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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
Steve Simon, President
Some companies and brokers are promising you "the most money for your life insurance policy," but they are breaking their promises.
They promise to only represent your interests...they promise to get you the most for your policy...they promise that everything is confidential...they promise you will not have to pay their fee. They promise you will get your money quickly. They promise and they promise and they promise!
And who will these brokers
sell your policy to? Not the company that will pay you the most,
DECEMBER 10, 1993
a company like American Life Resources there would be no fee. The extra money it costs to have a middleman shop your policy to investors would go directly to you. And copies of your private and confidential medical records would not be floating around the country like a
chain letter.
There is nothing
We don't need to find someone to purchase your policy. We don't have to wait to get you your funds after you have been approved. We have over 50 million dollars of our own money that is solely dedicated to purchasing life insurance policies. You receive the most money possible with no has sles, no excuses and no delays.
sweeter than a promise kept.
There is nothing more bitter than
a promise broken.
but someone who will pay the broker the most. Think about that! And who are these "funding sources" that they are sending your personal and confidential medical records to? Someone you can check out? Someone you can trust? Someone you would want owning your life insurance policy?
And who really pays the broker's fee? You! If you worked directly with
Call us for more information. You don't need
middlemen and neither do we. We
COMMUNITY FORUM
Continued from Page 8
aren't qualified." Or worst of all, to play the White liberal-"Oh, you can't help that you are poor ignorant folks. Let me, smart, competent White person that I am, show
you
what you should think about this." I know that discrimination is a real and everyday experience for People of Color, but I can choose not to pay attention. That is White, middle class privilege to have a choice about whether we will notice. People of Color do not have a choice, especially poor and working class People of Color. It is ground into their souls every day of their existence.
It is my challenge now to choose to pay attention, to take the risk of reaching out and making errors, to continue to read, to continue to discuss, and to remain willing to empower others rather than take the lead. It is comforting to know that I am supported in these actions by a board of trustees that is also committed to stretching themselves, to risking making mistakes, and to empowering others so that we could, for the first time, have a community center that really represents and serves all the members of our gaylesbian-bisexual-transgender community.
Judith Rainbrook, Executive Director Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center
this opportunity, to express myself and others in the HIV community in Cleveland. Without your publication, our voices might not be heard!
Michael
Presented at the November 10 HIT board meeting:
The reason I am addressing the board this evening is to communicate the need for more access and equal availability of all services provided by HIT, as well as making communication to clients a number one priority.
I am here not to be part of the problem, but to be a part of the solution. Speaking frankly for myself and other clients, whom are afraid to address these issues for fear of being ostracized of services provided by this community financed organization.
Favoritism needs to stop. All services, including, but not limited to activities sponsored and donated by HIT and the Community at large. All clients should be given the equal opportunity to attend events regardless of immediate accessibility to clients. There should also be a public record of distribution of donated tickets, regardless of who is receiving them.
Calls not returned for services needed by clients is unacceptable! Informing clients of whether services are available to them,
keep our promises so you can keep We need an HIV forum monthly events, volunteer activities, as well
yours!
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I am a member of the HIV positive community in Cleveland. I am also a client of both HIT and the Living Room, and an active sponsor of PotLuck, a monthly social for those living within the HIV spectrum. Also, I am gay (and proud!).
The reason for my letter is to ask the Chronicle and its readers to work for the HIV positive community in establishing a forum to create change in a positive direction for myself, and others affected by HIV, whom services are not being rendered to.
The letter [below] was verbally and physically presented to the HIT board meeting on November 10, 1993. As part of the community that HIT directly serves, I hope they are able and willing to take positive and constructive criticisms, and use them effectively in change.
I also ask others to use the Chronicle as a forum, to let the community know what they are and are not supporting, regarding the HIV community.
Again, I thank you, and the Chronicle for
as board meetings, should not be the exception, but the rule.
The main reason HIT is in existence is to provide advocacy and supportive services as stated in your revised mission statement. It's time that you make this a reality for all clients in a timely fashion.
As for solutions, a monthly newsletter available to all clients, via mail, case manager or AIDS Support Service Organizations in the community is essential. This newsletter should be a source to communicate events, support groups, education to clients and the community at large. This newsletter could be put together by people in the spectrum by a volunteer staff, financially supported by the community raised funds at HIT.
The second solution would be to have client meetings on a bimonthly basis to report to the board regarding the maintenance of services directly relating to clients.
They say if it's not broken, don't fix it. Well I'm telling you, it's broken, and it's time to be fixed.
What are you going to do about it? We'll be waiting for your solutions!
The Church and the Gospel
Continued from Page 8
ment into a victim glorification movement, and eventually the sign of the fish, symbolic of an empowering communal meal, was replaced by the sign of the crucifix, symbolic of "the divine victim." The Roman Church survived, but as a patriarchal institution that replaced the fallen Roman Empire as the new Patriarchy.
That brings us to the present. The Roman Church, the white Fundamentalists, the selfproclaimed Black Church and the others all officially exclude us from their patriarchal institutions. That's good news! It means we're out here with Christ, free to form our own Gospel Communities in which the social constructions of class, race, gender and sexuality no longer rule how we relate to each other-just like the original Christians did. The Spirit is calling us to be the dream that shines against the nightmare of the partriarchal captivity of the church.
Jesus said, "I say to you truly, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and property, with persecutions, and in the age to come life eternal. But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
(Mark 10:29-31)
Notice that Jesus said that "fathers" are something we leave behind, but not something we receive in the New Community. In our new family-of-choice, all family-oforigin relationships will continue except father-rule. Jesus was not excluding straight men, he was speaking symbolically of patriarchy, of that dominant/submissive way of life that places power in dogma instead of personal experience, places power in authority instead of authenticity.
Lesbians and gay men share the experience of Jesus and the first Christians. When they left their patriarchal households to join a liberated house-church, the early Christians lost their old oppressive families in the society of power, but they gained a new and liberated family in the community of faith. The Holy Spirit and authentic community come to us through love-with, not powerover. That's the paradox of the Gospel: we can feel the community down under, but by God it's alienated at the top.
Jesus was one of us outcasts. The paradox of the Gospel is that we receive the spiritual power of liberation and love the minute we just say no to the power of patriarchy. That's how we who are last become first.
The author is pastor of Liberation United Church of Christ in Cleveland.