JULY 8, 1994 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 15
COMMUNITY GROUPS
Building bridges with mainstream society-and with each other
by John Nolan
On Monday, June 20, Stonewall Cleveland sponsored Town Hall Meeting V, the latest in a series of Monday night meetings which focus on a specific topic of interest to our community. These programs were the brainchild of Keith Sutton, past president of Stonewall Cleveland, and I want to thank him once again for the great idea.
direct correlation between how familiar a person was with someone who is lesbian, gay, or bisexual (e.g. a family member or close friend), and how supportive that person is of equal rights for lesbians, gay men and bisexual people. In short, when we come out to people and they get to know us, they usually support
us.
Individually, this means that we each need to come out to as many people as we are comfortable with, and support each other in
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Town Hall V was called "Building Bridges." The guest speakers, Glorianne Leck of Out Voice, and Sam Thomas III, of the Cleveland Community Relations Board, talked about ways to build bridges, both within and outside of the lesbian-gay-bi-
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getting more comfortable about coming out to more people. As a community, I think that we need to come together in a more cohesive way than we have in the past. This doesn't mean to ignore those issues on which we disagree. It only means that we have much to gain by supporting each other and working together to heighten awareness of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, and to continue the process of working toward equal rights for all people.
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sexual community, and why we need to do this. Their comments were interesting and thought-provoking and, despite a torrential downpour that evening, a good number of people came out to hear them.
So what's the next step in this process? I'm not sure that I know, but I do have some ideas. First, we need to come together as a community in some forum. That might mean reviving the Lambda Leadership Forum, or creating something new. It must be inclusive, and not driven by any one group's agenda (I know that this is not an easy task, but I think it's possible.) In order to provide a link to the larger community, i.e. non-lesbian, gay, or bisexual people, I think that we need some unity within our own community. No, we're not going to agree on every topic; in fact, we may agree on very few issues, but we need to articulate those issues on which we share common views and help to inform other people.
At the Stonewall Cleveland Dinner this year, Torie Osborn cited studies that showed a
So, how do we accomplish this? First of all, by talking. Some very important dialogue has been going on in our community for the past several months. Stonewall Cleveland is only one organization that has begun identifying and addressing its own racism and sexism. It seems almost incomprehensible now that, only a year ago, these were not issues of concern at our meetings. As a group, we are most appreciative of the people who brought these issues to our attention and we are challenged to address them on a consistent basis. That process began with our first diversity training; as a group we have committed to continuing that process. This is good.
While we are in the process of addressing these issues, and I think that we need to fairly
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recognize that we are working on them, the change won't be seen overnight, and the process is one that must go on continuously. Giving us that, while requiring us to continue that work, can we now move on to address other issues, too? I know that racism and sexism within the lesbian-gay-bisexual community is really important. I also know that it is not the only problem facing it. There are much larger enemies out there that delight in our infighting and lack of cohesion; it makes their job much easier. Is that really what we want to do? I don't think so.
Instead of continuing our internal disagreements, can we agree to work internally on those issues that have been identified for our community and agree to cooperate on those larger issues outside of our community? Surely
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we have the talent within our community to figure out how we can accomplish both of these goals, and not have to sacrifice success in one area for success in another.
Maybe if we all give it some thought and agree to sit down at some point, somewhere, and talk openly about the need to wage simultaneous battles on these issues, we can arrive at what I think will be a win-win situation for us, i.e. progress both within and outside of our community. It's worth the effort it will take, and I welcome anyone interested in pursuing this to attend a Stonewall Cleveland meeting (first and third Mondays of the month at 7:00 p.m. at Archwood United Church of Christ, 2800 Archwood Avenue) to help us move ahead on this. As always, thanks for reading this far.
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