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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1987)
s Master the possibilities; trash your VISA To the Editor: I was furious yesterday to pick up a magazine and read a full-page ad stating that every time I use my Visa card between now and December 31. Visa will make a donation to the 1988 U.S. Olympic Team. Your readers should know that the U.S. Olympic Committee has a notoriously anti-gay history. In 1982. it sued organizers of what was then called the Gay Olympics, on the grounds that Congress had granted the USOC exclusive rights to use the word ‘‘Olympics.’’ Dozens of other groups, ranging from the Armenian Olympics and the Police Olympics to the Rat Olympics and the Crab-Cooking Olympics, had used the term; the USOC had never seemed to mind. But the Gay Olympics got hit with an expensive lawsuit Ultimately, the USOC forced the Gay Olympics to change their name to the Gay Games As a gay man. I refuse to make a purchase that results in a contribution going to the U.S. Olympic Team. I urge readers who feel the same way to do what I’m doing: Cut your VISA card in half, and send one half to Jan Söderström. VISA- Marketing Dept.. Olympic Program. PC)Box 8999, San Francisco. CA 94128. Enclose a note explaining why you will not use your card again. Then send the other half to me: Sasha Alyson. Alyson Publications. 40 Plympton St.. Boston. MA 02118. I think I can find an artist who likes working creatively with unusual materials, and who can use these half-cards to sculpt a memorial to Tom Waddell, the Gay Games founder who recently died of AIDS. Do it now. and we can have the memorial in time for the October March on Washington. We don't often get such an easy, clear-cut way to fight back against the discrimination we face. Let’s not pass up this chance. Sasha Alyson Boston. MA Fight the Right together To the Editor, Drew Davis and his rabidly anti-gay sup porters are trying to turn back the hands of the clock on lesbian/gay rights. They seek to repeal protection against discrimination based on sex ual orientation in a Portland ordinance. Their weapon is a threat to put a referendum on the November ballot that calls for disenfranchisng lesbians and gays. Davis predicts that he will repeat his easy success o f March 1985 when he threatened a referendum to intimidate liberals on the Multnomah County Commission and gay leaders into giving up a lesbian/gay protective ordinance, despite militant protests of gay ac tivists. including Just Out newspaper. Robert Dunn (ex-editor o f The Eagle, who just died of AIDS). Radical Women, joined by disabled rights and union spokeswomen. This time, gay leaders know that gays don’t want their rights given away on right wing de mand. The gay movement is united in the need to fight repeal attempts and the City Council is fulfilling their responsibility to all Portlanders by holding firm. The gay movement should call the Council and support their pro-human rights position. We should let the right know that they can ’t take our rights without a fight by launch ing a bold, public campaign to stop the initiative from making the ballot. This has been done in Seattle where anti-gay and anti-abortion mea sures were scuttled by gay and feminist activists. They educated would-be signers at shopping malls on the dangers of the initiatives, they sued to disqualify the measures and they organized a wide publicity campaign that pointed out how all workers rights were jeopardized if gay rights were infringed. The fundamentalist fanatics target the human rights o f all — women, unionists. Hispanics, Blacks, all people of color and immigrants. These groups will lose if gays lose and they will benefit from a gay victory. We should invite everyone on the right wing hit list to work with us. If all targeted groups fight the right together, instead o f waiting to be picked off one by one, we will win. Adrienne Weller Radical Women Michelle and Howie: Thank you! On August 9. Queersville . KBOO’s gay/ lesbian program, bid a fond farwell. We would like to thank all the listeners who responded to what we were doing and generously donated money to KBOO in the name of Queersville. FALL AUTHORS SERIES We would also like to thank Just Out for under writing our program. Your on-going support was appreciated, especially your news/gossip sharing! Now Michelle is off to San Francisco and Howie is on to other projects. Queersville was a crazy, sometimes difficult, venture but it was fun and important for us to do. Individuals interested in doing gay/lesbian programming at KBOO can call 231-8032. It was a teriffic year and a half; thanks, everyone! Michelle Lenguabush Howie Baggadonutz Queersville Appreciation for Pride of the Rose Scholarship To the editor, I would like to take this opportunty to thank the fundraising groups and individuals in the Gay/Lesbian Community responsible for con tributing to The Pride o f the Rose Scholarship. Thank you to the scholarship committee for choosing me as one o f the recipients of the scholarship for 1987. It will enable me to con tinue my studies in substance abuse counseling at P.C.C. Randy Colby Portland futons/ Sex Work: Writings of Women in the Sex Industry Saturday, September 19, 1 -3 pm the woRk of ARt you sleep on. ★ Fredrique Delacoste Debra Brech The Women's Computer Literacy Handbook Friday, September 18, 6-7 pm Brenda Weathers House at Pelham Falls Saturday, September 26, 1-3 pm AFFORDABLE FUTONS, COVERS, PILLOWS. ) PLUS FINE CERAMICS, SCREENS, FURN ITURE. * ALL HAND CRAFTED BY OREGON ARTISTS. cotton clouò futon QALLeRy A F em inist Bookstore A More 1431 N.E. Broadway P o rtlan d , OR 97232 (503) 2H4-1 110 Just Out • 6 • September. I987 Moil.-Sat. 11-7 Sunday 12-5 3125 E. BURNSIDE, d a ily , 11-6 SKIDMORE FOUNTAIN BLDG. DAILY, 10-5. 234-6567