FEBRUARY 25, 1994

COMMUNITY FORUM

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9

Donations needed for Hebron House

To the Editors:

We at the AIDS Housing Council are realizing our second dream, a transitional housing program where people can stay for up to 90 days until permanent housing can be found. We need furnishings for our place of refuge in the city, Hebron House. We need the items referenced below or donations for the purchase of these items.

We are counting on your support in helping us to make this dream a reality. All efforts will be greatly appreciated. Please contact Esther, or Karin, at 651-6400 for further information.

Louise S. Valentine, ACSW, LISW Executive Director

Some of the items needed:

Canisters

Clocks

Coffee maker

Desk with chair

Dishes

6 Dressers

End tables

Front porch furniture Glasses High chair Lamps (at least 10) Living room chairs

Microwave and stand

6 Night stands

Pictures, paintings Plant stands Plants

Playpen

Portable dishwasher Pots and pans

Towels and washcloths 2 Vacuum cleaners 2 Washers and dryers 6 Single bed frames

6 Single mattresses and box springs

Bedding: sheets, pillowcases, mattress pads, mattress

covers, quilts, blankets, bedspreads

Cooking and eating utensils

Couches or couch with matching love seat Dining room table and chairs

Mirrors for the bedrooms and bathroom Plastic ware for storing

Television, VCR, and stand, or entertainment center 7 Towel racks to fit on the backs of bedroom doors Window treatments: blinds, curtains, valances

The stain on Detroit

To the Editors:

I have read with interest the items about My Friend's Deli and after a little prodding by friends have decided to enter this fray.

As an alumnus of many deli-style restaurants, including Diana's, I know of what I speak. A lot of people might like to march or "act up" and these have their merits. I think, however, the real way to change ignorance and hatred is to get in there, let them see you, know you, and then, of course, like and respect you. Right? Well, it does happen that way a lot of the time. But sometimes people just decide to hate you and there's nothing you can do to change it.

My Friend's is an example of this. It is not easy to go into a work environment of mostly foreign cooks and try to interact in a team-spirited way being openly gay. And I was fired [from My Friend's] after being verbally and physically threatened by the cashier's husband. I was told my lifestyle was offensive to [owner] George and to most people. This was two weeks before Christmas and he told me to leave by the back door. I left by the front, letting him know that neither I, nor anyone I knew would ever come in there again. I am now temporarily employed at Max's Deli where "Gay is okay."

As for George's letter to the Chronicle, the content is self-serving; a man made desperate by his ignorance and mistakes, and fearing the Denny's soon to open on W. 117th.

You know, I just wish that when 2:30 am

Community Forum

The Chronicle encourages everyone to write and express your opinion about the community or the paper. Please be brief. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. We will print your name unless you specifically ask us not to.

Address letters to the Chronicle, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland, Ohio, 44101, or fax to 216-621-5282 (24 hours). Include your address and phone number so we may contact you to verify the letter.

rolls around on weekends, people find their way to the Big Egg or any place other than that stain on Detroit that calls you its "Friend."

Pure ca-ca

To the Editors:

John O'Brien

Although I don't believe that it is the Chronicle's responsibility to save a poor piece of writing submitted for publication by our local contingent of Stonewall 25, I must emphatically agree that the group's choice of communiques meant to highlight their activities and objectives consist of pure ca-ca.

I do not recall reading the Chronicle's Stonewall 25 article or not, but I am familiar with Victoria Carter's writing "style" in having received a solicitation for donations from her in the mail.

great injustice of it all, are willing to "walk the talk" or to "put up or shut up"?

What would the ranks of volunteers in any and all of the many worthwhile organizations serving the gay community swell to if those of us so critical of their every move would take a speck of our negative energy and turn it into positive and active assistance?

Or will we only be content when we one day look around and find that all of our leaders and organizations have finally let out a dejected sigh of resignation and understandably said, "enough-I quit"?

The right wing, gay bashing, rights-de-. nying homophobes of this city could not have developed a better strategy to divide

and destroy us than the strategy we employ

today.

K. Daggs

My husband decided

Regardless of my having the time to he's gay

write and edit this correspondence to the Chronicle, I still had the one minute necessary after reading those unnavigable correspondences to decide that I did not want this group of individuals representing my money.

With the majority of opposition to gay and lesbian life being well-organized, wellfunded and effectively articulate, I demand that groups interested in furthering our cause or presence (while using my financial backing to do so), be at least that prepared to make a good showing.

Should this constructive criticism be more palatable to Miss Carter, I urge her to take it simply because it comes from a member of the community that could potentially choose to support her effort. Remember, Ohio Stonewall 25, that the customer is always right. Sharon K. Bair

Change our divideand-destroy strategy

To the Editors:

Doesn't anybody get it?

When will the personal attacks on almost all our gay, lesbian, bisexual leaders and workers come to a halt?

I am referring to the fact that almost every issue of the Chronicle's "letters to the editors" contains some attack on some individual or group working hard to fulfill various needs withing our community, including: Pride, ACT UP, Dancin' in the Streets, Cleveland City Country Dancers, the Center, Stonewall 25's Ohio rep (for the way she writes, no less!), the Clitty Cat Club, and SOAR's target-of-the-week, to sadly name just a few.

Is there no end to the hate-filled public and personal attacks that we, the Cleveland queer community, continue to thrust on the very people with the courage and devotion to work and fight for us?

Are we so bored or uninvolved in meeting any of the many needs of our community that we must attack the few that unselfishly devote their lives to making our lives better?

Are we so blind to the good, yet not always perfect, work being performed day in and day out that benefit so many?

Are we so incapable of expressing appreciation to the countless number of unnamed people that work toward needs we personally and individually are unable or unwilling to accomplish ourselves?

How long will it take for us to realize that we are attacking the wrong people?

How long will it take for this community to realize that every group or individual has shortcomings and flaws and that while none of us are unaccountable, we are, at the very least, deserving of a far greater "let's work together to fix the flaws" attitude?

How many of us are saying, "Before I attack, before I am so quick to identify the problem, how quick am I to actively participate in working toward the solution? How many of us, so defiantly screaming of the

To the Editors:

I am writing this article in the hope it may help. My husband of 21 years has come to the decision that he is gay.

It has been a very devastating seven months. He moved out in November and I am very confused—and at this point not sure where my life is headed.

It may be the "in thing" presently to come out, but what happens if one wants to go back in the closet? He is not a child, he's 46 years old. I would never say anything, but I'm literally pulling my hair out over this.

Presently, we are legally separated. I would never have left him-he left me. Just packed up, and happy to do so, or so it

seems.

What kind of help is out there for me? He's a great guy, at least he used to be. I have made myself a promise that if it's finished I will leave and never come back to Cleveland again.

When the gay community encourages people to come out do they realize what they do to the wives and families left behind?

I hope you publish this in the hope it may help. I'm 45, and still young enough to get my life going again, but at this point not sure of anything.

Just sign me,

Anonymous

Encouraging people to come out of the closet is primarily intended to free gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from the terrible lie they have been living and remove their guilt. It also serves to show the larger population that there are many more gays and lesbians living "normal" lives than some of society's leaders would like to admit.

The discovery, or recognition, in later life that oneself is gay or lesbian happens more frequently than you might think. This trauma in your relationship has affected

both of you, but perhaps your husband has moved farther along in dealing with it than you have. For all of your 21 years together, you are still individuals with your own needs.

Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) is a national support group with local chapters that hold regular meetings (see Charlie's Calendar and "Community Groups" in the Resource Directory). Or, contact Wives of Married Gay Men, at 529-9139. Take the time to talk to others who have gone through similar experiences, or consider private counseling, and you will be able to get your life "going again" much sooner. -Eds.

Privatization no, jobs yes

To the Editors:

After many years of hard work by the lesbian-gay-bi-transgender community, anti-discrimination legislation has finally been submitted to Cleveland City Council by Mayor Michael White. However, at the same time, Mayor White also proposed a plan to privatize a broad range of city services. This threatens the jobs of 8,000 unionized city employees which include many lesbian, gay, bi and transgender workers.

Anti-discrimination language from the government or from a private employer represents a great achievement for our movement. It upholds, among other things, our right to a job. Yet this right is being eroded everyday by mass layoffs. The bosses use terms such as privatization (like Mayor White), downsizing, and “trimming the fat." We call it unemployment.

Hate crimes and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bi and transgendered people increase as economic conditions worsen. Racism and sexism are also used to pit poor and working people against each other. By uniting to fight for jobs, we also are strengthened in the battle against bigotry and oppression.

As lesbian trade unionists, we oppose any attempt to privatize city jobs. We are also supporting the National Job is Right Campaign. The Campaign is holding a national organizers conference April 9 in Detroit, Michigan. Its purpose is to lay the foundation for a massive National March for Jobs in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1994. Demands include a massive jobs program, a real raise in the minimum wage, a moratorium or freeze on all layoffs, and an extension and expansion of unemployment insurance benefits.

For more information and to join the campaign, call 921-8130.

As the union slogan goes—an injury to one is an injury to all!

Martha Grevatt

United Auto Workers Local 122 Susan Schnur Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268

Your plumbing & miscellaneous jobs are my specialty!!!

MISC. MELANIE

(216) 398-0329

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Melanie Chapuis