JUNE 24, 1994

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

11

COMMUNITY FORUM

Tower perch brought lots of food

To the Editors:

Thank you for helping to publicize our food gathering efforts the first weekend of June when I sat in the bell tower of Archwood United Church of Christ until the front steps of the church were filled with bags of food for the Brookside Hunger Center.

It was very successful. Brookside Center received approximately $4,000 worth of food, as well as additional cash donations. One large cash donation, that I knew of, was made by someone who read of the effort in the Gay People's Chronicle.

We also had a fun time. Two-thirds of the congregation was involved in some way with carrying out the event. And, police estimated that there were five to six thousand people at the annual Archwood Street Sale on Saturday, as opposed to a normal one or two thousand.

While I understand the need to show our diversity, we must work as one to show the powers that be that we are dead serious and must be respected as human beings as well as dignified citizens.

When will the gay community realize that there will be plenty of time for celebrations and parties after our Pride '94 goals are met. Now is the only time that we have to prove to the lawmakers and heterosexual power brokers that we must be taken seriously. We have few enough chances to gather as a collective of adults with com-

Guess what? I don't tolerate people telling me how to have sex, and I don't tolerate people telling me how to wear my freedom rings. If you want to have heterosexual relations, that's fine with me. If you want to wear yellow first on your colors, that's great. If you want to tell me my way of doing things is wrong because it isn't your way, shut up!

Steve Roberts

Debauchery in the

mon goals. So let's put our best foot forward Bible

next time so that even the right wing cannot use film of us as propaganda.

Remember the civil rights demonstrations of years ago? A multitude with one voice solemnly marching towards the end of discrimination and proudly walking into history.

Thank you for helping to make it happen. Empty chairs

David Bahr Pastor, Archwood UCC

Nice speech, Eric, but how did you vote?

To the Editors:

At the June 5 Stonewall Cleveland Dinner, we heard several prominent people speak eloquently about advancing the cause of freedom and equality of all people. Notably among them was Eric D. Fingerhut (D19). Is this the same Eric Fingerhut who voted for the codification proscribing the LesBiGay population from serving in the armed forces? Can we afford to continue to accept this duplicity from our "servants"?

The Democratic party is alleged to be gay-friendly. If that is the case, how do we explain that both Democratic U.S. senators and seven other Democrat representatives voted with Rep. Fingerhut to abort our civil rights? Does Rep. Fingerhut believe that "don't ask, don't tell" is the same as proudly serving our country?

The gay community must remember how

To the Editors:

Gary Dlacich Nick Meehan

It felt very good to be a part of Pride '94. I did, however, miss many friends and acquaintances who were not there. Yes, I know there is still a lot of fear about being seen and being out. Some of it is justified, I know.

But could some of it be apathy or perhaps a question of priorities? Some people I talked to had better things to do. That's okay. However, it seems to me, if everyone had this attitude we would not be enjoying the recognition we are starting to receive. To me, it's like any other kind of suffrage. If we don't ask for what we want, will we just get it? I don't think so.

I am not comfortable with staying in the shadow of the heterosexual lifestyle. I want my own. I have my own. I'd like some more freedom, though. Freedom to touch my lover in public and not be afraid. Freedom to act on feelings instead of hiding them. I am only one voice. Together we are bigger and stronger. And they cannot deny us. Margaret L. Middleton

our elected representatives vote, not what The 'Right' way

they profess; their actions speak louder. The time for blind allegiance is over. After all, look how well President Clinton stood behind his "word" to support our civil rights. We must demand that all candidates and parties support equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability all of the time.

Jack Power Secretary

Log Cabin Club of Northeast Ohio

Putting the party before the principles

To the Editors:

Just one month shy of our first anniversary, my lover and I proudly marched through the streets of Cleveland, feeling a great sense of pride and even a greater sense of acceptance from the crowds lining the

streets.

The parade and the Pride '94 festival that followed were well conceived, attended, and enjoyable. Yet, I fear that once again the "community" failed in the planning and presentation departments. While watching the (minimal) news coverage later that evening, something happened that should have occurred to everyone who marched. It was an example of history repeating itself.

Cleveland's Channel 5 provided the march with a minute or two, and what did they focus on? The usual. Outrageous drag queens and flirty, camera-hogging "wavers." Why does the press center on these people? Because we the people, with all of our desires and demands for equal rights, have once again put the party before the principles.

wear the rings

To the Editors:

to

"You're not politically correct; your freedom rings should start with red and end with purple. You're not doing it right." If I hear this absurd statement, or one even remotely resembling it, one more time I'm going to turn in my queer membership card and go off to some island where reason abounds.

Apparently, the homosexual community has conquered all of its problems with discrimination, misinformation and hatred. This is the only reason I can fathom for the obsession with the "correct" placement of the colors of the symbol of unification and freedom for everyone. We obviously have more than enough time and energy devoted to equal protection under the constitution, so naturally some of our energy must be diverted to deciding the one true placement of the colors! Those who deviate from our norm will be ridiculed and ostracized!

I feel so foolish. I thought the point of using the colors of the rainbow was to express the idea that many different things (colors, nationalities, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, etc.) can and should exist together in this world. In fact, like a rainbow, when all the colors come together the world is a more beautiful place. I completely missed the obvious fact that this is true only when red comes first.

The idea that there is only one correct way to wear the colors of the rainbow is frighteningly close to mirroring the sentiment that there is only one correct way to have sex, one correct way to legally benefit from marriage, one correct way to define what a family is. Who are the people who decided red came first, and why is their way better than mine?

To the Editors:

What else can we expect from the followers of Jesus Christ whose mean-spirited interpretation of the Seventh Commandment, against adultery, is staggering: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). His proposed solution to this problem of lust in the verses which follow is even more staggering.

Before Bible-thumpers impugn the sexual mores of President Bill Clinton, they should read more closely about the profligacies of

Community Forum

David and the debaucheries of Solomon also found in the Bible.

King David had an affair with Bathseba and even arranged to have her husband die (2 Samuel 11). David also had a homosexual affair with Saul's son Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1-4, 20:41-42, and 2 Samuel 1:25-26).

King Solomon had a harem of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3). He also wrote frankly erotic poetry in the Song of Solomon.

This may be partially explained by the fact that the "book of laws" was allegedly rediscovered in 621 BCE under the reign of Josiah (2 Kings 23:8) more than three hundred years after the Golden Age of Hebrew civilization, in 980 BCE, under King David. The laws were unknown to David and Solomon, but were added hundreds of years later as an afterthought.

Sanctimonious prudes should not hold President Bill Clinton to sexual moral standards which even the greatest biblical rulers did not follow. The Bible itself exposes their religious hypocrisy as a fraud.

Jim Senyszyn

The Chronicle encourages everyone to write and express your opinion about the community or the paper. Please, however, keep letters constructive, and avoid name-calling and personal attacks. Please be brief. We reserve the right to edit letters. 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.

Move to acceptance

Continued from page 10

"What joke?" she asks. “Do you need one or not?"

"I don't know, I guess so." "Fine," she says. Disbelief makes me brave. "Do we get a dryer, too?"

She thinks for a minute. "The washing machine will be your housewarming present and the dryer will be for Chanukah."

I am floored. This is the closest my mother has ever come to giving Flash and I her blessings. This is the woman who, when I came out to her, called me selfish, selfcentered, self-obsessed and self-absorbed. The same woman who was convinced I was under the influence of someone, because I could never think for myself, or as she put it, "You were always a follower. Why, if they were all walking up Fifth Avenue stark naked with frying pans on their foreheads, you'd be the first in line." This was the woman who had never given up hope that someday I would return to my childhood bedroom and sleep like a virgin in that single bed until Prince Charming arrived to sweep me off my feet. This was the woman

who was buying her only daughter and her lover a washer and dryer so that their underwear, bras, socks, sweaters, shirts, blouses, pants, and pantyhose would toss and spin, side by side, year in and year out, happily ever after?

Of course I had to listen to a lecture on spin cycles, bleach dispensers, gas hookups and the like. Of course I had to go to Sears, pick out the machines I wanted, write down the numbers, and call them in to my mother for her approval (she picked out a different dryer). Of course now we have to talk about the washer and dryer every time my mother calls.

"How's the washer?" she asks me. "Fine," I answer. I mean, how can it be? "And how's the dryer?"

"Fine." I am tempted to say it had a slight cold last week, but I know better. "It's drying?"

"It's drying."

"Are you using fabric softener?”

As I listen to her advising me on detergents (after all, she has been a housewife for forty years) all I can think of is you've come a long way, Mommy. Thank you.

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