[Van.Augur]

As a believer that an individual of the LGB+ community deserves all the rights of any other individual, I don't see an issue with the blog. I hope it's expected that all FIRST teams are accepting of people of any orientation/gender/identity/etc. On my team, things of that nature have never really been an issue for anybody. On our team, everybody generally judges our members by their character and how they positively contribute to the team. So long as you contribute positively to the team and are a decent person (and keep your grades up), we love you! It doesn't really matter to the team whether you're gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, etc. I think judgement on any other basis would be inappropriate, ungracious, and unprofessional.

While I don't think that the LGB issue is any more or less important to FIRST than it would be to any other organization, that doesn't mean it's not worth talking about as needed. I couldn't see a issue with starting a blog about it. That being said, the issue is inherently socio-political (it is, by definition, a political issue). Some people would rather not get tangled up in such politics, so I can also understand people's desires to not delve any deeper than absolutely necessary.

I hope that the accepting atmosphere that I have experienced through the dozens of teams I have encountered during my time in FIRST continues to give any and all dedicated students an opportunity to find fulfillment.