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OUT OF THE PAST • page 3
noted . notable . noteworthy GLBT issues
VOLUME 17 . ISSUE
SINCE 198«
WWW.Q-NOTES.COM
May 25.2002
Action Alerts:
•OPPOSE HR 4122
•APPROVE HR 1452,,
Ronda Shouse, activist
Q-Notes columnist dies
Being LGBT is tough topic
for college roommates
Paternity hope
for HIV men
“Out In the Garden”
garden & home tour
June 1 31
South Carolina Section
• sc laws still lagging 25
• Behind Enemy Lines 25
• SC Business Guild 27
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Movie viewing
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free on TV
A damp proud day!
Weather didn't dampen
Charlotte's Pride
by Lainey Millen
Many folks braved the
elements May 4 to attend the
Charlotte Pride 2002, “A
Celebration of Families” at
Marshall Park uptown.
Camaraderie, music, speeches
and just plain ole’ Southern fun
filled the day despite the rain.
The Regional AIDS Interfaith
Network (RAIN) started the day
with their annual fundraiser. The
RAIN Walk.
Out of the rain, hosted in the
Great Aunt Stella center, to the
choral soundings of the One
Voice chorus, 20 couples were
united in a mass commitment
ceremony. Then the Pride
festivities followed.
Food vendors kept the crowd
supplied. Organizations like One
Voice chorus sold baked goods to
help support their efforts.
Personally, I was hooked on the
shortbread cookies. 1 could have
had a couple dozen of them!
There was a wide array of
exhibitors and vendors. Among
the crafts and organizational
booths, even a wedding planner
from Asheville. Think of it: a
same-sex wedding planner in the
state that wrought the likes of
lesse Helms!
The Share-a-Bear Foundation
representatives explained how
important new donated teddy
bears were to pediatric AIDS
patients at Duke University
Hospital — helping them through
difficult treatments.
As a volunteer at the Human
Rights Campaign’s booth, I was
able to talk at length with Wayne
Besen, from HRC’s Washington,
DC headquarters. He was
passionate in his explanations of
HRC’s components and its
tireless director, Elizabeth Birch.
see PRIDE on 18
Celebrating Families was theme of 2002 Chariotte Pride.
What do you do when it rains on your parade? Bring a
beach bail, silly. Two happy fellas in Uptown Charlotte.
Why we march — for acceptance, against intolerance
by Ed Madden
Part 2 of 2
When South Carolina held its first Gay and
Lesbian Pride March in )une of 1990,
organizers issued nine demands for needed
reforms in education, health, and civil rights.
They demanded:
• the inclusion of sexual orientation in the
' protection of civil liberties relating to equal
opportunity, employment and housing.
• the repeal of the state’s existing
buggery/sodomy law as it relates to
consenting adults. - the right of gay men
and lesbians to be foster and adoptive
parents
• the documentation of hate crimes, including
those related to sexual orientation, by state
law enforcement agencies.
• anonymous HIV counseling and testing.
• the expansion of HIV prevention education
for the gay community.
• the amendment of the state’s draconian
Comprehensive Health Education Act
(which governs sex education) to permit
inclusion of' accurate information on
homosexuality. (The law limits mention of
homosexuality to the context of disease
prevention.)
• equal opportunity to serve in the armed
forces.
• legal recognition of domestic partnerships
between consenting same-sex adults.
T\velve years later, most of those demands
remain unmet.
At least once a month, our community
center receives a call from someone who
claims to have lost a job because of sexual
orientation. Almost as often we hear from a
lesbian or gay entering the courts over
custody issues. We know that our rights and
our families are still in jeopardy in South
Carolina, as in most states throughout the
Southeast.
Last fall, members of the University of
South Carolina’s faculty asked that sexual
orientation be added to the University’s non
discrimination policy, only to face the
resistance of the university president, vitriolic
public condemnation by state officials, and
the homophobic comments of a university
trustee. Of the four anti-gay bills in the South
Carolina legislature this year, three were
direct and hostile responses to this attempt to
make the state’s research university a place of
equal protection for gay and lesbian
employees and students. (The fourth bill
would prevent us from fostering or adopting
children.)
In fact, gays and lesbians have no specific
state or federal protections against job
discrimination, though the federal
Employment Non-Discrimination Act may yet
reach a full vote in the US Senate. Nor do gays
and lesbians have equal access to health
insurance. One of the bills pending in our
state legislature would punish universities
that offer domestic partner health benefits by
taking away state funds (including
scholarshifis!).
In South Carolina, we also continue to live
under the shadow of an outdated buggery
law. Though rarely enfprced, it is used to
justify discrimination. Opponents of the USC
proposal, such as Lt. Governor Bob Peeler,
cited the law in their attacks. Peeler is
currently running as a Republican candidate
for governor.
In public health. South Carolina continues
to have some of the highest rates of HIV and
STD infection in the nation, and a educational
system unable to deal with teenage sexuality
or same-sex sexuality in effective or honest
ways, still bound by the homophobic and
AIDS-phobic guidelines of the 1980s. A few
years ago our governor briefly banned the
distribution of condoms in public health
clinics. Last spring the SC House of
Representatives passed a bill preventing the
distribution of condoms to the unmarried.
The Senate rejected it, for fear of losing
national health funding, but the message was
clear: if you are gay or a teenager and you
have sex, then you don’t deserve the state’s
protection.
Despite a shameful rash of church
burnings and other hate crimes, our
legislature has refused to pass any form of
hate crimes legislation rather than send
forward a bill that includes sexual orientation.
Again the message from' the legislature is
clear if you are a gay or lesbian citizen of this
state: explicitly, you don’t deserve protection;'
perhaps implicitly, you deserve to die.
We march to affirm our public voices. We
march to celebrate our diversity. But in the
contexts of a state like ours, we must also
march to draw attention to our continued
struggle for equality and dignity.
Part I of this series is online at www.q-notes.com
info:
Ed Madden; maddenel 963@aol.com
SCPfideCenter@aol.com