Page 2 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE December, 1988

EDITORIAL

Cleveland's new challenge

Cleveland's lesbian and gay community has a new challenge to continue to grow without Jerry Bores. Jerry has been the backbone of many events and organizations in our community, but he is no longer in Cleveland. As much as people might like to think that no one man could effect one community so much, Jerry Bores was such a man to the lesbian and gay community in Cleveland.

Jerry at one time or another was the backbone of such organizations such as The Health Issues Task Force and Eleanor Roosevelt Gay Political Club. Exceptions to Jerry's influence include such organizations such as The Center and Women's organizations, notably, OVEN, who continue to grow and prosper, making everyone proud..

But now we have a choice: The organizations, which Jerry was involved in can carry on or they can die out. Both are possibilities and it is much to soon to tell which is more likely.

For example, every April for the past eight years, there has been a conference in Cleveland. Not an ordinary conference, but the All-Ohio Lesbian-Gay Conference at Case Western Reserve University. It has been the place where many young (and not so young) lesbians and gay men have finally come out, where they finally have accepted themselves with pride.

This conference always has been more than just workshops and speakers. It has been the place, more than any place else, where Cleveland lesbians and gay men learn to celebrate themselves. The conference's importance to our community cannot

be taken lightly.

Jerry is one who organized this conference. Jerry is one that helped get the use of CWRU, (officially, it is CWRU'S Gay-Lesbian Union that sponsors the event, but Jerry was the guiding force). Jerry called the meetings, helped get speakers and was master of ceremonies. Many feel that without Jerry there will be no conference.

It is sad that Jerry no longer lives here. He was a good friend to the Chronicle and we will miss him. But unless we act now, this community will miss the chance to take charge, rise to the occasion and make the changes all of us have been talking about for years.

As a community we defeat ourselves, we pull each other down. We don't support what needs our support and we don't criticize our institutions that need criticism. We just accept. We wait for someone else to do it. We assume our opinion doesn't matter. We don't take pride in ourselves.

For a town full of grown adults who can walk around acting like dogs for a football team, we can't even buy a ticket to a show supporting our own community center. We can support a new nightclub, but we can't go see the names of our dead memorialized on cloth.

If there is no conference in Cleveland this year, it will be the fault of every lesbian and gay man who thinks someone else can do the work. It will be the fault of everyone who thinks he or she is not important and couldn't contribute anyway. It will be the fault of all the lesbians and gay men who have come out and don't care if there is a place for others to do the same. It

=GUEST EDITORIAL

will be the result of the same attitude that has prevailed in this town for years and has kept us mired in the rot of our own apathy.

Some people need to come forward and help this year. There is no Jerry to organize. Not the same people who are running the Center, organizing Pride Day, and just about everything else in this town. We cannot expect one person or a handful to provide this community, year after year, with the things we all need to survive.

Not all change will happen overnight. Most real changes take a lifetime. However, the conference will be a test; how well we do will shape our future. Not because we are failures if we cannot produce an event, but because we will be a failure as a community, as a group of people trying to create space, support each other and live without fear of harm, if we cannot carry on an event that means so much to so many people.

Unless each of us starts doing something, we will perish, not as individuals, but as a community.

It is time for new community leadership. It is time for the young to step forward and build something they can support. It is time to stop talking and start doing. The future is now, what we do this coming year in Cleveland will effect generations of lesbians and gay men.

Can we afford to stand back and let others do for us what we can and should do for ourselves?

If we start with the All-Ohio LesbianGay Conference, we can go places we never dreamed possible. ▼

New Age thought: A feminist's view

by Sally Tatnall

As a student of New Age thought for more than 40 years, I have become somewhat distressed when I see the commercializing and popularizing of principles I hold dear. The distress comes from what I perceive as a failure on the part of New Age thought to include a sociopolitical framework for our age. There are strong, commonly held associations that do not just disappear. God has been held in the image of a white male figure. Individual achievement is a primary goal and is held in an arena of competition. Responsibility is a designation that accounts for who gets praised or blamed.

New Age thinking asserts that we have the power to do and create much more than humans now imagine.

LETTERS

Mind over matter is such that you can create whatever life you choose. Because of this great possibility, you have full responsibility for what you create, or bring into your life. Being connected to your inner or higher self is being connected to God or the universe and great prosperity is a matter of aligning self with inner self and with the universe for a continual flow of good.

Aligning with inner self is accomplished through meditation, visualization, affirmation and any of the physical disciplines (Tai Chi, Akido, Karate) so popular now. A student can learn aura or chakra cleansing, and polarity or energy balancing. Very important to new being and fulfillment is the ability to surrender to some

greater good/God and to forgive. Forgiveness and surrender become the transformational tools in becoming.

There is paraphernalia in which to invest should you take seriously your pursuit of well-being. Crystals, pendulums, audio and video tapes, icons of mythic figures, energy rods, power bags, oils, herbal compounds, self-fulfillment books and workshop opportunities are plentiful in any New Age store. These are useful to individuals or with a teacher.

Once you have worked with your self and the inner-self connection, you may wish to go to a channeler. Here you become acquainted with past and future life creations of your own self. This offers many more Continued on Page 3.

No children allowed in bar

I would like to share with you a recent occurrence at a local lesbian establishment which left me feeling hurt and upset. I have no interest in bad-mouthing the owners of the 5 Cent Decision. I just wish that they would have taken to heart their statement that all would be welcome in their pub.

I was refused to be served because I was accompanied by my eleven-year-old son.

To some of you, even the mere thought of taking a child into a bar, let alone a gay bar, sounds absurd. I would just like to make it known that I am not one to drag my children into bars.

As a child, I can remember my father taking my sister and me into the tavern he patronized. The bartender never refused to serve him or asked him to leave because we were with him. It was quite the contrary. While Dad had a beer. I remember his friends

talking to us as we enjoyed a soda and a bag of popcorn. I recall the bartender telling Dad what beautiful children he had, etc.

So what about the children of gay and lesbian parents? There is enough pressure on them already, and it's not easy for them to understand that mom or dad is a little different. When my son asked me about my being gay, I was honest with him, just as I was with my 13-year-old daughter. I have nothing to hide or any reason to feel ashamed. They have been reared by two women and truly know that they are loved.

Since the opening of the 5 Cent Decision, I have patronized the bar and was a member of the volleyball team sponsored by them. I felt comfortable and enjoyed meeting the other patrons and just had a hell of a good time. So when my son asked me what

the place was like, I felt that there was no better way to explain then to physically show him what the place was like and to meet some of the nice people with whom I had become acquainted!

I had planned to meet my significant other at the bar on Friday at 8 p.m. since she was on her way via RTA. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take my son with me and show him that the place Mom goes was OK!

I just wish it could have been that way. I can't begin to explain how I felt when I approached the bar and ordered a draft for myself and a soda for my son, only to be told that I could not be served because of the child. At the time, there was also another child in the bar. I said that I did not think that there would be a problem because there was another child in the bar. The bartender said that they were also

gay people's

IRON IC

Vol. 4, Issue 6.

Publishers:

KWIR Publications

Co-Owners: Robert Downing Martha Pontoni

Editor-in-Chief:

Founder:

Martha J. Pontoni

Charles Callender, 1928-1986.

Copy Editor:

Carlie Steen

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Martha Pontoni, Tom P., Dora Forbes, Robert Downing, John Robinson, L. Kolke, Don S., Tracy Miller, Michele Smeller.

Columnists:

John Robinson, Auntie Ray, Doug Moore, Ed Santa Vicca, Patty M., Fern R. Levy, Joe Innteranto.

Production Staff:

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Artist:

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asked to leave.

My son was close enough to me to hear that we were not welcome. We left the bar and I doubt if I will ever go back.

A little more discretion on the part of the bartender would have been appreciated and it would have surely left a better impression of the bar had we been served our beverages and stay the short time until the bus arrived.

This would not have happened in a straight bar. Surely you had to realize that many lesbians and gays are parents. Is it so outrageous that our children have a need to know that there are others like their mom or dad and that they may feel a little more comfortable knowing that where mom or dad goes is a safe and an ok place to be among their peers?