Brand g Vacations and Freedom to Marry’s President Evan Wolfson team up to celebrate gay marriage in France

Founder and President of Freedom to Marry

Brand g Vacations is pleased to announce that Evan Wolfson, Founder and President of Freedom to Marry, will join us as a featured speaker on our Burgundy and Provence cruise this August. Freedom to Marry is the campaign to win marriage throughout the United States and Evan is the civil rights attorney who is generally considered the architect of the national marriage equality movement.

“What better place to celebrate the progress on gay rights and the freedom to marry than France, the latest country to end the exclusion from marriage?” says Evan. “And what better time than this summer, when we will be marking victories in four countries round the world while teeing up the next wave of work globally and in the US? I can’t wait to make new friends and combine activism and good conversation with the delights of a river cruise through la belle France, courtesy of Brand g Vacations.”

Evan goes on to describe the focus of the discussion he has planned for our cruise. “This year France becomes the 17th country on 5 continents where same-sex couples can share in the freedom to marry — up from zero little more than a decade ago — reflecting the same momentum that we are seeing in the freedom to marry movement in the United States.” Evan will also explain how the Freedom to Marry campaign has made such progress, and what more needs to be done to secure the freedom to marry and full equality in the US while continuing to propel global human rights for all LGBT people.

“There is no one who exemplifies the fight to win gay marriage in the U.S. better than Evan. We are thrilled that he will be joining us” says Brand g Vacations’ Charlie Rounds

For more information about this cruise:http://www.brandgvacations.com/Pages/Burgundy-Provence-Riverboat-Cruise.aspx

Proud to Partner with OutServe

We’re very proud here at Brand g Vacations to become a founding partner of OutServe, the association of actively-serving LGBT military personnel, and to participate in its second annual International Leadership Conference October 25-28 at Shades of Green Walt Disney World Resort.

With more than 4,500 members and 45+ chapters worldwide, OutServe is the one of the largest LGBT employee resource groups in the world, working to support a professional network of LGBT military personnel and create an environment of respect in the military with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity.

This partnership means a lot to me personally because I know it would have made my father, a decorated World War Two pilot, very proud to see the progress that has been made for these dedicated service members.

I’m here at the conference at Shades of Green in Orlando, which is one of five vacation resorts operated by the U.S. Army. It’s so exciting to see the support being offered to OutServe’s members at this year’s event, which includes a job fair open to veterans and employers to address the ongoing employment crisis affecting veterans returning from service.

The Conference is welcoming currently serving LGBT and straight military members, veterans, spouses/partners, and allies to join workshops and meetings. Like the 2011 Conference, it will provide an international forum on creating an environment of respect in the military with regards to sexual orientation and gender identity, and provide the LGBT military community a venue for building professional networks, sharing best practices and formulating strategies that help build a stronger military community.  OutServe’s International Leadership Conference is the only conference designed around and for LGBT members of the largest fighting force in the world.

Congratulations, OutServe!

Brand g Vacations Reaches Out to Local LGBT Organizations on Inaugural Danube Cruise

Brand g Vacations is about to celebrate its first year in business with a sold-out Danube River cruise, and General Manager Charlie Rounds is making good on his promise to deliver a new and meaningful gay travel product. We’re working with local LGBT organizations in Prague and Bratislava to provide guests with optional activities that stray from the conventional.

Our pre-cruise welcome reception in Prague will feature guest speaker Czeslaw Walek, an advocate for LGBT rights and Chair of Prague Pride. Walek helped organize the first-ever and highly successful event last summer, which drew strong criticism from Czech president Vaclav Klaus and right-wing groups.

“I was very impressed that Brand g Vacations made the effort to reach out to us,” said Walek. “It shows that they are going above and beyond in their commitment to their guests. We are delighted to be a part of their itinerary.”

Walek has invited Rounds, a respected speaker on LGBT rights, to speak to a group of Czech business leaders and to address the crowds on closing day of the second annual Prague Pride.

“It means a lot to me to be asked to speak to such an influential group of business leaders, and even more so to address the local LGBT community at Pride,” said Rounds. “In all the years I’ve been in gay group travel, I’ve dreamed of taking our community one step further, of educating ourselves about the destinations we visit, and of giving back to the local communities. This is our chance to do that.”

While in Bratislava, Slovakia, Brand g Vacations has organized a private reception and LGBT photography exhibit at the local offices of Open Society Foundations (OSF), established by philanthropist George Soros to help countries transition from communism and whose mission includes the protection of LGBT rights. Rounds will be making a personal contribution to Queer Leaders Forum, a local organization in Bratislava, and guests will have the option of doing the same.

In addition to its Danube cruise, Brand g Vacations has signed two new charters for 2013, including a Mekong River cruise through Vietnam and Cambodia, and a Burgundy and Provence cruise on the Rhone River in France, with pre- and post-cruise programs in Paris and Barcelona.

Rounds points out that both Vietnam and France are poised to pass legislation in the coming year granting marriage rights for their gay and lesbian citizens. He says it would be another dream come true to celebrate those victories and support destinations that are improving the lives of LGBT people.

“There’s no better way to support destinations that welcome us than with our tourism dollars,” says Rounds. “A full ship of LGBT passengers can make a strong statement, and it gives us the chance to validate the power of travel through our choices.”

Celebrating LGBT Love, Giving Away a Riverboat Cruise

We had been planning a February 14 Love contest to give away a cabin on our Danube Riverboat Cruise, and to our pleasant surprise, Washington State and California decided to trump Saint Valentine’s. So instead of giving away a romantic all-gay cruise for two just because it’s that time of year, we get to celebrate being two steps closer to attaining equality and protection for our most cherished relationships.

There are so many powerful stories of commitment and love in our community. For a long time we had to hide our relationships, and many of us have gone to great lengths to be together. I truly believe that the more we can celebrate our love and tell our stories, the better our chances of adding even more states to the slowly growing list.

So please share your LGBT love stories with us, or nominate your favorite couple. We would be honored to hear them. Go to our Facebook page for more details of the contest.

For Better or Worse

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy law, and this is my solemn vow.”

I have been thinking a lot of the wedding vows since an anti-gay marriage amendment will go on the ballot in Minnesota in 2012.  Since as long as I can remember, in my 30 years as an out gay man, we have always talked about keeping the government “out of the bedroom.” We consistently try to win people over by exclaiming our right to privacy, but in the end gay marriage is not about sex in the bedroom (it is legal in all 50 states), nor is it about privacy (we can hide our other halves if we really need to). Instead, it is about the right to be public about who we have chosen to live with and love – until death do us part.

The traditional wedding vow is one of many contradictions, but I believe its most important message (and the reason why we need gay marriage) relates to life’s harsh realities. It is when things are better that relationships are easy. It is when things are worse that we need a strong bond to make it through. And although it is possible to make it through tough times without being legally married, I believe it is the legal bond of government or church/synagogue that may help protect our promise.

When you are rich, you can afford the legal help that you need to protect your relationship, as much as possible.  Mark and I can afford the necessary attorneys to attempt to protect each other from losing our joint assets in case of our deaths, and in case our families decided they wanted the money. (This is fortunately not the case because we are very lucky to have the incredible families that we do.) It is in fact the poor, those who cannot afford the necessary legal costs, who need marriage to protect and respect their wishes.

I suppose that when we are healthy, we really don’t need to be legally married. It is in fact in sickness that hospitals, and the people who work there, can deny us the right to not only make the important medical decisions we have entrusted in each other – but to receive any news of what is happening to our loved ones behind hospital doors. Here is just one tragic example of what happened to a real, loving family: http://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/langbehn-v-jackson-memorial

And in the end, it is when love has lasted “until death do us part,” that gay and lesbian people can suffer most. There will be a day when either Mark or I will need all of the legal protection that only marriage can give. Without marriage, there will be extra taxes to pay, and less social security to receive. Again, this may be the time when a family member of the deceased decides that our lifetime together is meaningless and attempt to challenge our wills in court.  It is at that time that we need protection the most, that, without legal marriage, we will be the most vulnerable.

There is no question we will see legal gay marriage throughout this country, but for better or for worse, I would rather see it before death does make me part.