Page 6 HIGH GEAR

Opinion

An uncertain step forwar

By L. J. Hershkoff

Ohio-'s new domestic violence law is a significant victory for women and everyone interested in women's rights. The law is designed to provide the police and the courts leverage with which to deter intra-household Violence. Finally, battered wives. if they will sign the complaint, can have the offending spouse arrested Anyone familiar with

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the plight of battered women has to praise the enactment of this law.

Whether the law will cover homosexual couples is, however. unsettled and uncertain. The law only protects family and household members which it defines as a "spouse". person living as a spouse, parent, child or other person related by consanguinity or affinity, who is residing or has resided with the offender." Under

CEAR

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EDITOR

Dan Miecznikowski

ASSOCIATE EDITOR-COLUMBUS Rob Davis. ART AND ADVERTISING

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Donn Wollf

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this definition lesbian and gay lovers will be protected if the courts recognize homosexual couples as persons living as spouses. As in the case with any new law, it's impossible to fortell how the courts will interpret the statutory language. Hopefully the courts will be faithful to the legislature's remedial purpose and will broadly construe the law to afford protection to all household members.

There is a deeper issue involved here. In order to grant the law's protection to homosexual lovers the courts will have to acknowledge that homosexual couples enjoy relationships similar to heterosexual marriage. This will also mean that homosexual unions, while not legally sanctioned, may entitle the individuals to some of the rights and remedies usually conferred by heterosexual marriage.

Whether the courts will adopt a broad interpretation of the law is uncertain. A broad interpretation could result in excessive intrusions into the privacy of the "as if spouses." The exact nature of the relationship between the parties

because even broadly interpreted the statue will not cover mere roommates would often become a central issue. In other words. a broad interpretation may be resisted by the courts because such an interpretation will foster extensive inquiries into the nature of the union which exists or existed between the complaining witness and the defendant.

Another factor which mitigates against a broad interpretation is that criminal laws are supposed to be narrowly construed and there are logical narrow constructions to which the statutory language lends itself. For example. "persons living as a spouse" could be read as covering only void. voidable and common law marriage This would exclude all homosexual unions and heterosexual unions where the parties never intended to be married.

Homosexual couples cannot yet legally marry. However, lesbian and gay lovers--who can have a problem with domestic Violence like their heterosexual counterparts--do live together in emotional, sexual and economic unions Let us hope that the courts when called upon to interpret this law will be open and honest enough to recognize these relationships. After all, what more could "living as a spouse mean?...

Editorial

Devisive rhetoric

In the April issue of Toronto Life is an article called "Dissenting adults: being gay in the eyes of the Lord." This article describes the ideas and activities of evangelist Ken Campbell, Canada's answer to Anita Bryant.

(The article notes that when Bryant lost her voice last year from overstraining it. Campbell not only prayed but also fasted for ten days, until he received word that her powers of speech were restored.)

Campbell claims to be opposing "powers of darkness" that are mounting "an all out assault on the last bastion of Christian civilization--the family."

With blind zeal Campbell, like Bryant, promotes his own pet notions of the family at the expense of families that actually exis!.

In discussing gays, Campbell, like Bryant, conveniently forgets a biological fact: gay people are not brought by some sort of special stork. Each gay person is the offspring of two parents. Each gay person is someone's child.

Many gay people, are, in fact, someone's parents. In suggesting that efforts of gays to secure their basic rights represent an "all out assault" on the family, Campbell, like Bryant, forgets all too easily that gays are members of families, members able to function as well as any other family members. Actual families consist of specific individuals in specific situations, each family with its own specific problems, each family with its own specific weaknesses and strengths. No such thing as the family exists.

Rather than making relatives more open and confiding with one another, the rhetoric of Bryant and Campbell makes them more suspicious of one another. Rather than bringing members of families closer together, the rhetoric of these two does as much as anything to tear them apart.

Campbell, like Bryant, insists that gays should be ashamed of themselves and that out of regard for the moral sensibilities of others they should stay in the closet. Campbell and Bryant themselves disregard the moral sensibilities of many people. including parents raising children, who thinks that it is wrong to lie. Conveniently forgotten by these two is the choice that gays and their relatives are all too often forced to make between being honest and surviving.

Campbell, like Bryant, is trying to sell as moral outrage the discomfort that many people feel in new situations at being obliged to think. Anyone can claim to speak in the name of religion and morality, and the product that he is selling is very shoddy.

That Campbell, like Bryant, can be shown to be sincere and well-intentioned does not make his ignoring of reality any less harmful. Being very sincere does not make a person any less deluded. Good intentions, as the poet said, are what the road to Hell is paved with.

Dear Editor,

Mail Bag

Without taking issue with the pro's and con's of segregated (strictly male/strictly female) establishments. I feel compelled to speak out against the way in which the Delta Club has handled its initiation into the Cleveland gay scene.

I was invited to meet with some friends for the opening weekend. I made jokes about not having received a membership card on the basis of my gender; it was supposedly only a joke. The joke began to sound more and more feasible.

Upon calling the club, I was informed that the Delta Club is a "male establishment". What? Where in the ads did it specify the Delta Club was catering to males? When was it mentioned in my two phone calls inquiring about my application? The answer is, unfortunately, that the issue was never addressed. ..I was furious, not so much with the fact that the new club was exclusive.. but with. their deceit....

No mention was made of any enrollment restrictions. THEY JUST DON'T SEND MEMBERSHIPS TO FEMALES! I find it an appalling way to do business and cannot begin to fathom their motives in setting up access to the club in this manner. What the hell makes them think that I. or any other woman for that matter, would want to spend their time (not to mention their money) in an all in club?

i have hopes of the gay com munity expanding throughout the city, but truly hope that futur? establishments conduct themselves with a bit more tact and awareness than did the Delta Club.

Sincerely, Wendy L. Yockey

THINK STRAIGHT

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