PAGE 6 HICH GRAD
Editorial
What We Learned
HIGH
CEAR
Opinion
A Publication of the Gear Foundation
VOLUME 6, ISSUE 8
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A disturbed peace
Avoided reunion
By Brian McNaugh!
The invitation to the 10th anniversary of my college graduation was signed "Fondly. Charlene." The woman I nearly married now lives with her family on Pelican Lane in Wisconsin
My dark side imagined Pelican Lane being dominated by turquoise houses on postage stamp lots adorned with pink flamingoes and shrines to Mary A subsequent letter from Charlene was printed on note paper which depicted her 100year-old farm on 5 acres of Pelican Lane 4t carried a snapshot of two adorable children and her handsome husband a former fraternity brother whom I secretly hoped had gained 200 pounds per year since we lett Marquett
So the Cleveland gay community finally come of age, ... or does it? For the first time in history, the Cleveland gay community decided it was time to reach out of its own closet as a single unit and become recognized as the integral part of the metropolitan area it really is; to make itself known, to serve, to take stock of, and a pride in itself as never before. It decided to buy a building, to create a community center
In ten short days, the Cleveland communty raised over $8,000 while its goal had been only $7,000. The interest, talk, and excitement around the reality of a publicly gay owned center sent out a clear and undeniable message; it ws time to be recognized, to be heard
But in a matter of three short weeks, all that had begun to change. The openly hostile attitude of Councilman McFadden, Carolyn Giotta, Ken Criss, and other selected residents of the Tremont area (where the new building was located) sent shock waves throughout the community. The right of the gay community to own and operate a community center, in fact the right of a gay person to be had been openly challenged.
The gay community's initial response was one of cautious retreat the better side of "discretion" as it was labeled by the Plain Dealer. In fact, the gay community began reconsidering the closet by considering the abandonment of the new center before it had even gotten off the ground. The idea of a potential open conflict between the straight and gay populations was highly unsettling.
But like it or not, the gay comImunity had come face to face with an ugly reality Prejudice, and a hatred. based on fear and ignorance, was as much a part of life in Cleveland as was in Miami or San Francisco. No
I wrote back that I would love to come to the reunion were it not for the expense of travel. Hied At this point in my development. don't want to return to my past: im not ready. I fee I have come too far to return to the place where i protested against all of society's injustices except my own. Returning to Milwaukee to see the men and women with whom shared four significant years of my life would be an unnecessary confrontation with the unresolved pain of my experiences there. The invitation alone has already begun the process
Some gay people have told me they breezed through college. It was a dream, they say. They went to bars; they were "out." A few even state they had a lover for a roommate! Not me. For me and for a lot of others it was a nightmare. Too often, I think, we gay people who survived the nightmare and who have built ourselves a happy and fulfilling life allow ourselves to forget how dradful the past has been. In so doing, we cut ourselves off from the pain which continues in the lives of those who followed us into high school, the army of college.
At a 10-year reunion I know I (Cont'd on page 8)
amount of retreat could ever
change that fact, it could only
mask it.
What Tremont has done is to attack our idea that Hife in Cleve-
land is for the most part, freer, safer, more accepted, than many places across the country by adding a short but disturbing rider to it, "providing you remain in the closet."
What remains to be seen is the gay community's response to that attack. Tremont has forced the gay community to do what it could not manage to do alone; evaluate itself. The Cleveland gay community must now take stock of its diversity and how best to utilize those talents and characteristics that reach out to each ethnic, racial, religious, economic, and gender group in a way unparalled by any other minority. It must ask itself whether it has the courage, strength, and patience to deal with its problems in an aggressive and thought out manner; whether it truely has the desire to be free to exist, and meet the challenge as they have arisen in the past. as they arose in Tremont. as they will arise in the future. The gay community must ask itself if indeed the straight society, or more importantly it a small portion of the straight society, is to be allowed to dictate the living conditions of the estimated 159,000 greater Cleveland area gays. In fact, is the gay community ready and willing to accept a societal closet in this day and age?
We believe the answer is a firm, "NO!"
The ultimate disposition of the Bernard Furniture Building as the sight of the new community center has become secondary to the overall affirmation of the need and desire for a gay identity and pride: the visible identity and pride that is associated with a publicly gay owned community center building Continued benefit efforts geared for the Building Fund. a clear investment of gay dollars into gay identification, will serve as a visible determination on our part, and a statement to the straight community as well, that we are, and intend to remain, free to be who we are.
John Lehner
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