LGP steering committee updates policy
We, the m em bers of the Lesbian & Gay
Pride Steering Com m ittee '83 urge that the
Steering Com m ittee for '84 adopt the follow
ing policy:
Whereas the permit to use Waterfront
Park as the site for the Lesbian & Gay Pride
Rally is granted to the L&GP Steering Com
mittee. that Committee reserves the right to
reguest that a participant alter his/her
behavior, dress, or placard because it
appears to demean, degrade, or mock any
faction o f the community on the basis o f
race, creed, sex. sexual preference, age.
physical or mental disability. Noncompli
ance by such an individual will result in the
ejection o f said person from the March or
Rally site by the Monitors.
This policy is far-reaching and deserves an
explanation. Two m ajor disruptions occurred
during the 1983 L&GP Rally. (1) A Funda
m entalist Christian shouted down one of the
speakers at the Rally, and (2) a participant in
the March and Rally was dressed in blackface
as A unt Jem im a. The First Am endm ent of
the C onstitution does provide for free
speech. This does not allow a person to dis
rupt a planned activity to say what he feels
about the proceedings. In the first incident it
Just a community kid
by the VO 5 Kid
I’ll never forget the Saturday afternoon I
walked into the O ld Wives Tales banquet
room . My heart was pounding and I was
scared. The topic was com ing out to your
parents, som ething I w ouldn’t think of doing.
Soon m y palms dried and I relaxed and realiz
ed that I wasn't alone. As an average high
school student, I’ve held a class office, shared
m y tim e as a Boy Scout volunteer, and now
I’ve realized I’m not the only one who has the
longing desire to be held by someone of my
own sex. Thinking about it now, I would still
be in the closet if it wasn't for the gay and
lesbian youth group called Windfire.
Like m ost youth I need friends and I had
the need to be accepted for being myself. I
had an am pty space no one at m y school
could fill. Because o f m y needs I had to seek
people o f m y own age and sexual preference
and I was fortunate to find them . Now that
cold em pty space has been filled by friends of
all kinds: those who spend their time on the
streets, friends from Windfire: friends who
just w orry about final exam scores.
As the m onths went by, I spent some tim e
at The City N ight Club. I am sure most gay
youth in Portland is proud of this night spot.
C om pared to other youth dance clubs. The
City rises above them all. The City is clean
and I’ve never heard any com plaints about
the way the m anagem ent treats its patrons.
You are never searched before you walk in
unlike other clubs, and even straight youth
SCARLET
LETTER
O ld and Curious
Objects 6
Instruments of Music
dance there. Having talked to others about
the straight kids at The City, m ost of us can’t
decide if it’s good or bad, but we hope it’s a
sign o f ou r m utual acceptance.
Many o f those who are still in school live a
double life, being straight during the week
and gay on the weekend.
I rem em ber being careful during adoles
cent conversations to keep my weekend
identity a secret Those of us who came out in
high school can all tell stories of verbal pro
secution and the panic of being afraid to walk
in the neighborhood we grew up in. I was
lucky: I had thirty knights on white horses
giving me support for those last few weeks
before I graduated. That’s what m y friends in
W indfire are best known for, caring.
It’s too bad m ost adults think everyone
under twenty-one is scheming to get into
bars, to find a sugar daddy for the weekend,
o r they just want to get wasted in an alley
somewhere. Look around. You’ll see we are
everywhere and we re all different. You have
seen som e o f us at com m unity functions like
Gay and Lesbian Pride Week, the Lucille Hart
Dinner, and the AIDS update at Good
Sam aritan Hospital giving support so we can
all be ourselves. Adults in all com m unities
m u st keep in m ind that we are the future
leaders in the com m unity. In the past year I
have seen some wonderful role models in the
Portland gay com m unity and I hope the
youth of Portland will lead, advise, and sup
po rt ou r com m un ity just as well.
V
Germans of that penod hatefully stereotyped
the Jews. The intention of that individual
m ig h t be to show the stupidity o f such a
stereotype, but the im pact on the dem on
strators m ight be to resurrect all the horrors
of persecution. Returning to m em bers of our
com m unity, this is exactly what happens to
certain gay Jews when they see a Leather-
man in Nazi drag. Aunt Jem im a, like Stepen
Fetchit, typefied the docile Negro, only too
happy to serve the White master. It is essential
for lesbians and gays, as m em bers of a
minority, to be sensitive to the feelings and
needs o f other minorities, for we cannot be
free fro m oppression until all others are free.
Draw the drapes,
Big Brother is watching
In a recent decision, the Oregon Supreme
C ourt said that police did not violate the pri
vacy o f a Polk County man when they photo
graphed him through his living room window
w ithout a search warrant while he stood nude
inside.
Convicted in 1982 on three counts of public
indecency, Xaviar Louis claimed that a guar
antee against warrantless searches in the
O regon Constitution was violated when police
inside a neighboring house photographed
him standing nude in his own living room.
Justice Robert E. Jones said police were
not engaged in a "search” in the legal mean
ing o f the w ord when they record words or
acts that “ can plainly be seen or heard out
side w ithout any special effort.” Jones said
that the police camera used by the police
"m erely recorded what could be seen and
had been seen w ithout the camera.” He add
ed that the case would be different if the
police had used a “technologically enhanced”
cam era w ithout a search warrant to probe
inside a home.
The police had used a 35-m illim eter cam
era with a 135-millimeter lense to photograph
Louis fro m a distance o f about 100 feet after
they received com plaints from neighbors.
ROTC challenged atPSU
A student organization at Portland State
University, Students for Lesbian and Gay
Rights (SLGR) is challenging the prsence of
ROTC on the campus. The main opposition
is the fact that the second two years of the
ROTC program is not open to gays because
according to U.S. Government policy, they
cannot be com m issioned as officers. This
violates PSU’s Affirmative Action Plan, which
forbids discrim ination on the basis of sexual
preference.
Seeking alliances with other organizations
who are concerned that other areas of the
Affirm ative Action Plan may be threatened,
the Coalition for Equal Rights has been
form ed. The coalition has sponsored meet
ings, placed letters and articles in the student
newspaper, and has approached officials at
the college about their position on the issue.
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is clear that the intention of the disrupter was
to prevent the planned speaker from address
ing the crowd. Had he wished to mingle with
the crowd and speak to willing individuals, he
would not have been ejected. The second
case is m uch harder to analyze. This indi
vidual has since stated that his actions were
not m eant to alienate. Note that in our policy
statement the Comm ittee says “ appears to
demean, degrade, or m ock— ’’ Imagine, for
example, a march com m em orating the Jews
who were killed in concentration camps
under Hitler, and one of the participants
decided to dress up like Shylock or some
other character that typefied the ways that the
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