MARILYN HUMPHRIES

Pride Guide 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE B-1

Steering committee gives a Northern Ohio vision to HRC

by Tim Downing

Cleveland-In Northern Ohio, we have a local steering committee of the Human Rights Campaign, which, like its counterparts across the United States, develops, implements and oversees a broad range of activities designed to support and advance equality, both nationally and here in the Cleveland area.

Some of our recent local activities have been:

For the ninth consecutive year, our local dinner committee produced an amazing annual dinner, dance and silent auction. This year's gala event featured Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell as keynote speaker, the first time the mayor of Cleveland has ever attended let alone spoken-at the event.

We also presented HRC's Equality Award to Rep. Sherrod Brown for his long-time support of the LGBT community. A record

number of elected officials, candidates and spouses or partners of candidates also attended the event, including the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, Tim Hagan, and his wife, actress Kate Mulgrew.

Almost 1,000 people packed the Renaissance Hotel ballroom and we are proud to announce that we raised over $100,000 for HRC at this event, which will be used to continue HRC's work advocating for our equality in the nation's capital and here in Cleveland.

In March, all the members of the board of governors from Northern Ohio, along with many members of our steering committee, traveled to the nation's capitol for a long weekend to attend the bi-annual board of governors meeting and to participate in various HRC trainings.

HUMAN

RIGHTS

CAMPAIGN

Our local political committee has been lobbying members of Congress to co-sponsor and support passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, also known as the hate crime bill.

Theologian to preach for Pride interfaith service

by Rev. Allen V. Harris

Cleveland-An Interfaith Pride Service will be hosted by the Religious and Spiritual Leaders Group of the Cleveland Les-

bian and Gay

Center as part of the annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride celebra-

tion.

The service will take place on Sunday, June 16 at 5:30 pm at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, East 22nd St. and Rev. Irene Monroe Euclid Ave. in downtown

Cleveland. (This is just east of Saturday's parade stepoff at East 18th and Euclid.)

Writer and theologian Rev. Irene Monroe will speak at the service on the theme of this year's Pride celebration, “Thinking Outside the Triangle." People of all faiths are invited and there is no charge for the service. A reception will follow. Monroe is a religion columnist, public

theologian, and motivational speaker. As an openly lesbian African American theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Presently, she writes for a biweekly column for In Newsweekly, an LGBT newspaper that circulates widely throughout New England, and a monthly column for Witness, an Episcopalian journal that examines church and society in light of faith and conscience.

"Because homophobia is both a hatred of the other and it's usually acted upon 'in the name of religion," "Monroe notes, “by reporting religion in the news I aim to highlight how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of American democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppressions such as racism, sexism, classism and antiSemitism."

There is no parking lot at the cathedral due to construction work. Parking is available in any of the surrounding Cleveland State University lots or on the street. The CSU lot next to the bookstore on Euclid Ave. is specifically designated as a cathedral parking lot on Sundays.

Rev. Allen V. Harris is the pastor of Franklin Circle Christian Church and a member of the Interfaith Spiritual and Religious Leaders group in Cleveland.

BlackOut expands Brother Circle, adds women's group

Cleveland-BlackOut Unlimited has been providing education, cultural and social programming to the African-American same-gender loving (SGL) community since 1997.

Organized primarily to provide a Pride celebration, BlackOut quickly identified various unmet needs within the community. Subsequently, BlackOut re-organized as a nonprofit with a board of trustees to meet the needs of the underserved African American SGL community.

African-American SGL community.

Please join us for the Brother Circle's new weekly meeting format, where we will be discussing our monthly themes, how AIDS relates to that theme and what we as samegender loving men can do to improve our community.

We have dinner from 5:30 to 6:30 pm every Sunday, and

BlackOut

unlimited

For many in our community, the inability to reconcile such issues as family relationships, employment/career, religion/spirituality, and civil rights with sexual orientation is a supreme challenge.

Our goal is to increase the level of consciousness of and about the African American SGL community. We accomplish this with such activities as: Club 1722 Youth Project, the Brother Circle of Cleveland, a quarterly conversation series, an entertainment series and BlackOut Weekend, which includes the Exchange Conference and is Ohio's first and largest annual event for the

a discussion from 6:30 to 8 at the Cleveland Lesbian Gay Center, 6600 Detroit Avenue. Club 1722 provides programming for same-gender loving youth every Thursday from 6-8 pm at the Cleveland Lesbian-Gay Center, 6600 Detroit Ave.

BlackOut Unlimited is dedicated to empowerment of our entire SGL community, particularly our women's community. In order to meet that goal, BlackOut has begun Zami, My Sister's Keeper. This is our way of assessing the needs of the SGL women's community, acting on that assessment and providing information about local and national resources.

For more information on BlackOut Unlimited, see our web site, www.blackoutunlimited.org.

In the coming months, we have many plans in the works. Some of these include:

Our entire steering committee will sponsor, actively participate in and support the events of local LGBT organizations in Northern Ohio, including the Black Unity Celebration, Cleveland Pride, the Cleveland Lesbian-Gay Center's Ta Da! Dinner Series, the AIDS Taskforce's Dancin' in the Streets and the AIDS Walk.

In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Week, on October 5, 2002, our membership committee will host an event at Bounce called In the Pink, which will feature lesbian singer-songwriter Anne E. DeChant. The proceeds of this event will go to HRC's Women's Health Initiative.

Our political committee will hold a town hall meeting to which all Northern Ohio members of Congress will be invited to discuss a broad range of important Federal legislation, both pending and prospective.

To join or to learn more about HRC and its Northern Ohio Steering Committee, visit www.hrc.org and click on "HRC In Your Community," then select "OH Cleveland." The Northern Ohio Steering Committee hotline is 800-790-2538.

Tim Downing is on the Human Rights Campaign's board of governors.

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