movements from the mid-20th century in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and Second-wave feminist movement were working towards equal rights for other minority groups in the United States. Though the student movement began a few years before the Stonewall riots, the riots helped to spur the student movement to take more action in the US. Despite this, the overall view of these gay liberation student organizations received minimal attention from contemporary LGBTQ historians. This oversight stems from the idea that the organizations were founded with haste as a result of the riots. Others historians argue that this group gives too much credit to groups that disagree with some of the basic principles of activist LGBTQ organizations.
Timothy James Walz is an American politician, former educator, and retired United States Army non-commissioned officer who has served since 2019 as the 41st governor of Minnesota. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019, and the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee from 2017 to 2019. Walz is the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Gay USA is a weekly one-hour news program "...devoted to in-depth coverage of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues" on a local, state, national, and international level. It is taped in the studios of, and aired by, Manhattan Neighborhood Network in Manhattan, New York. It airs on Manhattan Public-access television cable TV and Free Speech TV, and is available worldwide as a podcast at the show's website or to subscribe via iTunes.
The Equality Ride is a periodic LGBT rights bus tour made for young adults and sponsored by Soulforce, a national LGBT nonprofit organization. They seek to debate LGBT issues with students at conservative Christian colleges and military academies and secular universities.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBTQ rights that took place in the year 2007.
Soulforce is a U.S.-based social justice organization that works to end the religious and political oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) people. The organization's co-executive directors are Alba Onofrio and Yaz Mendez Nuñez.
Jared Schutz Polis is an American politician, entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist serving since 2019 as the 43rd governor of Colorado. He served one term on the Colorado State Board of Education from 2001 to 2007, and five terms as the United States representative from Colorado's 2nd congressional district from 2009 to 2019. He was the only Democratic member of the libertarian conservative Liberty Caucus, and was the third-wealthiest member of Congress, with an estimated net worth of $122.6 million. He was elected governor of Colorado in 2018 and reelected in a landslide in 2022.
Allen J. Quist is a Minnesota politician, a former state representative, and a two-time candidate for governor of the state.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. state of Minnesota have the same legal rights as non-LGBTQ people. Minnesota became the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in 1993, protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination in the fields of employment, housing, and public accommodations. In 2013, the state legalized same-sex marriage, after a bill allowing such marriages was passed by the Minnesota Legislature and subsequently signed into law by Governor Mark Dayton. This followed a 2012 ballot measure in which voters rejected constitutionally banning same-sex marriage.
Reitan may refer to:
The National Equality March was a national political rally that occurred October 11, 2009 in Washington, D.C. It called for equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The march was called for by activist David Mixner and implemented by Cleve Jones, and organized by Equality Across America and the Courage Campaign. Kip Williams and Robin McGehee served as co-directors. Leaders like actress Michelle Clunie, Courage Campaign marketing director, Billy Pollina and New York gubernatorial aide Peter Yacobellis hosted the first fundraiser in the spring of 2009. This was the first national march in Washington, D.C. for LGBT rights since the 2000 Millennium March.
Meg Sneed is an LGBTQ activist from Phoenix who founded the Right to Marry: Arizona campaign and cofounded the H.E.R.O. organization.
Mankato West High School is a public secondary school located in Mankato, Minnesota, United States. According to the school district in 2016, Mankato West enrolls about 1150 students in four grades, grades 9–12. In 1992–93 the school was designated as a "Blue Ribbon School of Excellence" by the United States Department of Education.
Gwen Nell Westerman is an educator, writer and fiber artist.
James "Jim" Eric Chalgren was an American gay activist best known for establishing the first LGBT resource center on a college campus in Minnesota.
Gwen Walz is an American educator and public school administrator. She is the 39th and current First Lady of Minnesota as the wife of Governor Tim Walz. In 2024, her husband was announced as the Democratic vice presidential candidate for the 2024 United States presidential election.
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