Black Out
...Page 19
Pumping up
with Pride
...Page 6
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NC Pride PAC hires new director
by David Jones
Q-Notes Staff
CARRBORO, NC—Derek Charles
Livingston, a 25-year-old African-Ameri
can activist with experience from Rhode
Island to Florida, has been named the new
executive director of NC Pride PAC, the
statewide lesbian and gay political lobbying
group that seeks to repe^ the state crime
against natme law, among other objectives.
Livingston replaces Mike Nelson who re
signed last year and is now an alderman in
Carrboro, NC.
Bob Barret, a psychologist at UNC-Char-
lotte and in private practice who was recently
elected chair of the Pride PAC board, said the
board was very optimistic about Derek," he
said, "and we particularly appreciate his
articulateness, his experience in testifying
before legislative bodies and his general
political savvy. We are very glad to have him
here."
Livingston started work on January 18
and, by all accounts, hit the ground running.
In the few days he has been on the job, he has
already met Governor Jim Hunt, Lt. Gover
nor Dermis Wicker andSpeakerofthe House
Rep. Dan Blue at a reception, using that
opportunity to talk about gay and lesbian
issues, and started re
search voting records and
legislative histories.
While Livingston's
extensive experience,
both as a gay and AIDS
activist, would make him
a candidate for many po
sitions around the coun
try, when asked why he
applied for the job in
North Carolina, he admits,
"Doing this work in Jesse
Helms' backyard has a lot
of appeal."
Livingston reports that
Pride PAC is plaiming to
move its offices within
the next few weeks from
Carrboro to Raleigh to be
closer to legislative and
administrative offices, and that he is already
connected with a group ofprogressive lobby
ist that has monthly meetings to discuss
issues and share information. He reports that
Derek
building a strong relationship with other
progressive organizations is a high priority.
In addition to plan
ning for future legis
lative sessions in Ra
leigh, he is also be
ginning immediately
on some administra
tive issues such as
persuading the state's
Crime Control Bu
reau to renew its
membership in a na
tional victims-com-
pensation organiza
tion ( the state
dropped out when it
learned that the group
supports compensat
ing gay and lesbian
victims of violence).
Livingston Prior to^ming to
North Carolina,
Livingston was a gay outreach educator with
the Health Crisis Network in Miami, FL,
managing HIV prevention and education
Continued on page 19
Creating Change audit finds surplus of funds
by David Jones
Q-Notes Staff
DURHAM—The North Carolina Host
Committee forthe National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force Policy Institute’s national Creat
ing Change Conference is winding up its
work with a financial surplus of around
$8000. It will distribute that money soon to
several other groups and create a scholarship
fund to help gay and lesbian teens attend next
year’s conference in Dallas, TX. It may be
the first time that a host committee has been
able to provide financial support to other gay
and lesbian organizations in the state where
the annual conference was held.
The local host committee of39 people has
worked for over a year coordinating local
arrangements for the conference which
brought over 1400 activists from all over the
country, and several other countries, to
Durham last November. The committee was
co-chaired by Mark Donohue and Doris Tay
lor, both Triangle-area activists.
Donohue reports that the surplus resulted
primarily from the large level of local sup
port forthe conference and the committee’s
work. The committee sent a direct-mail
appeal for financial support which generated
a large number of $50 and $100 gifts. The
mailing went to 1300 people and businesses.
In addition to individuals, major contribu
tors included a number of restaurants, book
stores, service agencies, retail shops and
grocery stores. He said that the community
dance held during the conference brought in
more than expected. It was budgeted to net
$2000 for the committee’s work, but pro
duced $5000 instead. “The difference was
made by a tremendous response from local
lesbians and gay men who came to it in
addition to people attendingthe conference,”
he says, “and it was a big and very pleasant
surprise.”
Officials at the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force’s office in Washington, DC could
not recall another Creating Change Confer
ence in which the local host committee was
able to generate a surplus to help other
groups. The plan to provide a scholarship
fund to support teens who want to attend the
next meeting seemed to draw a particularly
positive response from Task Force spokes
person David Smith who called it “fantas
tic.” A contingent of teenage lesbians and
gay men at the Durham conference pressed
the Task Force and 1993 attendees to find
more ways to support teens on a wide variety
of issues. The teen scholarship will be
administered jointly by OutRight! Triangle
Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual Youth, and Stand
Out - Fayetteville Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual &
Transgendered Youtfr
The organizations that will receive finan
cial support from the host committee include
the NC Pride Marching Band, NC Pride PAC
for Gay and Lesbian Equality, Our Own
Place, OutRight!, P-FLAG-Triangle, Stand
Out and the Triangle Bisexual Network. The
specific levels of support for each group will
be determined by a survey of host committee
members which was being conducted at press
time.
Jacksonville bar owner stabbed by Marine
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
JACKSONVILLE, NC-—Friend’s Lounge
owner Danny Leonard was stabbed four limes
on Dec. 22 by an active-duty New River Air
Station marine. Leonard claimed the attack
was motivated by robbery, but the defendant
told police that amyl nitrite, commonly known
as “poppers,” drove him to do it.
Leonard told Q-Notes he had been “see
ing” Pfc. Raul Fernandez, 20, “off and on” so
i t wasn’t unusual when Fernandez stayed past
closing that night. “I was going to do paper
work that evening, and he was getting ready
to go home on leave for [Christmas], and I
asked him what he was doing out so late, and
he said he was bored so he stayed. And after
everybody left, I closed the bar up.”
Leonard said he put the night’s earnings
and a .38 caliber revolver in a money bag and
placed it on the bar’s beer cooler. At that
point, he and Fernandez started “fooling
around.”
Within a short while, they decided to mo ve
to the stage where Leonard said he laid out a
quilt, some condoms, lubricant and a bottle of
amyl nitrite, used as a sexual stimulant, and
then both men removed their pants and shoes.
The stories diverge here.
Leonard said that he remembered he hadn ’ t
locked the front door andwenttodoso.When
he returned, he bent over to straighten a
comer of the quilt and felt pain shoot through
his back. Looking into the mirrored wall, he
said he saw Fernandez pull a knife from his
back. “I started to come up, and he caught me
again with the knife in the shoulder blade. I
pushed him, and I got up on my feet, and he
did, too, real quick, and I kept hollering,
‘Raul, why are you doing this?’”
Fernandez responded by cutting Leonard
twice more, leaving one gash across his left
cheek and another beside his left eye, perma
nently severing nerves and the tear duct
Leonard said he then began to run. “I
finally managed to get away from him, and I
went running up toward the bar throwing the
chairs behind me, trying to, you know, trip
him up, and I got to the front door, and I got
itopen, and ran out. And when I turned to look
back to see if he was following me, I saw him
go behind the bar and get my money bag. All
I could think was, ‘My God, he’s gone after
my gun.’ So I took off running up tlirough the
woods and whenever a car would come by, I
would jump out and Uy to stop it.”
After a few attempts, he was able to flag
down a passing police officer who stopped
and called for an ambulance. Leonard said he
told the officer that Fernandez had taken his
money and handgun and was then driven to a
nearby hospital for surgery.
Police officers recovered the money bag
several days after the attack, Leonard stated.
“They did find the money bag about five or
Continued on page 28
MCSP folds;
switchboard
will continue
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
CHARLOTTE—^The city’s gay commu
nity was caught by surprise in January when
Metrolina Community Service Project
(MCSP), an umbrella organization for four
smaller groups, announced that it was reorga
nizing into one of its sub-parts, the Gay and
Lesbian Switchboard.
According to a press release, MCSP was
created in 1987 to provide “operational sup
port, tax-exempt status, and financial stabil
ity” for small, newly developed organiza
tions. MCSP also absorbed the Switchboard
at that time, although the information and
referral line had been operating since 1981.
As a result of the restructuring, MCSP will
no longer oversee Queen City Friends, a
lesbian social group, or the Gay Men’s Sup
port Group, but decided to continue to spon
sor the Speaker’s Bureau.
The MCSP Board of Directors met for the
last time on January 15. At that meeting,
members voted to close the group down and
re-form as the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard
of Charlotte. Immediately following the final
MCSP meeting was the inaugural meeting of
the new organization. Sharon Simpson, the
Switchboard’s former director, was named
the new Board President and Steve DuPrey
was elected Vice-President.
In the past, MCSP was one of Charlotte’s
best funded gay and lesbian organizations. Its
annual Casino Night was the biggest
fundraiser of any gay group and also consid
ered one of the year’s social highlights. Un
fortunately, state Alcohol Law Enforcement
(A.L.E.) officials shut down the event in
1992, claiming that it violated North Carolina
gambling laws.
After considering its options, the MCSP
Board of Directors decided not to pursue
legal action against A.L.E., even though a
major children’s charity fundraiser had uti
lize a similar casino theme only days earlier
with no problems. Some community mem
bers criticized the decision as an example of
buckling under and charged that MCSP, whose
very name was a sore spot for some people
due to its non-committal wording, was rife
with internalized homophobia.
The group’s image wasn’t enhanced any
when Jim DiMartino, Board President at that
time, wrote a piece of commentary for the
June 1993 MCSPnewsletterwhereinhe railed
against the “dancing drag queens, leather
lesbos and flitting fairies” at tlie 1993 March
on Washington.
Support for the organization seemed to
dwindle from there. In July, MCSP had its
first ever negative fundraiser, a country/west-
em themed dance, and a follow-up mail ap
peal for funds netted much less than was
hoped for.
DiMartino rebuffed the idea that either his
letter (“In total, I only got three letters...I
thought it was interesting that only [three]
people were interested or involved enough to
respond.”) or MCSP’s degree of openness (“I
don’t see where MCSP, not being a political
organization, needed to be in the forefront. I
don’t think that hurt us. We forget that some
people want to help but don’t want to be out.”)
had much to do with the decline. B ut S impson
Continued on page 20