Wtmten’s History Month
Q-Notes
JUNE 86
JUNEOl i
noted . notable . noteworthy GLBT issues
1993
• Employment protection for LGB
in Columbia, SC
• Unitarians ociopt pro-gay policy
• NC Pride chooses Charlotte venue
VOLUME . ISSUE 22
SINCE X9B6
WWW. q- NOTES. COM
MARCH ±6 .2002
Q-POLL
online:
www.q-notes.com
What did you think of
“The Laramie Project”
on HBO?
choose one:
Exceptional • Very good
• OK • Didn’t see it
The Gill
Foundation
awards NC
centers
North Carolina Community Centers
are among seventeen US redpients
by Margaret C. Maupin
DENVER. CO — The Gill Foundation,
committed to securing equal
opportunities for all people, regardless of
sexual orientation or gender identity,
announced it has made more than
$750,000 in grants to lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender community
centers throughout the country. The
grants are part of the foundation’s “21 st
Century Initiatives” project, which
provides special support to three
important sectors of the LGBT
community: developing community
centers in the non-urban United States,
statewide advocacy organizations, and
organizations serving urban people of
color.
The 21 St Century Initiatives community
centers grants strategically invest money
and technical assistance in centers that
are new, emerging or transitioning to the
next Cleveland strengthening the centers’
see GILL on 4
Tipper Gore headlines HRC gala
Tipper Gore, Keynote Speaker (l), HRC Director Elizabeth Birch with Charlotte
friends Gary Myerscough (c) and partner Armin Desch at HRC dinner in Cary, NC.
by Bo Dean
This year’s Human Rights Campaign
dinner featured key note speaker Tipper
Gore and was hosted by Scott Fowler who
plays “Ted” on Showtime’s Queer as Folk.
The fundraiser gala raised over $ 110,00 for
the gay, lesbian civil rights organization
and its statewide satellite programs.
Over 650 people paid $175 to attend
this year’s Human Rights Campaign
dinner, held at the Embassy Suites in Cary,
North Carolina, just outside Raleigh.
“1 would have paid twice that to help
with the work the HRC is doing” said one
elderly gentlemen who shared his
heartache and fear growing up gay in the
South.
The diverse crowd gathered to aid the
HRC in its mission to fight for LGBT equal
rights. A portion of the funds goes to the
see HRC GALA on 18
Getting un-gay — love has nothing to do with It
Ed. Note: love Won Out" is a
oneday national conference
sponsored by the fundamentalists,
Focus on the Family, to“fix broken"
gays and cure "lesbianism."
by Brian M. Myer
Over 800 people from 13
states attended the Love Won Out
conference, sponsored by Focus
on the Family and presented at
the First Baptist Church,
Charlotte on February 23.
Organizers excitedly announced
during the welcome that it was
the most successful conference,
in terms of sheer numbers, in the
history of the organization. I was
there as well.
The press, and certainly the
gay press, is not welcome at
Love Won Out.“Media
Wranglers” accompanied the
media wherever they went and
determined what and how much
of the conference any reporter
could experience.
Media security
During the welcome, |ohn
Paulk — you remember, the
doughy, ex-gay posterboy
caught in a gay bar “just to use
the bathroom” — told
participants they were
completely free to speak with
the press, as long as they did not
discuss Focus on the Family or
any aspect of the Love Won
Out conference.
The warning hardly
mattered. I spotted the media
only near their check-in table.
After check-in, they were
evidently whisked away,
cloistered from attendees and
presenters so the flow of
information presented could be
rigorously monitored and
controlled.
Charlotte
Mecklenburg
Police officers
were visible
everywhere and
all the time
throughout the
conference. 1 wondered
how many city
citizens were going
unprotected so this
handful of
wealthy, white
conference organizers and
presenters could rest easy. The
Homosexual Agenda battalion
could hardly breach their holy
of holies.
In the presence of my enemies
In preparation for the all-day
indoctrination, 1 girded myself
for the onslaught of malicious
misrepresentations and stu
pefying ignorance.
Organizations like Focus on
the Family, its founder Dr. lames
C. Dobson nor his minions of
misogyny and misinformation
rarely get to me anymore. We
have all become reluctantly
accustomed. Being reviled by an
entire segment of the world
community is a fact of life,
however, and so I refused to be
engulfed by rage or crippled by
their constricting life experience.
Nothing prepared me for the
children who were there ... to be
indoctrinated and/or exorcised.
Jamahl
Jamahl’s mother was a
woman with a kind face. As they
registered, she gripped his
muscular forearm with her soft,
pudgy fingers in what appeared
to be a gesture of reassurance.
Her eyes were bright with
excitement as though some light
at the end of a long, dark tunnel
see UN-GAY on 26