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CAROLIN
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Mistrial farArmiio case 20
Rtssia rejects
anti-gay bill 17
Caregiving:
LGBT folk are doing
itmore 19
North Carolina:
HRC Dinner to be held m
Charlotte 08
South Carolina:
Greenville PFLAG raises
new billboard 10
Kevin Kline
talks aboK
‘Ik-Lovely’in
noted . notable . noteworthy GLBT issues
VOLUME 19 . ISSUE 4
SINCE 1984
WWW.q-NOTES.COM
July 3 . 2004
South Carolina boasts
openly gay and lesbian
police force
Richland County Sherijfs Department
has 10 openly gay and lesbian
officers — and the Sheriff
is supportive
by David Moore
Q-Notes staff
You don’t hear much about openly gay
cops in the Carolinas. Oh sure, they’re pretty
commonplace in places like San Francisco,
New York and even Atlanta. But here?
The very thought of it brings to mind
some long-forgotten episode of “Hill Street
Blues” or “St. Elsewhere,” in which an outed
policeman is harassed by his co-workers in
the locker room.
It’s not like that anymore — at least not in
Richland County, S.C. (Columbia, the state
capitol, covers a large portion of the county.)
It’s there — in
the Richland County
Sheriff’s Department
that you’ll find a handful of
brave women and men who
decided that coming out was the
right thing to do — despite the
stigma that might follow an
openly gay or lesbian law S.C.
enforcement officer in a smaller
southern town.
“I’ve been out for eight years now and I’ve
not had a problem,” says Sgt. Roxanne
Meetze, a 10-year veteran of the force. “I feel
very safe within our department.”
Meetze points to her long-term partner
Peggy as being a pivotal factor in her decision
to be completely open.
“When we had squad cookouts, she
would be there and over and over, she would
pride: Sgt. Roxanne Meetze (left) and Deputy
flank PFLAG's Harriett Hancock.
just always be there. I never made any effort
to hide who she was and how important she
was to me.”
According to Meetze, it was around the
time that she decided people should under
stand she was out and proud and sharing her
life with a woman that Richland County elect
ed their current Deputy Sheriff, Leon Lott.
see GAY on 12
MCC i*egional conference a
time to neal
Mom and kids raise money to aid
non-U. S. region member
by David Stout
Q-Notes staff
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When the
Metropolitan Community Churches of
Region 7. gather in Charlotte July 22-25
for their second conference following a
difficult restructuring in 2002, organizers
expect the mood to be conciliatory and
upbeat. The tone will be a reflection of the
fact that the rift from the denomination’s
MCC faunder Rev. Elder Troy Perry will
speak at regional conference.
global reconfiguration is finally mending.
“It’s very important to remember that all
change can be painful for some and as such
there is a component [to the conference] that
will give people an opportunity to participate
in their own healing,” said Rev. Elder Gillian
Storey, the director of Region 7. “We contin
ue to move forward together as not just a
united region but a united fellowship.”
Healing often comes at a price and the
cost to MCC was the loss of some member
churches, including at least two in the
Carolinas. Dissenting congregations were
passionately opposed to the decision to
scrap the existing Districts — which MCC
leaders say were biased toward U.S.
churches — in favor of Regions that group
states and foreign territories together.
North Carolina and South Carolina are
joined in Region 7 by Florida, A:g;entina,
Bahamas, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Jamaica,
Paraguay and Uruguay. Dissidents argued
that the restructuring places an undue finan
cial burden on congregations forced to send
church leaders and lay delegates abroad.
While this predicament hasn’t yet
faced MCCs in the Carolinas — the first
Region 7 biennial conference was held in
St. Petersburg, Fla., just after the realign
ment — some members are mindful that
the cost of participation cuts both ways
see MCCon 12
Eric Rudolph trial
moves forward
Man accused of blowing up Atlanta gay
bar, Olympic Park and an Alabama abortion
clinic to face prosecution
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A federal judge
approved a plan June 22 to tty serial bombing sus
pect Eric Rudolph in Birmingham but pick jurors
from throughout northern Alabama, instead of just
a three-county area around the state’s largest city.
U.S. District Judge C.
Lynnwood Smith, Jr.
approved the joint propos
al that had been agreed to
by defense attorneys and
federal prosecutors.
Rudolph is charged
with a series of bombings
in the Atlanta area, includ
ing the 1997 bombings of
the Otherside Lounge gay Eric Rudalph will be
club and an abortion clinic tried in Birmingham,
and the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics.
Rudolph arrived in court wearing a bulletproof
vest. Streets were blocked off around the court
house and scores of officers were visible, along
with bomb-detection dogs, as Rudolph was
escorted into the building for the hearing before
Judge Smith.
After five years on the run in the Appalachian
Mountains he was captured by police last year in
rural North Carolina.
His lawyers sought to have his trial moved out
see TRIAL on IS