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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1988)
\ PEOPLE'S food store For your hath, beauty and health needs. Fanning the flames of discontent Eventually the meek become angry BY Bubbles, lotion, potions, oils for your Massage, Bath, Body &. Soul M I C H A E L S. R E E D hall we rattle our cages, American sons and daughters? Gather our rage like stones, hurl ourselves against the thin iron bars of intolerance? Justify this: each year you pay taxes, playing the economic canasta game of this country, only to be forgotten by your government and denied your basic civil rights of employment, housing and adequate healthcare. You are expected to pay taxes to a government that has ignored you by responding to a national health emergency with silence and ineptitude. The Names Project brought home the thousands who have died because of our S L. 1 1 t x : i t J v .v .v u F*** l o . •• \ \ • I.» M . M . ■ • / /.• • v .v .v ftaturm u Uncommon Scents products First Floor, Yamhill Marketplace 228-8670 GOOD F O O D - FRI ENDLY PEOPLE 3029 s.e. 21st STEPHEN D. YEW, d . m . d A GENTLE APPROACH TO DENTISTRY Caridex canes removal system The comfortable technique that remove« decay while minimizing drilling i Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 8 am-5 pm 12200 N. Jantzen Ave., Suite 480 P H O E N I X Phone: 289-1215 R I S I N G f VISA P R E S E N T S a \ O c to b e r 2 8 , 2 9 . 3 0 .1 9 8 8 Cam p W estw ind (near Lincoln City) Sliding scale $ 7 5 - $ 1 2 5 A three-day weekend retreat for gay men at a private facility with a 2-mile private beach, hiking trails, canoeing, horseback riding and rustic cabins and lodges. Westwind is a beautiful, wooded camp, located at the mouth of the Salmon River on the Oregon Coast. The entire facility is reserved for privacy. The retreat is designed to be whatever you want, be it structured time, meeting new people, or being alone. Come join us. Fee includes all meals and lodging. Workshops will be available for those who wish to participate. Participants will decide the type of workshops upon arrival at the retreat. The weekend is facilitated by Don Posten, M.S.W. PHOENIX Call (503) 223-8299 to register. R I M fft^ fN S U S lfM N C A V SU N K I C tN T It just out • 10 • September I9HH i i . 'i * • I * «MS* country’s silence. Can you hear their voices? Tucked into boxes, folded into earth. Why? Why must we always pay the price for the ignorance and bigotry of others? The other day I said to a friend, “ I wish I understood why they hate us so much.” He said, “ Because we’re the last group that it’s socially acceptable to hate.” At the July 14 demonstration in front of The Oregonian, a small and pathetic group of our enemies stood across the street proclaiming their hate. What lies within them that frightens them and makes them want to hurt others? Why can’t they keep their perverted piety to themselves? Those oppressors carried a sign. It said, “ You don’t have to be gay.” It brought a bitter, ironic smile to my face. No one said you did. You don’t have to be a bigot, either. You don’t have to be ignorant, and you don’t have to interfere with other people’s business. And you most certainly don’t have to pretend to be God without having the proper vocational training for the job. I like to think that they won’t be able to push us around for long. Eventually the meek become not so meek. Eventually the meek become angry. As the streets grow more dangerous and the plague rolls on, I stoke the fires of my rage. I itch to shove back. Then I tell myself we win nothing by fighting hate with hate. The platitudes, however, soon become meaningless. A stand must be taken. Consider the countless priests. doctors, cops, teachers, shrinks and families who have hacked away at our dignity and have legislated against our right to love whom we choose to love. Those who try to force us into a “ normal” lifestyle will not stop at taking away our civil rights. Once they have done that, the next step is to castrate and unsex us. If that doesn't work, they will murder us. Some of you will say that I’m just being paranoid, that it can’t happen in America. Tell that to the Japanese-Americans shoved into concentration camps during World War II. Tell it to the people whose lives were ruined during the McCarthy witch-hunts. Tell it to my friends in southeast Portland who awoke the other morning to find the words “ Fags Live Here” written on their front lawn. Some of you will say that you only get into trouble if you let everyone know you’re gay. Some of you are content to believe that as long as you keep it a secret, you have nothing to worry about. Some of you will say that sexual ity doesn’t define your entire life, so why make an issue of it? Why, indeed? It is a matter of rights. It is our right as taxpaying American citizens not to lose our jobs or housing because of bigotry. It is our right to be protected from the persecution of the small- minded religious groups that swarm like locusts in the political arena. We must be given — no — we will be given the same rights as everyone else. Now is the time to give this message to the world: we will fight back, and do not under estimate our rage. Injustice, persecution and ignorance cannot be tolerated by an enlightened society. There is an enemy out there. It hides behind backwater religions, the kind where folks foam at the mouth in the name of Jesus — excusing rabidity with artificially inseminated salvation. It hides behind ignorance. It hides behind cozy cocktail-party liberalism. But that same enemy exists within ourselves. Those of us who still believe we should be ashamed of ourselves keep it alive. Those gay men who sneer at other, more “ faggy” gay men are just as homophobic and just as damaging as the murderers who have refused to deal with AIDS on a rational and realistic level. We must eliminate the homophobia that exists within the gay community in order to stop the govemmentally sanctioned genocide that has gone on for the past seven years. Homophobia is the silent killer that stalks us in the night. Homophobia walks the halls of Congress, it floats in the air of the White House, it runs Hollywood. It is, simply put, a fear of anyone who doesn’t fit into the herd. The majority of Americans are homophobic. And as Americans we are trained to think that the majority has to be right. Sometimes, how ever, the majority is simply the largest group of society’s weakest links: people with brains numbed by television, people who never learned to think for themselves and who simply adopt their friends’ and family’s prejudices, apathetic people who cannot go beyond their daily troubles to see the cancerous growth of hatred and bigotry that threatens this country. It has been too easy for queers to be afraid, to remain invisible. The time for fear is done. If we are ever to achieve an enlightened society, we must enlighten it ourselves. We are the beacons of the dark age to come. Do not choke back your rage. Do something. Call QUAC (Queers United Against Closets) at 287-7624 and ask how you can help. Stand up. Fight back. Call The Oregonian and demand Reinhard’s resignation. Vote. Come to the demonstrations. Freedom will not come to those who wait for it to be given. Freedom will only come to those of us who grab it with our fists and fight to keep it. And most important of all, freedom begins within ourselves. • Illustration by E Ann Hinds scents of Beauty