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Published Every Two Weeks On Recycled Paper • Volume 14, Number 4 • July 10, 1999 • FREE
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MCC Charlotte's new home at 1825 Eastway Drive (inset: Rev. Mick Hinson)
MCC Charlotte sets move-in date
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
CHARLOTTE—On June 27, Rev. Mick
Hinson was finally able to officially deliver the
news his congregation at the Metropolitan
Community Church of Charlotte had been
waiting months to hear: the move-in date for
their new church home.
Currently, services are held on the third floor
of the Varnadore Building on Independence
Blvd. Barring any unforeseen complications,
members will hold their first regular worship
service in their own space on November 28.
Rev. Hinson noted that the date was specifi
cally chosen for its ecclesiastical significance.
“The service will be held on the first Sunday of
Advent which is all about looking forward to
the future and expectations of a wonderful time
to come.”
The new church, situated on approximately
three and a half acres at 1825 Eastway Drive,
currendy houses Eastway Christian Church, the
Disciples of Christ congregation that built the
structure in 1963. They have purchased land
in the University area and are preparing to be
gin construction on a new facility.
Members of MCC Charlotte’s Building Fi
nance Committee thought they had secured a
move-in date in August, but those plans fell
through with the unexpected announcement
that Rev. Bruce Jones, the pastor of Eastway
Christian, intended to step down later in the
year to lead another church in Rock Hill, SC.
“I believe Rev. Jones’ decision to leave threw
[the Easrway congregation] a curve,” said Fi
nance Committee Chair Jim Yarbrough.
“Therefore, they had to regroup and reevalu
ate their own transition to their new facility.
With that, they decided they wanted to wait
until November to vacate the building.”
Once MCC Charlotte takes possession of
See DATE on page 20
Bill outlawing job discrimination
reintroduced in Congress
WASHINGTON, DC—A bipartisan as
sembly of lawmakers re-introduced the Em
ployment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on
June 24. Congressional leadership should move
to allow Senate and House votes on the bill
that would proteCT gay and lesbian workers from
job bias in all 50 states, according to the Hu
man Rights Campaign (HRC).
“Congress has the power to end a major in
justice that still haunts this country,” said HRC
Executive Director Elizabeth Birch. “It is per
fectly legal to fire gay, lesbian or bisexual people
in this country simply because of their real or
perceived sexual orientation. Most Americans
find that abhorrent, and support this effort to
outlaw job discrimination against gay people.”
If passed, ENDA would extend federal em
ployment protections currently based on race,
religion, gender, national origin, age and dis
ability to sexual orientation. The bill would
prohibit employers, employment agencies and
labor unions from using an individuals sexual
orientation as the basis for employment deci
sions, such as hiring, firing, promotion or com
pensation. ENDA would not, however, cover
small businesses with fewer than 15 employ
ees. There is also an exemption for the military
and religious organizations, including educa
tional institutions substantially controlled or
supported by religious organizations. To boost
the measure’s chance of passage, lawmakers have
rewritten the bill to explicitly prohibit prefer
ential treatment, such as hiring to meet quotas
or designing affirmative action standards to
make up for past discrimination.
by Ganv M. Buseck
Special to Q-Notes
BOSTON—In a 4-2 decision, the Massa
chusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled
June 29 that a woman, identified as E.O., is a
parent of the son she and her former partner
jointly raised.
L.M., the biological mother, had urged the
court to sever all contact between the child and
E.O. because E.O. is not a biological or adop
tive parent, and because no law in Massachu
setts specifically allows contact in these circum
stances. In its landmark decision, the SJC rec
ognized a non-biological parent to be a de facto
parent where she had participated in the deci
sion to have a child and the raising of the child
with her former partner.
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
(GLAD), a 20-year-old public interest legal
organization focused on GLBT and HIV/AIDS
issues, represented E.O. on appeal, together
with trial attorney, E. Oliver Fowlkes of
Fowlkes, Jacoby & Kaplan in Boston. Accord
ing to GLAD attorney Mary Bonauto, who
argued along with Fowlkes before the SJC,
“This is a victory for the child, now four years,
who has now been spared the devastation of
losing one of the two parents he has known his
whole life. It also puts Massachusetts on record
as saying that ‘the family that must be accorded
respect in this case is the family formed by the
plaintiff, the defendant and the child.’ For too
long, the courthouse door was slammed shut
to families not related by the traditional mark
ers of birth, marriage and adoption. It has now
been cracked open to those people who can
ENDA’s opponents have successfully fought
it in three previous Congresses on the grounds
that it would extend special protections to gays.
“ENDA will achieve equal rights — not spe
cial rights — for gays and lesbians,” said Sen.
James Jeffords (R-VT), one of the bill’s cospon
sors. He plans to pass the bill out of his Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and
then try to force consideration by the Senate.
But opponents aren’t buying the argument
that the bill won’t confer special rights. Robert
H. Knight of the conservative Family Research
Council said sexual orientation shouldn’t be a
category that receives federal proteaion from
job discrimination because it involves behav
ior. Other specially protected categories, such
as race, gender and disability, do not.
Vice President A1 Gore, campaigning in Los
Angeles at a gay and lesbian center, voiced sup
port for the legislation. “It does not confer any
special rights, but it does outlaw the kind of
discrimination that has become all too com
mon in our society,” he said.
FPrst introduced in 1994, ENDA came
within one vote of Senate passage in 1996.
Major corporations that already have their own
non-discrimination policies support the bill.
Eleven states currently have laws prohibiting
discrimination, North and South Carolina not
among them.
This year, the bill was introduced in the Sen
ate by Jeffords and Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-
MA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and in
the House by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and
See CONGRESS on page 20
show that they are de facto parents.”
Attorney Fowlkes added, “We now look for
ward to going to court on the real issues, namely
what custody and visitation and support ar
rangement is in the child’s best interests.”
E.O. added, “My son frequently asked me,
‘Mommy, when will the judge let us be to
gether?’ Today I celebrate that the court recog
nized the bonds of love and will allow me to
pursue contact with my son. My son knows
that I am one of the parents who brought him
into the world, and teaches him to sing, read,
and to believe that good things usually hap
pen. Today’s decision affirms these lessons.”
The women in the case had been in a com
mitted lesbian relationship for 13 1/2 years.
They did everything they could legally to sig
nify their commitment to each other as “life
partners.” Their son was born in 1995. L. M.
was the birth mother and E.O. cut the umbili
cal cord. They named the boy after E.O.’s
grandfather and held a baby naming ceremony
for him with both sides of their families par
ticipating. They signed many legal documents
and even a detailed co-parenting agreement
before and after the baby was born. They cared
jointly for their son in every way until the
couple separated in May 1998, when the boy
was three and a half years old.
After the couple separated, L.M. refused
E.O. any contact with their son. E.O. was
awarded temporary visitation by Judge John P.
Cronin of the Probate and Family Court. A
Single Justice of the Appeals Court reversed the
temporary visitation order. E.O. then appealed
See RULINGS on page 26
Nazi papers hold meaning for gays
by Rev. Dr. Mel White
Special to Q-Notes
On June 26, the Huntington Library in
Pasadena, CA announced the first public exhi
bition of the Nuremberg papers. Signed by
Adolf Hitler himself, the original documents
have been on file since they were donated by
General George Patton in 1945. Hitler insti
tuted these laws to guarantee the “racial pu
rity” of his Third Reich. They redefined the role
of Jews in Germany and opened the doors to
holocaust.
“I felt like I was viewing the first draft of
the death warrant that
led to the demise of one-
ffiird of world Jewry,”
said Dr. Uri Herscher.
“Once deportation be
gan,” added UCLA pro
fessor Saul Friedlander,
“these laws determined
who would live and who
would die.”
The four primary
paragraphs were pub
lished in the Los Angeles Times. I was stunned
by their familiarity. The minute they are on
display, my partner Gary and I will be there to
see them. I hope I won’t embarrass him with
involuntary tears. We should publish them in
every GLBT paper in the country with the
warning: It could happen again!
Paragraph 1: Ended the right of Jews to
marry freely. Sounds like a reason to work even
harder to defeat anti-gay marriage laws.
Paragraph 2: Ended the right of Jews to have
sexual intercourse freely. Sounds like a reason
to continue our efforts to rescind sodomy laws.
Paragraph 3. Ended the right of Jews to
employee or be employed freely. Sounds like a
reason to support the Employment Non-Dis
crimination Act (ENDA).
Paragraph 4. Ended the right of Jews to dis
play/serve the nation’s flag freely. Sounds like a
reason to seek that promised executive order
from President Clinton to completely end the
ban on gays in the military.
While we’ve been celebrating all our hard-
earned victories the past few weeks (and we
deserve the time to celebrate), we need to re
member that Berlin in the 1930s was the most
gay-friendly city in the world. How quickly life
as cabaret became a nightmare of suffering and
death.
Too many of us believe our adversaries are
fools who are only using us to raise funds and
mobilize volunteers. In fact, they are sincere be
lievers, determined to
end our rights.
Too many of us
think that it is not im
portant for us to con
tribute time and money
to help continue our
stru^le for equal rights.
In fact, any one of our
primary adversaries
raises more money ev
ery month in part to
end those rights than our entire community
raises in a year to preserve and protect them.
Too many of us think the danger is passed
and that time is on the side of justice. In fact.
Dr. Martin Luther King made it very clear:
“Time is on the side of injustice.”
Even if Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James
Dobson and the others look like extremists who
are losing power, their anti-homosexual rheto
ric is reaching critical mass in the homes and
churches of our childhood. Let these documents
remind us that it could happen again. Our
“Nuremberg Laws” are in place or on the bal
lot. All it would take is for you or for me to do
nothing. T
[Rev. White isa 1997 recipient of the ACLU’s
National Civil Liberties Award and the author
(^Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Chris
tian in America.]