Editorial: Coming of age

Communities, like individuals, experience a natural life cycle. The birth is exciting, full of promise. Early childhood is a time of rapid growth and change – just keeping up with what's going on is a full time job. Then comes adolescence – an awkward time of planning and preparation for an unknown future that is both frightening and hopeful. When adulthood is reached we can expand our horizons and use the resources that have been committed to us throughout our lives to that point.
Michigan's LGBT community has finally reached our young adulthood. At the Affirmations Big Bash Saturday night, hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the new phase of the center's development. There were people who are old friends, some who have been rivals, and others who have committed countless hours of time and energy to bringing the center, and the community as a whole, to a new and exciting level. Everyone celebrated together as the center announced its new building project, and the feeling in the room was one of shared achievement and pride.
Allan Gilmour, Eric Jirgens, Nancy Katz and Margo Dichtelmiller took the stage to announce Affirmations capital and endowment campaign, and to share that they each had made the largest gifts they had ever made to any organization to help launch the $4 million campaign. George Westerman and his fantastic facilities committee unveiled the plans for a new, beautiful, functional building that will be located diagonally across the street from the existing center on West Nine Mile in downtown Ferndale. The entire project reflects the new maturity of the organization and the community it represents.
A strong community is defined as one that can rally around a common goal and work together to achieve what we can't individually. Our political leaders won a major battle last month and were able to convince 38 of the members of the Michigan House of Representatives to vote against a constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage in Michigan forever. Sean Kosofsky from the Triangle Foundation was a key player, but he shares the credit with others. In the profile of him in this issue he shows a magnanimous generosity of spirit in acknowledging the work of others who also contributed to the effort. It's that spirit of working together that is the essence of maturity, and is the ultimate source of our community's power.
We can all be proud of Affirmations and their extraordinary growth in recent years. It is our community center – all of ours – and it is a tangible reflection of us as a community. As the center grows and matures, so does the rest of the community. We are learning – together – that we are far more powerful as a group than any of us are individually. We can afford to share the load and the pride with each other – and to celebrate together. In fact that is the only way to complete our mission as a community and to create the fully developed organizations that we so richly deserve.