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
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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
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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,
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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.