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gay peoples CHRONICLE

Gay Peoples Chronicle

Publisher

Cleveland Gay Peoples Press Associates

DIGNITY LOSES IT

Last month the Cleveland Catholic Diocese fired Bob Navis after 17 years of teaching in parochial schools. The issue was not the quality of his teaching. His evaluations are excellent. The Diocese heaped praise on him in a promotional film it made about its schools. His students and their parents have also praised his teaching skills. Many gay people are good teachers; Navis is outstanding.

The Diocese took action against Bob Navis because he is gay. If you doubt this or if the Dignity/Cleveland leadership has told you otherwise, read Sr. Christine Vladimiroff's official statement, reprinted on page 11. Read it carefully. When Sr. Christine denies he was fired' because of his homosexual orientation, she is expressing current Catholic dogma. A homosexual orientation is morally neutral if you remain celibate; if, in her words, you follow a life "of true chastity in the power of the Holy Spirit" under the guidance of a priest. Echoing the church, Sr. Christine points out that "deliberate homosexual desires and acts are immoral.' Gay behavior is a sin. By living with Jeff Gerhardstein in a union they and their families viewed as marriage, Bob Navis "publicly espoused a lifestyle that is not in concert with the teachings the Church," according to Sr. Christine. And that, she says, is why he was fired.

After reading the statement by the Diocese, we suggest you read the interview with the Dignity spokespersons explaining why Navis was fired. Read it very carefully. Note the points where they contradict themselves, each other and Sr. Christine. We think you will ask, with US. "What the hell is going on here?" That members of our own community are going to these lengths to excuse or deny the bigotry of a homophobic institution

cause for shame for all of us.

Bob Navis' experience also has important ramifications, both local and national, that deserve note.

A central issue with implications for the exceptionally closeted Cleveland community and for gay people everywhere is that of being openly gay. It was explicitly raised during the debate at the Eleanor Roosevelt Gay Democratic Club, when a supporter of the Dignity position argued that one can be gay without throwing it in everyone's face. Can you? Certainly you can hide your homosexuality outside your bedroom, the bars, and the health clubs; but is this being gay?

At the first CWRU Lesbian/Gay Conference, keynoter Rhonda Rivera urged her audience to make their gayness known, arguing that nongays are much more supportive when they know they have gay friends and relatives. The same advice to make one's gayness public was repeated at each Succeeding conference; most recently, and very eloquently by Brian McNaught. Although Dignity/Cleveland cosponsored him, its leadership could not have listened

Every gay person who comes out strengthens Our community and helps all its members. Yet too many of us in Cleveland fear and hate open gayness. As a teacher who drew much respect and love, Bob Navis proudly made his gayness public. However his case turns out, he wins. And at the same time, he has helped people, even those who insist he should have kept his gayness a dirty secret.

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The Catholic hierarchy is emerging as of the most powerful, determined and wealthiest enemies of gay people in this country. This role concerns all of A more recent aspect of the church's attitude is even more disturbing. While blatantly discriminating against gay people, its spokespersons blandly deny that they are doing so.

If such claims rest on the Church's acceptance of gay people as long as we refrain from having sex with each other, this is arrogant sophistry. The church's insistence that those of us who are Catholic remain celibate is itself obvious discrimination. Up to a point, this is a problem those gays who are practicing Catholics must resolve themselves. We fully sympathize with them. But when they support the Catholic hierarchy against any gay person, they betray their own community.

This raises another dimension of Bob Navis' experience: the shabby role that the leadership of Dignity/Cleveland has played in it. As a member of Dignity, Navis was co-chair of its Social Justice Committee. He became

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Dignity Leadership has not defended him. Apprehensive that this incident might disturb their relations with the Cleveland hierarchy, they have sacrificed all their community obligations, and even honor to their fear, 10 order to remain secondclass members of their church. Washing their hands of any a member of their organization, they even tried to persuade another group, the Eleanor Roosevelt Gay Democratic Club, against endorsing the Vigil.

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In their formal published statement about the Vigil, the Board of Directors of Dignity/Cleveland stressed the need for "sensitivity by all sides" in a case of homophobic discrimination. They again alluded to certain unspecified "facts" that had not been presented. Deploring "militant reactions," they urged everyone to be

"Christ-like.

The Dignity leaders failed to specify which aspects of Christ's behavior they were urging as a model for the gay commun ity. Perhaps they meant that we should turn the other cheek when attacked by homophobes. We assume they did not refer to Christ's driving the money-changers from the Temple. We also assume that as a Jew, Christ followed the. Ten Commandments, including the one about bearing false witness against one's neighbor. What is certain is that whatever model the Dignity leadership counselled the community to follow, their own model was Pontius

Pilate.

The Dignity spokespersons, in the interview, sound like closeted gay people from the 1950's. Is Cleveland that far behind the times?

But another important aspect of the Navis case concerns Win Weizer's role as one of the persons speaking for Dignity. The refusal of Dignity president Capie O'Donnell to support a gay Catholic against discrimination by the hierarchy like her statement that she can't think of any situation where she would have to take a position against the Diocese, is a problem for the members of Dignity. But Win Weizer, who has taken the same stance, has played a community role beyond the Dignity confines. Can any person who defends the Catholic Diocese when it homophobically properly speak for the lesbian/gay community? For this reason the editor of the Chronicle voted against her selection by ERGDC to represent the Cleveland community at the Gay Pride Parade. She was not an appropriate representative for a gay pride event.

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Even more disturbing is her role as cochair of the ERGDC committee to obtain a gay civil rights ordinance for Cleveland. Disowning Bob Navis, a victim of the kind of behavior such an ordinance would prevent, gravely threatens her credibility. Does discrimination against gay people become nondiscrimination when practiced by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese?

July 1985

Advisory Board Rick Berg, Jerry Bores Charles Callender

Rob Daroff, Bob Downing Karen Giffen, Mark Kroboth, Joy Medley, Martha Pontoni Bob Reynolds

Business Manager Bob Reynolds

Advertising Manager Joy Medley Circulation Manager Bob Downing Editor-in-Chief

Charles Callender Assistant Editor Rick Berg

Writers Rick Berg, James Barnouw Charles Callender Katherine Clark, Rob Daroff Dora Forbes, Mark Kroboth Casimir Kuczinski, Sebastian Melmoth' Martha Pontoni

Photographer Rob Daroff

Columnists

Peter Beebe, L. Kolke, Ales Liberacki, Jym Roe, Julian Wilde

Production Staff James Amerson, Rick Berg Charles Callender Rob Daroff, Mark Kroboth Jeff Lang, Joy Medley

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