www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com.
August 1, 2008
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE ANTHONY GLASSMAN
.3
Cleveland Pride opens a permanent storefront office
by Anthony Glassman
Cleveland-A month after bringing the LGBT Pride parade and festival back into the black despite a rainout of this year's celebration, the event's organizers unveiled their new office.
Located in a storefront on the northwest corner of Detroit Avenue and West 111th Street, the new space will allow Cleveland Pride to maintain a year-round presence in the community, have records available for viewing and provide storage for materials.
Records and surplus materials from the festival currently are scattered, with treasurer N. Lee Dybo holding most of the organization's paperwork while the organization's supplies are being stored in a commercial space.
"The board had talked about this earlier in the year,” said Dybo.
The move is "primarily to allow us a space to work, a place to keep all our files, our inventory, to give us a location to meet as frequently as we need without having to rely on other places."
More than their own convenience, it will also be "a place where the community can find us at all times."
The organization took out a one-year lease on the space, with rent of $600 a month.
"The board approved the budget in January of 2008," Dybo noted. "It was a budgeted and discussed item."
July and August rent are already paid, and Pride is already actively seeking sponsors for next year's festival instead of waiting until a few months before the event.
That search for sponsors will not only pay for the location, but is also the justification for the space.
During an open house on July 23, board
president Todd Saporito noted that some of the larger corporate sponsors he approached expressed concern about the organization, which had no permanent presence except in the lead-up to the June parade and festival.
Cleveland Pride is the only one in the state that is run by an independent organization, not linked to an LGBT center.
Cincinnati Pride's committee is under the Greater Cincinnati LGBT Coalition, part of the Cincinnati LGBT Center. Columbus Pride is organized by Stonewall Columbus. Dayton's is run by the Dayton Pride Partnership, a coalition of businesses and non-profits, including the LGBT cen-
ter.
That gives those events a year-round presence and visibility in their communities.
In addition to budgeting for the rent and utilities, Cleveland Pride has identified office needs like furniture, and board members sought out the most value for their money.
Instead of spending money on shipping furniture, for instance, Dybo will pick it up. A target date of August 10 is set for opening the office, and the records and inventory are expected to be in the facility within a week.
Dybo pointed to the organization's charter for their non-profit status, which not only includes as its purpose putting on the Pride festival, but also doing outreach to the community.
That, says Dybo, is what is at the heart of moving into their own office “true_outreach and community involvement yearround."
"We're intending to grow and become more and more involved, incorporate more people into the organization as well," Dybo 'concluded.
STOP
Cleveland Pride vice president Rachel Randall, board member David
Essi and president Todd Saporito discuss the future at the organization's new office on the west side of the city.
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SMYTHE CRAMER
Mass. repeals 1913 law barring out-of-state vows Measure with racist origins was final obstacle to same-sex marriage
by Glen Johnson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Boston-A long debate over full marriage for lesbian and gay couples came to a remarkably civil conclusion on July 29, as the Massachusetts House joined the Senate in voting to repeal a law that had blocked out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying there.
After 40 minutes of speeches that politely ping-ponged between four opponents of the ban and three supporters of it, the House voted 119-36 to repeal a 1913 law that barred marriage if it would not be legal in the couple's home state.
The Senate voted earlier this month to repeal the ban, and Gov. Deval Patrick, whose own daughter recently came out as lesbian, promised to sign the repeal into law.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court already ruled in November 2003 that the constitution granted the right to marry to gay and lesbian couples, and those ceremonies began in May 2004.
"Sometimes what you hope and pray for actually happens, which is kind of overwhelming," Michael Thorne, 55, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, said after telling his six-year-old son that his parents could soon get married. Thorne and his partner of 25 years, James Theberge, have an August 18 wedding planned in Provincetown. The law was originally passed in 1913 to bar interracial couples from marrying in the state if their home state outlawed such nuptials. Since the Supreme Court struck down those laws in 1967, the measure had been almost forgotten until thenGov. Mitt Romney ordered state agencies to apply it to same-sex couples after the 2003 ruling.
The law's racist history has been brought up frequently since 2004 in calling for its repeal.
A recent government study found Massachusetts could benefit from the sales tax and other proceeds generated by gays coming to marry in the state. The analysis took on urgency after California recently approved gay marriage-with no residency requirement. Canada, which also married gay and lesbian couples, has no residency requirement.
"I'm really proud of our state legislature. We've ridded our state laws of the last vestiges of our legal discrimination against same-sex couples, and we once again lead the country for equality," said Marc Solomon of the pro-gay rights group MassEquality.
As for the economic consequences, he said: "Very practically, I have friends who will come to Massachusetts to get married instead of going to California, especially from New York state, where Gov. [David] Paterson has said these marriages will be recognized."
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