October 1, 1999
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLES
communitygroups
Book banners are focusing on gay and lesbian subjects
by Toni K. Thayer
In an age when openly gay musicians and movie stars have successful mainstream careers and popular television sitcoms feature sympathetic gay characters, it is tempting to believe that lesbians and gay men have fi-
nally broken through the barrier of fear and prejudice that has kept them from full equality in American society.
In truth, homosexuality is probably one of the most divisive issues of our time. Although there are three openly gay members of the House of Representatives, there are
Taskforce has cabaret, and a chat with Eric Rofes
Cleveland-For the fourth year in a row, the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland invites supporters to attend Beyond Ribbons, a benefit that celebrates the hope of tomorrow in the fight against AIDS.
The cabaret-style musical extravaganza, entitled “Keep the Love Alive,” takes place on Monday, October 4 at the Cleveland Play House, 8500 Euclid Avenue.
U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and State Rep. Peter Lawson Jones are honorary benefit co-chairs of the event. The evening features nightclub entertainer and Cleveland native Kathryn Payne who will perform her original songs about the way AIDS has touched her life since moving to Chicago.
dations at an upscale Manhattan hotel and Broadway theatre tickets.
The drawings for winners will take place during the theatre performance of Beyond Ribbons. Winners need not be present.
Cost of patron tickets is $150 per person which includes valet parking, cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, buffet dinner, theatre performance, dessert reception and one complimentary raffle ticket. Guest tickets are $50 each which includes the theatre performance, dessert reception and a complimentary raffle ticket. Additional raffle tickets are $10 each. For more information or to purchase tickets, call the Taskforce at 216-621-0766.
Joining Payne on the program are the Bridge the gay generation gap
Coastliners, a local singing group that is part of the North Coast Men's
Chorus.
"The AIDS epidemic is not over, it just looks different than it did a few years ago," says event chair Mike Readinger. "The Beyond Ribbons committee, the staff, board members and volunteers of the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland and many others in this community remain committed to improving the quality of life for those affected by the disease. Please help 'Keep the Love Alive' by supporting us in this effort."
Supporters will have the opportunity to win any
Those in the gay culture are familiar with the doctrine that to be
AID S
TASKFORCE
OF GREATER CLEVELAND
or all of the following three raffle packages with a combined retail value of more than $5,000:
Dining Out in Cleveland, with a package that consists of more than 20 gift certificates to places like Lola Bistro and Wine Bar, Market Square Bistro and Parker's Restaurant, this winner will dine at some of Northeast Ohio's finest restaurants in the upcoming months.
A Tower City shopping spree and getaway weekend. This lucky recipient will enjoy a weekend shopping spree with gift certificates to special Tower City shops and dinner and a restful stay at Cleveland's elegant Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
A New York City travel and theatre package. This prize winner will spend a funfilled, glamorous weekend for two in New York, including air travel, hotel accommo-
Community Groups.
The "Community Groups" columns on these pages are published by the Gay People's Chronicle free of charge, as a public service. They are written by members or officers of each nonprofit organization, reflecting the views of their group.
If your organization would like to submit a column for this page, . contact the Chronicle at 216631-8646, toll-free 800426-5947, or e-mail editor @chronohio.com.
young and beautiful is to be desired by all. But some older gay and bi men have grown beyond such thinking. They look at the younger generation and think, "Come on, there's more to life than loud club music, drugs and muscles." But young gay and bi men say that's where it's at, and they're happy dancing the night away with buff and sweating physiques.
"Ricky Martin vs. Gloria Gayner: Gay Generations Try to Communicate" is a workshop that seeks to take the cat fights out of crosscultural communication in the gay culture. Author Eric Rofes takes an honest look at how each generation defines sex, relationships, politics, AIDS and gay culture. It is time we listen to one another's music, learn each other's dance steps-and even learn the lyrics of one another's songs.
Rofes is a longtime community activist and author of nine books. His most recent books are Reviving the Tribe and Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures.
Eric Rofes is proudly sponsored by the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland, Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Play House, the Cleveland Lesbian and Gay Center, Gray Pride, Cleveland Pride and the AIDS Funding Collaborative of the Cleveland Foundation.
"Ricky Martin vs. Gloria Gayner" will be presented on October 9 in Room 364 in the University Center (corner of East 21st and Euclid Avenue) on Cleveland State University's main campus. The workshop will begin at 1 pm and end near 3.
At 5 pm that evening at the Cleveland Play House, 8500 Euclid Avenue, Rofes will present a talk that looks at recent changes in gay men's cultures and their relationships to HIV and AIDS. Parking is free. Beverage and food bar will be open.
For more information about any of these events, please call Pan Cunningham at the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland, 216-621-0766 extension 233.
more who are willing to publicly condemn homosexuality as immoral, unnatural and just plain wrong.
For every company like Disney willing to extend benefits not just to heterosexual spouses but to gay partners as well, there is a Southern Baptist Convention to judge and boycott. And every year there are many violent and often deadly attacks on gay men, lesbians and transgender individuals.
Inevitably there are also efforts to censor writings and images and performances that discuss and even sometimes dare to celebrate gay lives and experiences. Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness was attacked in the 1920s for its lesbian theme, but that was only one incident in a long tradition of the suppression and censorship of gay literature and art.
Today, it is often still enough for a work to mention homosexuality
In Wichita Falls, Texas, these books were removed from the children's section of the public library and placed in the adult section. This was done by order of a city resolution passed in February that allows for any book objected to by 300 local residents to be taken off the children's shelves. On July 20, Federal District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer issued a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of this resolution, pending the outcome of a hearing to be held sometime this month. The ACLU of Texas is representing 19 Wichita Falls residents in this case.
In a story with a surprisingly happy ending, Samantha Gellar, a high school junior in
ACLU
in a neutral way for it to provoke opposition and attack. This happens to books across the board, from adult to children's titles, from dry scientific discussions to emotionally charged novels and plays.
There have been several high-profile incidents of challenging and banning of gay literature in the last year and a half. In the spring of 1998, seven gay-themed books (and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men) were requested to be removed from the school libraries in Barron, Wisconsin.
Among them were Two Teenagers in Twenty by Ann Heron, a nonfiction book addressing issues pertinent to gay teenagers, and The Drowning of Stephan Jones by Bette Greene, a novel about the prejudice faced by two gay men, one of whom is killed by drowning. Both these books, and others by Heron, have faced numerous challenges across the country.
Four of the challenged books were removed from the Barron libraries. Eventually two of them--Two Teenagers in Twenty and When Someone You Know Is Gay by Susan Cohen and Daniel Cohen-were returned temporarily pending suitable replacements. The Drowning of Stephan Jones and Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block remain in exile. The ACLU of Wisconsin has filed a federal lawsuit in this case.
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman and Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite, children's books that deal with gay parenting, have been perennial targets of censorship since they were first published in the early 90s. They were written to help children of same-sex couples understand how their families fit in with the heterosexual and single-parent households of their friends and to help other children understand their friends' gay families.
Charlotte, North Carolina, was one of five winners of the Charlotte Young Playwright's Festival, but her play was refused its winning production because of its homosexual
content. Gellar was told that if she changed the lesbian characters in Life Versus the Paperback Romance to a heterosexual couple, the Children's Theatre of Charlotte would be willing to produce her play as planned.
Gellar refused and, with the help of the ACLU of North Carolina and an advocacy group called Time Out Youth, staged a professional reading of her play at an alternative venue in March. Gellar's story didn't end there.
Not only has she received national press and been contacted by people like writer Dorothy Allison, whose own book Bastard out of Carolina was banned in Maine, and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, her play was performed at the New York Public Theatre in June with Mary-Louise Parker in the starring role. The performance was part of an event called Not Just a Stage: Youth Against Censorship organized by Holly Hughes. (Hughes is a lesbian performance artist who was one of the "NEA Four" denied federal funding for their controversial art in 1990.)
Gellar has also been invited to take part in the National Young Playwrights Festival and the convention of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education. As a result of her run-in with the censors, Samantha Gellar may be receiving the notoriety on which successful careers are made, but she told the Advocate in April, "If I had the choice, I would give it all up to have it performed at the Charlotte Young Playwrights Festival just so the message would be put across that there's nothing wrong" with gays and lesbians.
Toni K. Thayer is a freelance writer living in Cleveland. She wrote this for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio's observance of Banned Books Week, which ends October 2.
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