www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com
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January 1, 2010
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
7
Looking back
Continued from page 2
attacked in the space of an hour and a half.
Descriptions of the group of attackers matched in all three instances, and anti-gay epithets were used. All three
As reprehensible as the attacks in Cincinnati and Columbus were, however, it was nothing compared to what happened in at an LGBT youth center in Tel Aviv, Israel on August 1.
A masked gunman entered the center and opened fire, killing two people and
Downtown councilor Joe Cimperman introduces Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, in tie at right, to welcome the Gay Games selection committee to the Frivolity party at the Rock and Roll Hall in July.
survivors of the attacks required medical attention.
"These assailants are cowards," said Gloria McCauley, executive director of the Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization. “They're going to go for somebody they perceive to be an easy victim."
BRIAN DEWITT
injuring ten more before fleeing through the city's crowded streets.
Even the country's right-wing government harshly condemned the attack, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the center five days later.
Israel is the most gay-friendly na-
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tion in the Middle East, and gay and lesbian servicemembers serve openly in the military. The only real opposition to LGBT equality in the nation comes from ultra-Orthodox Jewish factions. However, even the political party Shas, which represents that viewpoint, issued a statement condemning the attack.
The attack brought out 70,000 protesters from across the nation to decry the violence.
"The gunshots that hit the community earlier this week hit us all. As people. As Jews. As Israelis," said Israeli president Shimon Peres. "The person who pointed the gun at Nir Katz and Liz Trubeshi pointed it at all of you as well, at all of us, at you, at me."
Vocal allies
Despite this array of foes at home and abroad, however, the LGBT community also had its vocal allies.
Closer to home than Sean Penn and his acceptance speech at the Oscars, Cleveland NAACP president George Forbes came out against efforts to repeal the city's domestic partner registry, and his position was backed up by an editorial in the Call and Post, the city's African American newspaper.
Forbes was part of two meetings with LGBT leaders, the first on January 7 with the Call and Post's editorial board, the next eight days later with the NAACP board and top staff.
Attorney Leslye Huff, journalist Sherry Bowman and PACT-Cleveland co-chair Kevin Calhoun, all representing the A°e in Our Hands Coalition, were joined by Cleveland LGBT Center executive director Sue Doerfer and Cleveland City Councilor Joe Cimperman at the meetings. Cimperman was a champion of the registry on council.
Doerfer was honored at Community Shares' annual awards luncheon for her
efforts on behalf of the registry; the awards are given to staff and volunteers of Community Shares and its member agencies, of which the LGBT Center is one.
She brought Huff, Cimperman and Forbes up on stage as well, and Forbes told the assemblage about having his eyes opened to the basic nature of the LGBT civil rights struggle.
That struggle took center stage in
Cleveland Pride 2009
ERIC RESNICK
the nation's capital on Sunday, October 11 as an estimated 150,000 people thronged the West Lawn of the Capitol for the National Equality March, urging President Obama to make good on his campaign promises to the LGBT community.
One of the speakers, NAACP chairman Julian Bond, echoed Forbes' earlier sentiments on a national stage.
"Black people of all should not oppose equality, and that is what marriage is all about," Bond said. "We have a lot of real and serious problems in this country, and same-sex marriage is not one of them."
Growing in Pride
Pride events across Ohio helped stoke the flames that later spread to D.C., and lighting that fire was far easier in a year Continued on page 11
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