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Gay Peoples Chronicle

Publisher

Cleveland Gay Peoples Press Associates

gay peoples CHRONICLE

THE NEED FOR VISIBILITY

The photograph on page 5 displaying 12 issues of the Chronicle shows we have lasted a year. This issue begins our second volume. If this cannot be called long trip, in some ways it has been a strange one.

For several years the Chronicle's editor has worked with Max McLarty gathering material for a history of the

gay community. Our staff has been active in organizations. Yet publishing this newspaper has given us new perspectives on the Cleveland lesbian/gay community.

We have now seen the best and the worst of this community, and all gradations in between. Its best is very good: inspiring and filling us with pride. Its worst is appalling, particularly when exemplified by part of the community leadership, who directly impedes the progress of gay people and our liberation from oppression.

The national gay leadership consistently stresses the importance of the gay press. Studies single out a newspaper as

significant component in the construction of an effective gay community. Yet important elements of the Cleveland gay leadership oppose this newspaper. Not because of anything we have done. Beginning before we began publishing, their opposi tion continued through an almost complete turnover in our own leadership and still persists. They must oppose any newspaper, because a free flow of information threatens their manipulation of the rumor mills, an important part of their leadership strategy. But the community deserves better than rumor mills.

A persistent issue dividing us from that segment of the local leadership is gay visibility. For most of our history, gay people in the United States have been invisible, except when the media used us as examples to show that gay was bad. This has now changed, up to a point. But much of American society is still heterosexist and wants us invisible. Listen to

The

the arguments against gay rights legislation.

Much of the homosexual population of the United States also wants to remain invisible. Some feel they must, for their own security. This is why we need gay rights legislation. Their fear is understandable. We also understand reluctance to tell family and friends that one is gay: we have all been there. Yet to free ourselves from heterosexist oppression, we must be visible and remain so.

In the face of this need, part of the Cleveland gay leadership makes remaining closeted a virtuous act. This is usually expressed as "I don't believe in bringing my personal life (or the bedroom) to work.

The implications of this position are worth examining. Saying this, you are imposing special restrictions on yourself and other gay people. Straights are free to talk about spouses and friends at work; gay people are not supposed to. You are also turning gayness into nothing but sex, by equating it with the bedroom, and denying that it shapes the rest of your life. The alcoholism article on page 6 points out that "Once you find you are gay, every part of your existence has to be reinvented." As it does. Perhaps this is the real difference between homosexuals and gay people. Homosexuals confine that part of their lives to simply having sex. Gay people have to face up to much

more.

By virtuously defining yourself as not bringing the bedroom to work, you are not only acceding to the wishes of heterosexist elements in American society, you are trying to police other gay people for them. This is helping the enemy.

tion

As long as the Chronicle continues, we are going to be visible as a gay institu as gay people. And we are going to oppose heterosexism within the lesbian/gay community as well as outside it.

MEDIA CHOICES

Cleveland Clinic Conference was truly excellent, incisively covering many aspects of AIDS and of AIDS hysteria. Its sponsors and organizers should be congratulated.

The gay community knows Dr. Calabrese's long-standing concern with AIDS. We can now welcome the concern shown by Congressman Feighan, and praise the role of Dr. Michael Murphy and the United Labor Agency. We also welcome the participation of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, although we wish Father Murphy showed as much compassion for gay men without AIDS.

One issue the Conference addressed was media responsibility for the current irrational fear of AIDS. The contrast here between the representatives of television and the press was interesting. The former freely admitted past errors; the latter tended to deny or minimize them.

The central issue, we think, is that the media do decide what is news, to be reported or featured; and what is not news. There is an undeniable element of choice here, of which gay people were aware even before AIDS. During the 1950's the junior senator from Wisconsin was also aware of this, using his knowledge

to_manipulate the press.

In our October issue Larry Kolke noted that television coverage of AIDS increasingly resembled supermarket tabloids. In more recent months, the press has been the worse offender.

One January news story seems to us to illustrate an important flaw in the way the press handles news about AIDS.

On January 18 an AP dispatch announced that surgeons at Presbyterian-University Hospital of Pittsburgh had proceeded with a liver transplant operation, even though tests showed the donor of the organ had been exposed to the "deadly virus, HTLV3.

Later the hosital announced that the test had been inaccurate and that the donor had not been exposed to the virus, after all. The patient died, anyway.

By using the magic word AIDS, guaranteed to get a story into newspapers, the hospital obtained national publicity for an operation that otherwise would have drawn no attention. That the story increased irrational fear of AIDS may be seen as a small price to pay for coverage. But was the story worth it?

February 1986

Advisory Board

Jerry Bores

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

Advertising Manager Joy Medley

Business Manager Bob Reynolds Circulation Manager Bob Downing

Editor-in-Chief

Charles Callender

SS Reporters

Charles Callender Catherine Clark, Rob Daroff Dora Forbes, Joanne Frustaci Mark Kroboth Casimir Kuczinski Sebastian Melmoth Martha Pontoni

Photographer and Cartoonist Rob Daroff

Columnists Peter Beebe, Shana Blessing Larry Kolke, Jym Roe Julian Wilde

Production Staff

James Amerson, Rod Caldwell Charles Callender Rob Daroff, Joanne Frustaci Mark Kroboth

Circulation Staff Ray Davis, Bob Downing Jim Price, Nick Santoné Youngstown: Bill Smith Columbus: News of the Columbus Gay & Lesbian Community

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velope.

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