GAY PEOPLE'S

Chronicle

Ohio's Newspaper for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community • www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com Volume 24, Issue 17 February 13, 2009

Two groups now work to save partner registry

by Eric Resnick

the time

Cleveland-By Cleveland's domestic partner registry hits the ballot next fall, there will be two separate campaigns working to save it.

Rifts over campaign strategy and personality clashes have divided Cleveland Families Count, which seeks to preserve the registry. Part of that group has left and is forming a second campaign that is yet unnamed.

The registry, passed by city council on December 8 and signed two days later by Mayor Frank Jackson, was immediately attacked by antigay ministers and lay people. They began collecting petition signatures to force the measure onto the ballot, where they hope voters will repeal it.

Cleveland Families Count, formed in December, now is composed mainly of the people that lobbied city council last year to pass the registry.

The group forming the second campaign says that the lobby group did not anticipate the backlash and was unprepared for it.

Their second criticism is that Cleveland Families Count insisted on putting resources and energy into an attempt to negotiate the anti-registry effort away, halting the campaign and wasting time.

The negotiations, in a pair of January meetings with the Call and Post editorial board and the board of the NAACP, were not successful. Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, who is leading the attempt to repeal the registry, told the Gay People's Chronicle on January 27 that his group is not going to stop, and that they expect to have their petitions completed by the end of this month.

The initiative to repeal the registry is likely to be on the ballot in September or November.

The measure, similar to ones in Toledo and Cleveland Heights, allows unmarried couples, both same and opposite-sex, to register with the city and receive documentation of their relationship. It grants no rights or responsibilities, but will be helpful in gaining benefits such as health coverage from private employers.

If Cleveland voters repeal it, the move could send a chill across Ohio. Other cities, including Columbus, are

considering registries of their own. A repeal will also make LGBT equal rights laws more difficult to pass in other areas, such as employment nondiscrimination.

The last time a city ballot initiative was used in Ohio to quash LGBT equality was Cincinnati's Charter Article 12, passed in 1993. It took eleven years for voters to repeal it. A pair of referenda in 1989 and 1990 repealed sexual-orientation equal rights laws in Athens and Wooster; the latter one has never been restored.

Ohio's constitutional ban on marriage and civil unions, passed by voters as Issue 1 just over four years ago, has also slowed progress and spawned lawsuits to protect LGBT families and their children.

Other anti-gay groups are joining Matthews' campaign, which is called the Cleveland Coalition of Churches.

The American Family Foundation was the latest to weigh in with a January 30 rally at Matthews' church to train campaign volunteers. The Alabama foundation's mission is "To help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the unsaved of the world, focusing on the family for this endeavor."

Cleveland Families Count is now comprised of Equality Ohio director Lynne Bowman, Cleveland LGBT Center director Sue Doerfer, Cleveland Stonewall Democrats president Keli Zehnder, civil rights attorney Leslye Huff, TransFamily director Jacob Nash, activist and campaign strategist John Farina, African American LGBT journalist Sherry Bowman and People of All Colors Together cochair Kevin Calhoun, with Mike Schuenemeyer of the United Church of Christ's National LGBT Office and Brian Royer, Northeast Ohio Field Director for America Votes.

"The split is divisive and disruptive," said Doerfer. "It's bad for the LGBT community. It makes us look like we don't know what we're doing."

"It's a personality problem, mostly it is," Doerfer said, stressing that the rift is over strategy, not goals.

The other group is comprised partly of people who were involved in Heights Families for Equality, the group that organized the 2003 initiative to create the Cleveland Heights Continued on page 3

Inside This Issue

Teuton ₤ Stre Yes 2 по 2 мате

WHEN CAN NOTE

DIVORCES

EQUALITY OHIO

Protesters display signs for cars passing on High Street during a rally for LGBT equality outside the Stonewall Columbus center.

Rally lifts many voices for

equal rights and LGBT families

by Anthony Glassman

Columbus-A rescheduled rally pressing for equal rights for LGBT people in Ohio brought a crowd of 200 to the parking lot of Stonewall Columbus on January 31.

"The rally was to heighten statewide awareness of the lack of legal protections for LGBTQ individuals and our families," said lead organizer Cameron Tolle in an email.

Points included Ohio marriage prohibitions and the state Equal Housing and Employment Act, which would bar LGBT discrimination.

"In light of EHEA potentially

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going through the state legislature this year, it is more important than ever that our state hears LGBTQ and allied voices as we demand equal protection under the law," said Tolle, who is also the founder of Impact Cincinnati.

The rally, primarily organized by Join the Impact with assistance from Equality Ohio, was originally set for January 10, but severe snowstorms and hazardous road conditions pushed it back to the end of the month.

It was also supposed to be outside the Statehouse, but a state budget cut left the area still covered in snow and ice. Stonewall Columbus' parking lot stood in, about a mile and a half north on High Street from the original location.

Justin Evans, a Join the Impact organizer in Cleveland, brought a few people with him and joined up with other Clevelanders at the rally.

"There was a teacher from Columbus who spoke at the rally who was fired from her job," he said, noting the need to start speaking to voters across the state.

"We are at a day and an age now when grassroots movements have a chance of survival," Evans noted. It was the second major Ohio event from Join the Impact. The group was created by Willow Witte and Amy Balliett, two Cleveland State University alumni, in reaction to California's passage of the Proposition 8 marriage ban

amendment in November.

In December, rallies were held across the country to protest the California measure, and the January 10 date was used nationally as well.

The next event is set for Saturday, February 14, when Join the Impact is working with Marriage Equality USA for another round of coast-to-coast events, although neither organization's websites have anything listed for Ohio yet.

Evans apologized, noting, "I've been working a lot with the domestic partnership registry, so I haven't had a lot of planning time with this."

However, he said the rally will go on, and it will be held at the Free Stamp at Lakeside Avenue and East Ninth Street in Cleveland, at 1 pm.

"The reason we do these rallies is to try to keep everyone involved in the movement, to let people know that we're here and we want change, and we're not going to stop our peaceful protests until we see change happen," said Evans. "And we're trying to do that in a proactive way."

Evans wants to bring white knots to Ohio as well-white ribbons with a knot in the middle worn in support of marriage equality. At the Grammy Awards on February 8, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Dave Stewart, formerly of the Eurythmics, were both

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