Page 12 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE National Notes

January 22, 1993

QW magazine folds

The New York City-based weekly magazine QW suspended publication at the beginning of December due to mounting debt. QW had published for about a year and was heavily financed by its CEO, William Chafin. Chafin died in October but his will did not contain the expected bequeath to the magazine which ended the year some $300,000 in the hole.

QW was started by refugees from the failed Out Week and quickly moved from news reporting to gay features which were aimed at attracting the interest of mainstream advertisers and readers. The shift in focus and the $2 cover price lost the magazine some of its gay audience. The editors have announced plans to start the publication up again in January as a biweekly.

--Bay Area Reporter

Educators endorse military gays

In December the American Civil Liberties Union published ads in support of President-elect Bill Clinton's pledge to overturn the military's ban on lesbians and gay men. A full page ad in the December 13 New York Times, funded by openly-gay record mogul David Geffen, announced that 125 educational leaders and institutions, including several in Ohio, have signed a resolution calling for an end to the military's discrimination practices.

Signers of the resolution include six national education organizations: the American Council on Education, the National Education Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the Association of College and University Housing Officers, and the Association of

American Universities.

In addition, 31 universities and colleges from across the country endorsed the resolution, including Bowling Green State University, Carnegie Mellon University, West Virginia University, and the universities of Kansas, Georgia, Rhode Island, Oregon and New Hampshire.

The resolution also garnered 88 individual university and college president endorsements, including the presidents of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio University, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, the University of Cincinnati, and many large state university systems.

Tampa may not be site for

GALA Choruses festival

The Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA Choruses) has suspended plans to hold its next major choral festival in Tampa, Florida. Plans had been underway since this past summer's festival in Denver for the large-scale event, scheduled every four years, to take place in Tampa in 1996, due partly to the city's ordinance which banned discrimination against gays and lesbians. However, in November, Tampa voters, spurred by the American Family Association, overturned the ordinance and since then "several GALA choruses have indicated that they will boycott the Tampa Festival,” said Helen Speegle, president of the association.

The GALA Choruses board instructed the Tampa Festival Organizing Committee to suspend all planning and negotiations; the board will decide in February if Tampa is to be the 1996 site. The TampaHillsborough Convention and Visitors Association, which worked closely with two

Tampa area choruses to have the city be selected as the site, has estimated the festival would pump over $3.5 million into the local economy, based on an expected 4,000 visitors.

GALA Choruses is an international association of over 115 lesbian and gay choruses--including the North Coast Men's Chorus--representing over 6,000 individuals. Ironically, the association is based in Denver, Colorado, which had its gay protection legislation overturned with passage of a statewide amendment this past November.

New Texas senator is pro-gay

Texas Governor Ann Richards has appointed Texas Railroad Commissioner Robert Krueger to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Senator Lloyd Bentsen. According to Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF) executive director Tim McFeeley, "Bob Krueger has been a supporter of the lesbian and gay community throughout his political career. He is an outspoken advocate of fairness for all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation. We look forward to working with him throughout his service in the Senate." McFeeley noted that Krueger attended the most recent HRCF annual Dallas fundraising dinner.

The HRCF staged an aggressive letterwriting campaign at the end of the year to Governor Richards, opposing the anticipated appointment of Congressman James Chapman to the office. Chapman had led an unsuccessful attempt to discriminate against some people with HIV infection during Congressional debate on the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. "We believe the Krueger appointment is a much wiser decision," McFeeley said.

The newly appointed senator is a former

member of Congress who later served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico under President Carter. He was not a co-sponsor of the federal Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Bill during his U.S. House service, but was viewed as a supporter by lesbian and gay activists. Krueger is expected to face a crowded field of candidates in a May 1 open primary election to fill out the remaining years of Bentsen's term.

San Francisco police chief endorses gays in the military

The Bay Area Reporter of San Francisco reports that that city's police chief has written a letter to General Colin Powell urging him to accept President-elect Bill Clinton's plan to lift the military ban on gays and lesbians. Chief Tony Ribera wrote that, "In 1979, before the first openly gay officer entered our department, I had doubts about the propriety of hiring gays as police officers. However the events of the past 14 years have changed my thinking on the issue."

The letter described Ribera's experience as a platoon commander in the Mission District, with 20 of the 65 officers being lesbian or gay: "Our platoon was far and above the most productive in all measurable categories of performance among the city's 27 platoons. I would also note that during that five-year period there was not a single incident of unprofessional conduct by the gay and lesbian officers working for me.'

Ribera continued, “General Powell, I am not a flaming liberal advocating a cause. I am in fact relatively conservative and a practicing Roman Catholic. However, I feel morally compelled to acknowledge

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