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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

May 22, 2009

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www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

As registry challenge fades, groups shift their focus

by Eric Resnick

Cleveland-While there may be a challenge to Cleveland's new domestic partner registry in the future, it will not happen before next year. So, both groups organized: to protect it have shifted focus.

Ask Cleveland, the larger group, has hired a field organizer and has launched a campaign to ban discrimination by gender identity and gender expression in the city of. Cleveland.

The group is getting behind an ordinance introduced last August by openly gay Ward 14 councilor Joe Santiago. The measure was put on a back burner when a challenge to the registry ordinance loomed.

The bill would make Cleveland the sixth Ohio city to protect transgender people from discrimination, after Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Oxford.

"We still need to do a lot of educationamong both city officials and the public to make this non-discrimination law a reality," said Ask Cleveland organizer David

Caldwell. "The fight over the domestic partnership registry allowed our opposition in Cleveland to create the perception that protecting the LGBT community is politically risky. But it doesn't have to be that way. Ask Cleveland is going to make sure that our elected officials also hear from fair-minded residents who believe that in our city, equality and justice should belong to everyone."

Ask Cleveland has knocked on more than 10,000 doors identifying LGBT friendly voters and raised more than $14,000 to date.

Registry opponents, after many threats, have failed to present petitions by the deadlines to get the matter on the ballot this year. That group, led by now mostly white West Side and suburban pastors, has gathered only 3,000 of the needed 5,000 signatures needed to force the registry repeal question to the ballot.

The group was previously headed by politically savvy black pastors who have apparently begun to back out.

The early organizer, Rev. C. Jay

Matthews of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, said May 7 that he is "not out of the picture" but "has not been involved" in gathering signatures. He added that he may again become involved around mid-June, depending on his schedule.

Cleveland Families Count, the other proregistry group, has also changed their focus away from the registry to forming alliances with other community groups working for social justice, said LGBT Center director Sue Doerfer, the group's spokesperson.

"Make no mistake," said Caldwell. "This threat is still real, and we are taking nothing for granted."

"But our current assessment is that it's unlikely the opposition can put the domestic partnership registry on the ballot until 2010, and they may never do it at all. In the meantime, the transgender community lacks even the most fundamental protections against discrimination. We believe thatwhile we remain vigilant about the opposition's signature drive-it's time to move forward."

Full time staffer hired

In order to organize volunteers and further grow the effort, Ask Cleveland has hired Jennifer Dowd, 20, for at least 12 weeks.

Dowd, of Florida, was a leader of the successful campaign to protect transgender rights in Gainesville in March.

Voters there defeated an attempt to remove protections for transgender people from that city's laws.

"One of the things that the Gainesville campaign taught me is that voters will stand against discrimination if they have the facts," said Dowd. "Another is that there's untapped potential out there in the community to fight for LGBT rights."

"Almost everyone who was involved in our campaign at the University of Miami was completely new to politics," she noted. "A lot of them were straight. But a lot of people care enough about LGBT rights to help if you ask."

Moscow police smash Pride march for the fourth time

by Anthony Glassman

Moscow-Scores of police descended upon nonviolent gay equal rights protesters on May 17, as demonstrations across the world marked the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia and the Russian capital hosted the finals of the campy Eurovision Song Contest.

Gay civil rights campaigners, led by organizer Nikolai Alekseev, held placards and changed pro-gay slogans as waves of police, ranging from plainclothes officers to the OMON Special Purpose Police Squad, descended upon them.

Around 40 people were arrested, which led gay comedian Graham Norton, hosting the BBC broadcasts of

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the Eurovision finals, to mention the police actions during the show.

Activists hoped to use the international attention provided by the Eurovision finals, a major TV event held in a different city each year, to draw the eyes of the world to the plight of LGBT people in Russia.

For the fourth year in a row, they ran afoul of the city's federally-backed mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, who has banned all gay parades, labeling them “satanic," while allowing violent, ultranationalist skinhead groups to march with impunity.

Last year, those skinheads attacked the gay rights protesters, and then were allowed to leave while police arrested the activists instead.

Two Western activists were arrested

along with the natives: Peter Tatchell of Britain's Outrage and American Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network. Both issued statements to their networks after returning from Russia.

"Thank you to all who were concerned for my safety, but it's really our Russian and Belorussian lesbian and gay friends who are the courageous ones for defying the repression of the Russian government," Thayer said in an email. "Any dangers or challenges I faced pale by comparison to what they have braved."

He went on to hail the success of the march.

"Talking about this year's Gay Pride in Moscow, the police chief promised that 'No one will dare to do it, such "brave-heart" will be torn to shreds," he continued. "Well, we did do it. Not only did 'brave-heart' Russian and Belorussian gays and lesbians bravely defy the macho bluster of the police chief, they also successfully skirted a series of pre-emptive arrest attempts by Moscow's finest.' Lesbians and gays also proved that despite the authorities' vastly superior resources, the stupidity of their anti-gay bigotry was matched only by the incompetence of their repressive efforts."

Tatchell, one of the world's preeminent activists, publicized his thoughts in a guest column in the British newspaper Guardian.

In the piece, he quotes Alekseev, who thanked Mayor Yuzhkov for giving the small band of LGBT activists an international stage.

"Luzhkov has done more than anyone to publicise gay rights in Russia,” Tatchell transcribed Alekseev's words.

"By stopping the gay parade he has provoked massive media coverage of our fight against homophobia. The Russian media has been full of reports about gay issues for the last week. This has hugely increased public awareness and understanding of gay people."

Even the Moscow Times reported on the arrests, with a headline that read, "Police Violence Clouds 'Best-Ever' Eurovision."

While never criticising the police or government directly, reporter Anna Malpas wrote, "International reaction was clouded by the violent suppression of a gay rights protest earlier in the day that threatened to tarnish a national image that Russia had spent millions of dollars trying to buff."

Another LGBT event, the Baltic Pride Parade, was held on May 16 in Riga, Latvia.

Drawing 600 participants from the region, it was organized by activists from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

A last-minute attempt by the Riga City Council to block the march was unsuccessful, and despite the presence of counterprotesters and the police, the event was carried out peacefully.

The city council's picket and parade commission revoked permission for the event on May 14 after council members argued that it was a security threat. However, the administrative court in the city overturned the decision the following day.

This was the first year that the event, which has successfully fought back ban attempts in previous years, was jointly organized by Latvia's Mozaika, the Lithuanian Gay League and Estonian Gay Youth.

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