Page 2 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Editorial

August, 1991

The time is now for a rights ordinance

A number of groups are assessing the agenda of the Cleveland lesbian-gay community. They are including issues such as better police response, bashing in the media, how lesbian-gay organizations relate to each other, and a variety of “isms."

These are all important issues. However, let's not lose sight of the forest. When we marched last June, when we march any June, what is the most common chant? "What do we want GAY RIGHTS!"

A push for simple civil rights at the local level-this means the city of Clevelandshould be at the top of the Cleveland lesbian-gay agenda. As we all know, we can be fired, evicted, and denied all sorts of services, just for being gay or lesbian, and have no legal recourse. We all know how this impacts our lives and those of our friends and lovers. We also know that a major solution to this is to get "sexual orientation" included in anti-discrimination ordinances.

Yet, somehow, this never makes it very high up on lists of priorities that are compiled. Perhaps it's because everyone thinks, "Of course, that too, it goes without saying." Or, it may be believed that this is out of reach, that we should go for smaller things first.

But it's not out of reach. Not at the city

level, at least. And it doesn't go without saying. We need to say it, again and again.

Council President Jay Westbrook has clearly stated his strong support for lesbian and gay rights, at both Pride '90 and '91, as well as at a number of smaller events. Other Council members, among them Ray Pianka and Patrick O'Malley, have also supported us. Mayor Michael White has signed Pride Day proclamations for two years in a row. The mayor has also been very helpful with a number of issues, ranging from police relations with gays and lesbians, to the painting of the lavender stripe on Euclid for the Pride march. This is the greatest support the lesbian and gay community has ever had in city govern-

ment.

A number of other local elected officials are also supportive, which can be helpful in City Hall. State Reps. Jane Campbell and Madeline Cain, and State Sen. Eric Fingerhut have expressed their support. U.S. Reps. Louis Stokes and Edward Feighan, and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, are currently co-sponsors of the federal lesbian and gay civil rights bill.

The Plain Dealer has repeatedly editorialized for civil rights for lesbians and gays, on the occasions of both Washington

Guest Opinion

marches, and most recently for armed service members.

The number of cities and now, states-with civil rights protections for lesbians and gays is growing steadily. Many of them are in unexpected places, such as Ames, Iowa and Tampa, Florida, to name two recent ones. Our neighbors Detroit and Pittsburgh have civil rights ordinances on the books.

These victories in other cities represent years of hard work by committed individuals. Cleveland now has a lesbian-gay community large enough and strong enough to do this maybe not by the end of this year or next, but certainly in the next five or six. But we need to get started.

The time to start working on this is now. The current climate in City Hall is the result of an election; another one down the road can change everything. The legislative process can take time, but we could be missing the opportunity to get a good start.

Many of the pieces are there. Until we try to put this together, though, we can't see what is missing-where we need to seek support. We must make a visible start-visible in the mainstream community. This means getting a bill introduced in Council. Until we do this, the support of White, Westbrook, and other leaders is largely academic. ▼

A revolution in each of our daily lives

by Aubrey Wertheim

This was originally written to appear in the Plain Dealer on the Sunday after Pride '91.

Cleveland's in the midst of a revolution. Before you sandbag your house, stockpile imperishables and marshal your pit bulls, you should know this is an upheaval of the most peaceful, healing and revitalizing kind.

As more and more forces rally, hostilities de-escalate, barricades tip, surveillance and policing eases; the exiled and underground lives are hailed home; children are restored to parents, long-estranged neighbors reacquaint-and a profound oppressive power is pulled down. This power, once thought absolute, is now found to be an insupportable tax on the private sector and public trust.

The revolution I refer to is the enfolding into the city's social fabric of an open, proud and vital lesbian and gay community.

Scanning that sentence, Cleveland's collective brow may be furrowing noticeably. Sweat from the readership's palms may be seeping into newsprint all over town as these pages are clutched ever tighter.

I assure you there's no need to panic. This change can truly make your life easier, your relationships saner, your neighborhood more liveable, your churches, schools, courts and civic institutions more viable and productive.

A vast majority is still eyeing this column with a blatant mix of skepticism and derision? Perhaps personalizing the phenomenon is the best way to illustrate.

For Memorial Day recently, a man I'd been dating for several months and I were invited to join my parents, cousin and family friends for supper at the family home in Sagamore Hills. Ages ranged from mid-30s to mid-80s and included a fond senior family friend whose decadeslong relationship with another man I'd only discovered several years ago when I'd returned to the area. For the longest time, it was simply a situation neither recognized nor discussed.

Talk flowed or given this group, barraged in innumerable directions: poisonivy folk remedies, the gulf fiasco, the meal

at hand, gossip, and hospitals. My date, initially daunted by the semiautomatic verbal tone of our gatherings, finally recognized the necessity of an aggressive opinion and was soon comfortably synthesized into the din.

The talk turned at one point to Nancy Reagan's newly-acquired Kitty Kelly clay heels: Father thought the trashing of first ladies a deplorable tabloid precedent. Others noted earlier omens: the published bad blood with the stepdaughter, the astrology ruckus. I felt the fall was predestined, as the Reagans had set themselves up as authoritative moral guardians, fully knowing their private lives bore precious little correspondence to that agenda. I cited their public pose backing anti-gay factions and policy, while personally maintaining a circle of close gay friends and political intimates.

This was roundly conceded or countered before the talk leaped onto a totally different path: the population explosion at the time of midges, muffleheads, or Canadian soldiers, and a general consensus of not caring which they were but when they'd be gone.

What made the evening extraordinary-beyond the blessing of good food and convivial voices coalescing--was the greater exchange. Where once any gay reference or rejoinder was tacitly, tactfully edited out—or worse, provoked a sudden, awkward pause and scramble for more suitable conversation in its place now settled a warm, familial inclusion that neither glared nor embarrassed, but wove naturally, seamlessly into the occasion's design.

What is even more crucial to acknowledge is that this was not an isolated incident. All over Cleveland, the state, the Midwest: gays and lesbians-individually and in families of our own making—were being called to tables or family football or group photos by relations and friends reconciled and at ease with who we are and how we love.

This is the major upheaval I referred to earlier that hoids such promise and simplification to us as individuals and co-existing citizens: this process of Cleveland coming out of the closet.

What we celebrate every year at this time-in the local Pride parade and street fair, in the statewide festival in Columbus

and in community and cultural events throughout June nationwideis another year of individual and community movement forward.

Like similar movements of social change, our everyday strides and triumphs often go uncredited and unacclaimed despite the risk and investment involved: the formidable struggle of self-acceptance; the taking-on of those we care about; and even, perhaps, the confrontation with those who degrade or victimize us (the homophobic co-worker, the uninformed legislator).

Even tremendous breakthroughs can occur with little or no notice. This year alone, a Heights High lesbian couple attended their school prom together, a Domestic Court judge issued Cleveland's first protection order and property settlement in a same-sex couple dispute; and the city's Safety Department instituted gay-sensitivity training for all police rookies.

All these steps forward-some minuscule, some gigantic-necessitate at least one day a year when we rally and recognize our gifts, strides and spirit despite pretty intense opposition. (We also need at least that day off from the struggle to party hard.)

Now that I've provided numerous, lucid examples and explanations as to how an open lesbian and gay community benefits everyone, the question pressing on everyone's mind is doubtless: How can I get in on this?

Well, I'll tell you the first two steps you can take regardless of your orientation to start moving from homophobic to homofriendly:

Don't buy the lie. Hyperconservatives and the religious rearguard would have you believe lesbian and gay communities and culture are a freak phenomenon of our degenerate age.

This is unadulterated hooey. They were churning out lesbian love poetry in Greece over 2,500 years ago and chronicling Chinese same-sex romances before 300 B.C.

We've been around forever, and spicing up society ever since we reckoned it needed it. It may seem there are more of us now than ever before, but there are more of everyone.

Don't hold back your love. Accepting the lesbian and gay folks in your live will honestly uncomplicate it beyond belief.

For one thing, your circle of family and

gay people's

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friends no longer has to be constantly fogged up in euphemisms-"funny uncle," "eccentric aunt," "distant sister," "artsy son," and so on. Just "gay" or "lesbian," pure and simple.

By setting a gay-positive example at work, church, school, or health facility you phase out attitudes in conflict with productivity, moral integrity, academic excellence, good sportspersonship. You also cease inadvertently slamming ten percent of the people around you.

But most important, you take all that negative energy out of shunning, shaming and stereotypes and set up shop in the temple of honest human relations, where all of us aspire to a common goal—that of lover and beloved, that of partner and companion, that of friend and family as we so define.

In your life right now is someone gay or lesbian awaiting that consideration. Right in your home, or perhaps next door, or possibly miles away-or maybe it's even you.

Consider what being without that means. Then consider a radical change of heart.▼

Wertheim is director of services of the Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center.