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GAY PRIDE MONTH NC Pride ’98 will be held June 5- 7 in Asheville, For a complete listing of events, locations and times, see display ad on page 7. The Carolinas’ Most Comprehensive Gay & Lesbian Newspaper Published Every Two Weeks On Recycled Paper « Volume 12, Number 26 » May 30, 1998 • FREE Lesbian Painted on the steos GlOTto! SU1T6 tO plCHSC fftllS tied up in SC by Dan Van Mourik Q-Notes Staff LANCASTER, SC—A. woman says she’s been the target of hate because she is gay. She claims she was whipped, tied-up and left for all to see on the porch of her mobile home in Lancaster County. And she says this is not the first time. Regan Wolf, 40, says she has never tried to hide the fact she’s gay and believes that is why a group of young men savagely beat and robbed her, ripped her clothes off and hung her up on her porch — twice. It first happened back in December. Wolf’s partner, Jenna Wolf, found her, cut her down and called the sherifFs department. Wolf says she gave police a description of the three white men who attacked her, but investi gators say they’ve hit dead ends. Unhappy with the Lancaster County Sheriff Department’s progress in the investigation, the family has contacted the FBI. In the latest beating. Wolf reported the suspects stole a prescription drug, and Adams hopes the FBI will consider it a fed eral crime. Wolf, who changed her name from Tammy Lynn Adams, is now in hiding. “We fear for her life,” said Wolf’s mother, Jackie Adams. “She’s in a place where nobody knows where she is but I.” Adams said pickup trucks sometimes pull into her daughter’s front yard at night, their occupants shouting threats and anti-gay slurs Painted on the steps was the message: “Jesus Weren’t Born for You, Faggot” . such as, “The next time you get a bullet, fag- got. Wolf, her partner and her mother wanted to have this beating classified as a hate crime, but under both federal and SC guidelines, at tacks because of sexual orientation are not clas sified as hate crimes. The first assault was reported the evening of Dec. 26. Wolf was putting away Christmas things when she answered a knock at the door, and someone hit her on the head, Adams said. The mother, who lives next door, said that later that evening, “I heard a faint sound, like ‘help.’ I opened the window, and I knew it was crying. It was 28 degrees out there. She would have died had I not heard a noise.” Adams found her daughter shirtless and beaten on the back by a blunt object. She had been strung up on the front porch with nylon rope, her mother said. The knots were tied so that, if she struggled, the knots became tighter. Painted on the steps, Adams said, was the mes sage: “Jesus Weren’t Born for You, Faggot.” On the day of the second incident. Wolf re ceived a call from her housemate Jenna about 3:00pm. After she hung up, she went outside to plant tomatoes, when a man approached with See BEATEN on page 21 Pentagon should define ban limits by Julia Adams Special to Q-Notes WASHINGTON, DC—On May 13, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), an independent legal aid and watch dog organization that assists those targeted under the armed force’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy, called on Secretary of Defense William Cohen to issue guidance to military personnel telling them the limits to gay investigations and the requirement to respect people’s privacy. SLDN’s call to action was issued with an official letter to Secretary Cohen responding to a recent Pentagon report on the implementa tion of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue.” Secretary Cohen ordered the Pentagon to review the implementation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” in response to SLDN’s an nual reports which have documented 1379 in cidents in which commanders asked, pursued and harassed military members in violation of the policy, a compromise measure created by President Clinton and Congress. In addition to ignoring the limits to gay in vestigations, SLDN’s letter to Secretary Cohen identified numerous other serious flaws in the Pentagon report that “call into question the Pentagon’s commitment to fair enforcement of the policy.” These include: • Pentagon officials misrepresented report find ings. The Pentagon report admits the reason for increased discharges “are not known.” Yet, of ficials publicly represented increased discharges are due to gays “opting out” of the military, an unsupported and offensive generalization. • Commands continue to ask, pursue and ha rass without action by DOD. SLDN docu mented 1379 instances in four years where com manders did not follow the rules under this policy. The Pentagon report is non-responsive to these documented command violations. • Pentagon report ignores key issues. In addi tion to the limits to gay investigations, the re port ignores the (1) lack of accountability for command violations and (2) the use of coer cive tactics, such as threats of prison to force people to confess that they are gay, seizing per sonal diaries to find out if someone is gay and interrogations of servicemembers’ parents. • Some recommendations are problematic. Recommendations concerning training evalu ations, the use of lawyers to police command actions and Secretary approval for some inves tigations may cause harm, not good, depend ing on the details. While pressing Secretary Cohen to address these deficiencies in the Pentagon report, SLDN’s letter also noted that some of the report’s recommendations “are promising” if “implemented in good faith.” SLDN’s letter stated, “We welcome the recommendations to (1) clarify and reissue the Dorn memorandum on anti-gay harassment and lesbian-baiting so that those who are victims of anti-gay hate crimes and harassment, like former Marine Lance Corporal Kevin Smith, are not, as he was, threated with criminal investigations by their commanders soley because they are victims of hate crimes; (2) prohibit the use of pretrial agreements to solicit accusations against others as occurred at Hickam Air Force Base; (3) clarify that health care providers are not required to turn in gay personnel or those who have ques tions about their sexual orientation, as hap pened in the case of former Marine Corporal Kevin Blaesing; and (4) ensure compliance with [Secretary Cohen’s] order last year to replace obsolete recruiting forms that asked prospec tive recruits if they were gay.” Don t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” prom ised to stop questions about sexual orientation, witch hunts and harassment and create a “zone of privacy for all servicemembers. The current policy was widely expected to decrease the num ber of discharges under this policy, contrary to what has actually occurred in the past four years since its inception. T by Jeffrey L. Newman Special to Q-Notes Gloria Estefan’s new album is sure to be a welcome arrival in gay clubs around the world. With its retro ’70s disco sound and continu ous-play, remix format, the beat-heavy, all-dance opus Gloria! [out June 2 on Epic Records] is tai lor-made for gay, dance music lovers. “Let’s face it, everything filters out from the gay community first. Gay people are al ways far more along with things than the rest of the world,” the pop music superstar proclaims. Despite hours of trav eling and an impending movie date with her four- year-old daughter, Emily, Estefan greets you like an old friend she has known for years, with warmth and an illuminating glow. Rather than the ball of frenetic Cuban energy seen on stage, the two- time Grammy winner is a different ball of fire off stage. Funny and engag ing, her irreverent wit sends a room into laugh ter the minute she un corks a zinger, which she is quick to do. The 40-year-old singer is beaming these days. And well she should be — her first al bum in two years is her most engaging record ing to date. “It’s top to bottom dance. There are no bal lads. It’s very much what I am feeling right now, which is partying to the millennium. I wanted i to re-ignite that feeling of the ’70s — those innocent times when sex was still not a death sentence, before all the danger. I wanted to cap ture that feeling with the cutting edge of the ’90s,” says Estefan. “The remixes are the album. There are no other ver sions,” she adds. “We wanted it to be some thing people could listen to and dance to, so we kept it very close to that pop/dance edge. Usually people remix after the song is produced, but we produced those tracks the first time around on here. It’s really amazing.” To get the album’s sound, Estefan enlisted some of today’s hottest remix artists, including Tony Moran, Soul Solu tion, Love to Infinity and the Fugee’s Wyclef Jean. The marriage of their trendy production and the star’s fabulous voice has Gloria! poised to be Estefan’s most successful album ever. To ensure it. Epic Records is launch ing a major campaign be hind the new set, includ ing heavy promotion on VH1, the 24-hour cable music network, and Estefan has a new, nearly unrecognizable retro-glam look. Her recent stints in New York, first as part of a divas concert with Donna Summer and Chaka Khan, and then as part of the recent Divas Live concert on VHl, with Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, See GLORIA on page 15 Survey finds increased health risks for gay and lesbian teens by Robert Conn Special to Q-Notes WINSTON-SALEM, NC—More than one-third of all gay, lesbian or bisexual teenag ers reported in an anonymous in-school survey that they had attempted suicide within the pre vious 12 months, according to a report in the May 5 issue of Pediatrics. Among straight teenagers, 9.9 percent said they had attempted suicide. The responses came in a voluntary, anony mous Youth Risk Behavior Survey prepared hy the US Centers for Disease Control and Pre vention with an added question on sexual ori entation, according to Robert H. DuRant, PhD, professor of pediatrics at the Wake For est University Baptist Medical Center, and se nior author of the Pediatrics paper. The study is one of the first to examine the association between sexual orientation and health risk behaviors among a representative, school-based sample of adolescents. Youth who identify themselves as gay, les bian or bisexual during high school are more likely to report engaging in multiple risky be haviors and to start them at an earlier age than other teens.The study showed that about 50 percent of these teens reported engaging in more than five risky behaviors, compared to less than 25 percent of straight teens. But these teens also feel threatened. More than one-fourth of the gay, lesbian or bisexual teenagers in the survey reported missing school because of fear in the previous 30 days, strik ingly different from just 5.1 percent among straight teens. Among the gay teens, 32.7 per cent said they had been threatened with a weapon in the previous 30 days, compared to 7.1 percent among straight teens. More than half of the gay teens reported property damage at school during the past 12 months, and more than 68 percent reported they had been involved in a fight during the previous year. For 14 percent, the results of the fighting were serious enough to require medi cal treatment. The survey also found that one-third of the gay, lesbian or bisexual teens reported sexual contact against their will, compared with 9 per cent of the straight teens. The teens, and especially the gay, lesbian or bisexual teens, described participating in a host of risky behaviors — including alcohol, drug and cigarette use, and multiple sexual partners. The survey was conducted in Massachusetts high schools in 1995 — while DuRant was a part of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine of Children’s Hospital in Bos ton. The sexual orientation question was added in Massachusetts only. DuRant and the study’s lead author, Robert Garofalo, MD, now of the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center in Boston, said, “These findings See TEENS on page 30
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