\ Q'Notes
\ Picnic
June/
/
MORE
Pride Inside
...pages6& 7
...page 13
The CaroWnae' Moet Compreheneive Gay & Leeblan Mewepaper'^^ Frmted on Kecycied Faper'w^ FREE
MCSP fund raiser shut down
by David Prybylo
Q-Notes Staff
CHARLOTTE - Metrolina Community
Service Project had planned a gala evening
for Saturday night. May 16. Masters Inn on
North Tryon was secured, 55 volunteers had
been assigned, food was prepared, and beer,
wine, and soft drinks were purchased for a
crowd expected to number in the hundreds. It
was to be their fourth annual Casino Night, an
evening of simulated Las Vegas style gam
bling.
Plans changed, however, when David Par
sons, MCSP board member and chairperson
of Casino Night, was contacted on Friday,
May 15, at 4:40 in the afternoon by Ron
Kaylor of the North Carolina Alcohol Law
Enforcement division. Casino Night, he told
Parsons, was against the law in North Caro
lina, and if MCSP continued with their plans,
he and the other board members would face
arrest.
“At first,” said Parsons, “I thought it was
a joke! I thought somebody was doing this
baause they knew I was a little nervous
about Saturday night, you know, coming to
gether smoothly.”
It wasn’t a joke. Kaylor told Parsons that
gambling in North Carolina was against the
law and that he had been instructed by his
department to ensure that the MCSP function
would not occur. Parsons spoke to George
Basnett, Kaylor’s supervisor, and explained
that Casino Night was not truly gambling
because no money or valuables would change
hands. Furthermore, Parsons told Basnett,
this type of event occurred all the time, and
that in fact this was MCSP’s fourth Casino
Night. Basnett remained adamant that Ca
sino Night was illegal.
Parsons then contacted the A.L.E. office
in Raleigh where he spoke to Ann Fulton. He
said Fulton told him that despite the fact that
no real gambling was to take place, the event
was still illegal because of the gaming equip
ment that would be used.
“The issue is not gambling,” Fulton said
when contacted by Q-Notes. “The issue is the
actual tables, whether they are felt cloths that
can be tied on a table or the table itself.” She
referred to a 1791 statute prohibiting posses
sion of gaming tables which she says was
changed in 1931. Fulton said that a judge in
a 1986 case ruled that actual use of a gaming
table does not need to occur in order for
possession to be a violation.
Parsons said that Fulton told him that her
office had been aware of Casino Night since
at least the previous week and had told Kaylor
to contact MCSP. Fulton confirmed Ais,
saying that she heard of Casino Night from a
group in Asheville who had called several
weeks earlier to find out about having a
casino party and that she advised them against
holding the event. She says the group called
later and told her about MCSP’s event in
Charlotte, so she contacted the A.L£. office
in Charlotte on May 8, but heard nothing
more until Parsons contacted her a week later.
“I can’t believe they knew about this and
waited until the last minute to call,” com
plained Parsons. “It’s as if they deliberately
waited so that we wouldn’t be able to do
anything about it.”
Parsons’ next step was to contact an attor
ney, who advised him to cancel the event.
“The lawyer I first talked to said that if there
was a way for the A.L.E. to hassle us, they
Continued on page 14
Gays, Police to hold
first town meeting
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
CHARLOTTE—On Wednesday, June
3, members of the Charlotte/Mecklenburg
County gay and lesbian community will
have their first open dialogue with local law
enforcement prsonnel.
This meeting promises to be an historic
exchange, providing the opportunity for gays
and lesbians to publicly express their feel
ings for the first time.
Representatives from the Charlotte Po
lice Department, Mecklenburg County Po
lice, Park Rangers, and District Attorney’s
office are expected to attend.
The forum will be held at the Unitarian
Church of Charlotte, 234 N. Sharon Amity
Rd., at 7:30 pm, and will be open to all
members of the gay and lesbian community
and its allies.
No general interest media will be al
lowed to take part in the proceedings, but Q-
Notes will be on hand to cover them.
Topics of discussion may include, but
will not be limited to, the recent wave of
arrests for soliciting a crime against nature,
anti-gay hiring practices for law enforce
ment applicants, treatment of gay crime vic
tims by law enforcement personnel, or non-
ctxnpliance by area law enforcement agen
cies in collecting data wi “hate crimes” as
requested by the federal government in 1991,
Since there is no formal agenda for the
meeting, people should come prepared to
introduce the topics they want to have ad
dressed.
It will be extremely important to have a
large turnout for the meeting to underscore
the fact that many Charlotte/Mecklenburg
County citizens are affected by law enforce
ment practices as gays and lesbians and that
they are concerned about how their lives are
being impacted as such.
If few people attend the meeting, the
assumption will be that no one views this
issue as pressing and law enforcement agen
cies will continue to conduct business as
usual. Community support is vital in this
initial effort to better educate law enforce
ment personnel.
For more information about the meeting
or to discuss potential topics for the meeting,
call Don King at (704) 332-3834.
NCCGLE report indicates crisis
injustices, each of these incidents hurt not
only the lesbians and gay men against whom
they are aimed, but the fabric of human com
munity. When homophobia determines AIDS
policy, the public health of every North Caro
linian suffers. When
ministers use the nar
rowest interpretation
of scriptures to de
monize lesbians and
gay men, they lose
the spirit of love.
Surely when a father
banishes a gay son
from the household,
everyone in that fam
ily hurts from the
separation. When
KimFisher politiciansusefearof
AIDS and bigotry towards homosexuals to
try to poison the political atmosphere, citi
zens lose sight of the real issues that affect
them and, therefore, their ability to affect
those issues.”
The report also cited positive develop
ments in rights for gays and lesbians. These
included the North Carolina Council of
Churches’ resolution condemning anti-gay
violence and calling for repeal of the sodomy
laws, the actions of Pullen Memorial and
Binkley Baptist churches in allowing a gay
union and ordaining a gay minister. Orange
County District Attorney Carl Fox’s decision
not to prosecute two gay men arrested in
Chapel Hill on sodomy charges, a decision at
UNC-Asheville to add “sexual orientation”
to its employment discrimination statement,
and the decision of the Durham schools to
allow members of an advocacy group for
lesbian and gay youth to offer training to
school guidance counselors.
“The tide is beginning to turn against ho
mophobic abuses of human rights in North
Carolina,” Segrest said. ‘The kinds of inci
dents catalogued here have, we believe, gone
on in this state for a long time. But gay men
and lesbians are no longer willing to tolerate
this treatment. Likewise, people of conscience
across North Carolina are beginning to speak
out for our civil and human rights. We trust
that this report will contribute to a growing
movement for justice.”
RALEIGH—At a 10:30 am press confer
ence here on Wednesday, May 20, at the
Unitarian UniversalistFellowshipofRaleigh,
the North Carolina Coalition for Gay and
Lesbian Equality (NCCGLE) released its
annual report, Homo
phobia and Human
Rights in North Caro
lina. The report con
tained the organiza
tion’s data from 1991,
gathered by a network
of lesbian and gay agen
cies across the state.
The document ad
dresses the following
issues: the needs of gay
and lesbian youth, the
abuse of lesbians and
gay men in the military, AIDS policy, child
custody, employment, police policy, and hate
crimes.
Participating in the press conference were
Mab Segrest, NCCGLE spokesperson. Rev.
Jimmy Creech, founding member of the Ra
leigh Religious Network for Gay and Lesbian
Equality, Beth Harrison of The Database, and
BUI Brantley, AIDS activist
The total of680 homophobic, or anti-gay,
incidents in 1991 put North Carolina once
again at the top of the list nationally, accord
ing to the National Lesbian and Gay Task
Force, a Washington, D.C.-based organiza
tion that gathers national data on anti-gay
violence. “North Carolina for the fifth year in
a row reported more incidents than any other
state,” said Kevin Benill, director of NGLTF’s
Anti-Violence Project, “although other states
reportedmore violentincidents. Clearly,North
Carolina has a severe problem.”
The majority (375) of the incidents in the
report involved harassing calls to gay/lesbian
hotlines. However, 61 involved violent or
illegal acts that qualify as “hate crimes” under
federal guidelines. The U.S. Justice Depart
ment defines “bias crime” as a “criminal
offense committed against a person or prop
erty which is motivated, in whole or in part,
by the offender’s bias against arace, religion,
ethnic/national origin group, or sexual orien
tation group.”
Mab Segrest commented, “As with all