The Briggs
Initiative
...Page 13
Gayly
Forward
...Page 33
The CaroWnae’ Moet Comprehene'we Gay & Lesbian Newspaper Printed on Recycled Paper FI^EE
HIV/AIDS center closes due to lack of need
t-
by Gene Potent
Q-Notes Staff
CHARLOTTE—“It has been very painful
for all of us,” says Debbie Hirsch, Chair of the
Board of Directors of HomePlaces, Programs
of the Brothers Foundation, of the September
29 closing of The Living Center, their adult
day care/health center for people living with
HIV and AIDS. “When it was founded,” says
Hirsch, “the notion was that there was a tre
mendous need; we have found that the need is
not there.”
The Center, which opened in August of
1994 in a 3,000 square foot facility in a well-
established residential area of Charlotte, was
designed to furnish participants with two
snacks and a hot lunch each day and health
care monitoring and assistance with medica
tion administration from a registered nurse.
One of the most unique aspects of its opera
tion was its coordination with other local
organizations providing services such as art
therapy and educational programs to those
using the Center. At the time of its opening,
it was, according to the Foundation’s winter
1994 newsletter, “one of less than 10 adult
day, health care centers for people with AIDS
in the country.”
“From its inception, all of the profession
als in the field and those in the HIV commu
nity we asked [about the need for such a
facility] thought it was a good idea,” explains
Hirsch, who adds, “No one is more surprised
than we are that the need was not actually
present; we did our homework as best we
could.” According to information supplied
earlier this year to another non-profit for a
joint venture grant application, daily atten
dance at the Center had been averaging seven
individuals. One full-time staff member and
one full-time volunteer, along with other part-
time volunteers, worked at the facility.
“What we discovered,” states Hirsch, “is
that people [infected with HIV] want to get on
with their lives as best they can in the manner
in which they have always lived while they
are well, and that, at least in Charlotte, they
turn to other care providers, such as Hospice,
as their illness progresses.” She offers, “There
are four such ‘Living Centers’ in North Caro
lina, but, unlike our project, not all offer
health care and some have had to align them
selves with other non-HIV health care facili
ties. It appears this concept works best in rural
areas where options are few.
The final determination to close The Liv
ing Center was, says Hirsch, “...not an easy
decision to come to. In the last six weeks to
two months we, the members of the
Foundation’s board, went to various AIDS
service providers in an effort to ‘remarket;’
but what we found was that they [the service
providers] were informing their clients [about
the Center] — they were doing a wonderful
job; there was just not a need.”
The Living Center was initially funded by
the Kate B. Reynolds Health Care Trust,
Housing and Urban Development, Lutherans
Concerned and the Regional HIV/AIDS Con
sortium, among others, but, notes Hirsch,
“Those monies did not, and were not intended
to pay all the bills. HomePlaces provided the
remainder of the operating expenses.” The
September closing date was arrived at, in part,
based on funding cycles. “As a responsible
steward of those monies, this was the time to
close,” Hirsch said. “Those grants have been
closed out in accordance with all the legal
requirements of the funding sources.”
HomePlaces, Programs of the Brothers
Continued on page 7
Promise Keepers’ message may come to Charlotte
hv Rr*pn# T¥at*finoAi* t _i*i t - ^ .
by Brent Hartinger
Special to Q-Notes
DENVER, CO—If the Christian men’s
organization Promise Keepers was a stock, it
would rival Microsoft with its phenomenal
growth. Like Microsoft, however, some
charge that behind that growth is an agenda
that’s not quite as benign as organizers claim.
Founded just five years ago by former
University of Colorado football coach Bill
McCartney with the stated goal of encourag
ing men “to become godly influences,” Prom
ise Keepers has already attracted more than
400,000 enthusiastic participants to its emo
tional rallies in stadiums across the country.
Recently, it was announced that the group had
tentative plans to hold a rally at Charlotte
Motor Speedway, anticipating the event to be
their largest ever. At Promise Keepers’ gath
erings, men are encouraged to make a series
of seven promises, including ones to honor
Jesus, take more responsibility in their mar
riages, and promote racial harmony.
Incredibly, over 150,000 churches nation
wide have already expressed an interest in the
organization. Lately, the group has seen its
annual budget mushroom from $3 million to
$28 million, while its staff has more than
doubled, from 75 to 180.
Behind that growth, critics say, is a conser
vative Christian political agenda of
homophobia, not to mention racism and sex
ism.
Much of the criticism centers around a
series of deeply anti-gay comments that the
very outspoken McCartney made while coach
at the University of Colorado. Lesbians and
gays are “stark raving mad,” he once said, and
they should seek a “cure” for their illness.
Promise Keepers, the organization, how
ever, toes a much softer line on the subject of
homosexuality. According to a 1993 state
ment, “homosexuals are men who need the
same support, encouragement, and healing
we are offering to all men” and are “wel
comed in all our events.”
Still, the same statement adds that “sex is
a good gift from God — to be enjoyed in the
context of heterosexual marriage.” Organi
zation literature, meanwhile, calls homosexu
ality a violation of “God’s creative design for
a husband and a wife” and “a sin.”
“If that’s intolerant, it’s intolerant,” said
Promise Keepers president Randy Phillips at
a press conference in 1993.
Spokespersons for Promise Keepers, in
formed that this article was being written for
a gay publication, did not respond to repeated
requests for an interview.
“Knowing the movement that this comes
out of, they’re certainly anti-gay,” says Skipp
Porteoiis, editor of Freedom Writer, a news
letter about the Religious Right. “It’s a Pen
tecostal, charismatic Christian movement ba
sically, which is a branch of Fundamental
ism.”
But despite the personal religious views of
those involved with the organization, overt
Continued on page 9
Queer culture on display in the Queen City
by Jonathan Padget
Q-Notes Staff
“This is how new visions begin.” These
are the words of Audre Lord, emblazoned
across the cover of the brochure describing
OutCharlotte 95, the city’s first annual cul
tural festival celebrating the lesbian/gay/bi-
sexual/transgender community.
Since early this year, the Festival Steering
Committee has
worked to bring
its vision of an
LGBT cultural
festival to life,
and has been
guided by goals
articulated in its
Position State
ment, including:
offering inclusive and eclectic LGBT cultural
events, increasing visibility and acceptance
of LGBT people, building a stronger sense of
community for LGBT people and nurturing
the growth and self-esteem of LGBT people
CHARLOTTE
in their coming out process.
The potential to nieet and exceed these
goals is great, as evidenced by even the briefest
perusal of the festival’s calendar of events
planned for October 11-15.
But beyond projections, calendars and sta
tistics, there will be individual stories to be
told.
David Lari is a lifelong Charlottean who
says, “I’ve been
, ^ looking for ways to
, be involved in the
Sifl gay community and
OutCharlotte is my
first time being in
volved in a gay
j event.” Lari learned
about the festival
through an article in
The Charlotte Observer and has supported
OutCharlotte as a volunteer on fundraising
and marketing projects. “I think being in
volved with OutCharlotte will help me come
out to more people. I like the idea of having a
Ix
festival that’s not strictly political, but com
bines cultural aspects as well.”
Ashley Carlisle is another volunteer who
is excited about OutCharlotte. She is new to
Charlotte’s LGBT community, having just
moved from Greenville, SC. “I’ve just come
out to my family,” she says, “ and it’s not been
easy. r ve volunteered with the SC Pride event,
and I think an event like OutCharlotte really
has a positive impact on your willingness to
be out.”
Regarding expectations of the festival,
Carlisle states, “I’m exjjecting fun and the
chance to meet more people — especially
more couples. I’d like to see more things
going on in Charlotte. It’s important to get
people together — people feed off one an
other — it’s a great motivation.”
Obviously, the impact and success of
OutCharlotte 95 cannot be fully measured
until after the festival, and the future of
Charlotte’s LGBT community is unclear. But
one thing is certain: the vision of OutCharlotte
95 has begun, and everyone can play a role.
Holocaust Museum
reclaims gay history
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
WASHINGTON, DC—^The United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum is in the midst
of a major campaign to unearth and document
The liberation of Dachau. 1945
the stories of gays who were imprisoned in
Nazi concentration camps during World War
II. Although the museum currently contains
some exhibit information about the plight of
interred homosexuals, including eight pris
oner biographies, the vast majority of their
stories and artifacts remain undocumented.
The coordinator of the museum’s Gay and
Lesbian Campaign, Debbie Eliason, says that
the idea for the project began with David
Mixner, who is probably best known for
rallying gay community support for then-
candidate Clinton during the last presidential
election. Mixner reportedly approached the
museum with the idea of raising $1.5 million
dollars in the gay community to fund a mas
sive documentation project. He proposed that
$1 million be used to subsidize the museum’s
general operating expenses with the remain
der forming an endowment to fund ongoing,
gay-specific exhibits and programs.
Eliason stresses the critical reason to con
duct this campaign now: “There are only
about 15 [homosexual] survivors left.”
The US museum is one of the largest
Holocaust memorial museums in the world.
It features over 50,000 square feet of exhibit
space and has an unparalleled collection of
artifacts. These items include a railroad car
like those used to transport prisoners to the
death camps, a reconstructed camp barracks
and thousands of pieces of personal memora
bilia. Unfortunately, only a small portion of
this is representative of gays.
In fact, although scholars know that gay
prisoners were an identified class in the death
camps, numbering as many as 15,000, it was
only this past summer when they were able to
link a specific artifact to an individual, homo
sexual captive.
In July, a prisoner armband, imprinted
with a pink triangle and the prisoner number
1896, was discovered among the personal
effects of concentration camp survivor Josef
Kohout, a man arrested by the Nazis in 1939.
Kohout anonymously told his story to Heinz
Heger in the book The Men with the Pink
Triangle, which was published in Germany
in 1980 as the first eyewitness account of the
persecution of homosexuals in the camps.
Though historians had been able to verify that
the pink triangle was used by Nazis to mark
homosexual prisoners — just as the Star of
David was used to mark prisoners of Jewish
descent — they were unable, until that time,
to match the symbol with a particular
Continued on page 9