SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego LGBT Pride festival is coming up quickly and along with it are some special ticket prices.

The festival - “One World, One Heart, One Pride” - will be held July 17 and 18 at Marston Point in Balboa Park. The mile-long parade will wind down University Avenue to Sixth in Hillcrest, starting at 11 a.m. July 17.

Pride officials have announced the option to purchase two-day festival passes while also extending the time period that all tickets can be purchased at the discounted rate.

Last week, I was invited to speak at UCSD with the GLBT student association.  I was asked to talk about issues legally important and relevant to the GLBT community.  Preparing for that talk was more difficult than I had anticipated.  I wanted my talk to impact each student directly, and not be some amorphous discussion forgotten as soon as it was over.

Being seven years out of an undergraduate program myself, I had to think hard about what a group of GLBT students preparing to work in today's economy and legal/political landscape would benefit most from, in a 20 minute talk. 

The past two weeks have been especially troubling for many in our community with the murder-suicide of Eric Schulthise and Bob Agnew. I knew the two men only by name and face and never spent a notable amount of time with either. But one only has to scroll through Eric’s lingering Facebook page to experience the disbelief, sadness and confusion that the news has invoked.

Love is definitely something to be celebrated.

When we are in love, sometimes we feel like shouting it from the rooftops, or in today’s technological age, we simply update our Facebook or Tweet it for an immediate response from everyone we know. Each and every day in the lives of two people who love each other is important, even if Americans only publicly recognize it one day a year.