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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 18, 1981)
Harassed gays seek protection City council considers ordinance By RONNIE COHEN Ol the Emerald “This guy came over to where I was standing and started to pull my clothes off. Pulled open my overalls. Ripped them open. And started to pull on my shirt,” says lesbian Jean Lorraine, recalling a December night when six young men attacked the clientele of a gay Eugene bar. “We struggled Some other people pulled him off of me while I tried to hit him back. Pretty soon there was just a total brawl. Only it wasn't your ave rage barroom brawl “It was because they came into the Riviera Room intending to hurt us that it started.” Lorraine says this isn’t Eugene's only incident of “queer bashing." “Gays are subject to more physical violence than any other group in Oregon today," says University law school Prof. Dominick Vetri, a vocal gay rights advocate and state American Civil Liberties Union executive board member. “The problem exists and therefore needs to be remedied.” A proposed city ordinance — drafted by the city attorney’s office, the Human Rights Coun cil and the human rights staff — would address gay harassment along with harassment of racial, religious and physically han dicapped minorities, says city human rights specialist Kent Gorham Early last month the Eugene City Council asked the groups to draft an ordinance to deter racial harassment. After the council studies the ordinance and makes any amendments, the city will hold Spring Sidewalk Sale Special Bargain Table Find the $5 off sign, rotates every other hour JHHOCast Hth (on ( cim'pus) public hearings on the ordinan ce in early June, Gorham says. Although no law can put a stop to gay harassment, the or dinance would send a clear message to the violence prone, says Lorraine, who moved and changed her phone number because she was afraid her assailant would find her and hurt her again after the Riviera Room incident. "Society has to change," Lorraine says. “We have to make a statement as a group that Racism is wrong;’ that ‘Fir ing somebody from a job because they're homosexual is wrong;’ that 'It’s not okay for you to hurt somebody because you don’t understand them.’ ” The current draft of the or dinance increases the penalties for assault and battery by about 100 percent when a prosecutor f Art and Architecture Supplies Permanent year round discount Ik Serving the campus community for over 60 years. ‘‘Design Markette” markers reg. $1.50 Grumbacher brushes and paints Strathmore drawing pads Faber "TG” pens and sets Rapidiograph pens and sets Staedtler-Mars pens and sets Bocour Acrylic Paints Luxo lamps up to Poster board in 15 colors Clearprint vellum Staedtler T-squares & triangles ChartPak lettering reg. $3.75 Now $1.19 15% off 25% off 15% off 15% off 25% off 15% off 30% off 15% off 11%off 15% off Now $3.19 proves the crime was committed with the intention of harassing a minority, Gorham says. The ordinace imposes the maximum penalties the city now can levy against offenders, Gorham says. If the council approves the current draft of the ordinance, an assailant would not have to hurt the victim physically for the ordinance to apply. A victim on ly would have to prove that there was imminent physical harm, Gorham says. However, the proposed or dinance does not face an issue Lorraine says she would like to see addressed — job discrimin ation against homosexuals. An amendment to Eugene’s human rights ordinance pro tected gays against such dis crimination for a few months until Eugene voters repealed it in 1978. Community Christian Con cern director Mike O’Brien successfully campaigned for the amendment’s repeal. O’Brien says he disagrees with the proposed ordinance for the same reasons he opposed in cluding gays in the human rights ordinance Such legal measures “leave the door open for people to claim prejudice when there is none,” he says. “Anyone can bring a charge based on what they perceive to be prejudice." Still, O’Brien says he agrees with the intent of the ordinance. He just fears people will misuse it because “prejudice is so in tangible and so difficult to prove.” LeJune Perrin, a black lesbian and secretary of the University’s Minority Law Students Association, shares O’Brien's concerns about the possibility of a minority-har assment ordinance being mis used. But Perrin says she’s afraid the ordinance could have a backlash effect, resulting in the arrest of minorities for harassing non-minorities. Although she’s afraid of a backlash effect, Perrin says she believes the city should pass at least one ordinance aimed at deterring minority harassment. However, gay harassment should be considered separate ly from racial harassment, Close encounters of the personal kind... coming June 8 20 words for $1.50 if placed by 1 p.m. June 5 Third floor EMU, UO Bookstore, EMU Main Desk Herrin says, bne says sne s afraid that including gay har assment in the ordinance will weaken its chances of enfor cement if the ordinance is accepted. Community representatives estimate 2,500 practicing homosexuals and 1,700 blacks live in Eugene. Despite the statistics, Perrin argues that legislation to pro tect blacks from harassment should be enacted before legis lation to protect gays and lesbians. “It’s easier to hide your sexual orientation than it is to hide your race,’’ she says. But University Gay People’s Alliance director David Ramirez, a hispanic, says racial and sexual-orientation harassment often are linked. “They went together in Nazi Germany," Ramirez says. "Jews and homosexuals were both sent to the concentration camps.” Members of the black com munity also disagree with Perrin. "It’s not a black ordinance,” says Willie Polite, Eugene chapter president of the Na tional Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People. The ordinance should cover everyone who’s getting har assed, says Polite, who origin ally asked the city council to enact a racial-harassment or dinance. The homosexual community doesn’t want to harm the black community’s chances for pro tection through an anti-har assment ordinance, Vetri says. “Most of the literature that comes out that’s vehemently anti-black or anti-Jewish also is anti-gay,” Vetri says. “To condemn because of racial har assment and to say nothing about sexual-orientation har assment is to give a signal that it’s okay to do one but not the other." Lorraine agrees with Vetri. “The couple who was throw ing racist literature out of their car, threw one in my yard," Lor raine says. The booklet slurred lesbians and gay men in the same way that it slurred other minorities, she says. “This is a good opportunity for the minority groups to coalesce together to seek legis lation that would attempt to bring an end to bigotry,” Vetri says.
