Just news
Congress sees
purple, cuts funds
he House of Representatives on July 12
cut the National Endowment for the Arts
budget by $45,(XX), the exact amount of
money the agency spent for two controversial
exhibits, including one by openly gay artist
Robert Mapplethorpe. Senate action on the
NEA budget is pending.
The budget cut was proposed as a
compromise to divert Congressmembers
stampeding to slash the NEA budget by 5
percent, or 10 percent, or 100 percent. NEA
came under harsh Congressional criticism last
month when the Corcoran, a Washington, DC
art gallery, cancelled a showing of one of the
two NEA-funded exhibits, a retrospective of
the homoerotic work of gay artist Robert
Mapplethorpe. Administrators at the
Corcoran defended the highly publicized
Mapplethorpe cancellation, claiming that to
show Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic pictures
would endanger the NEA budget during its re-
authorization hearings in July, which occur at
four-year intervals.
Gay and lesbian activists and members of
the arts community charged the Corcoran and
members of Congress with acts of blatant
censorship, rooted in homophobia.
Gay and lesbian activists are urged to
contact their Senators and ask that Senators
reject any Helms-led attacks on the NEA
budget.
— National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
T
Ed. note: The Mapplethorpe exhibition
opened at the Washington Project for the Arts
on July 22, where it will remain until August
13. “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect
Moment” will then travel to Wadsworth
Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, the
University Art Museum in Berkeley,
California, and the Institute o f Contemporary
Art in Boston.
Critic Michael Brenson said of the show
(New York Times, July 22,1989),
“Mapplethorpe had the imagination to find
the edge between lucidity and pathology,
seductiveness and cruelty, submission and
domination...This show must be seen.”
▼
Marine's discharge
reversed
n a stunning reversal of a discharge recom
mendation, a Marine Corps Board of
Review on July 6 reinstated a female Marine
Corps Captain who had been court-martialed
for her friendship with a civilian lesbian.
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Captain Judy Meade, stationed at Camp
Lejeune, North Carolina, was notified that the
Board determined the evidence against her
was “insufficient to justify an involuntary
separation from the Marine Corps.”
Meade was court-martialed in February on
charges that she had engaged in conduct
unbecoming an officer. Prior allegations that
she had engaged in homosexual conduct
evaporated when military prosecutors were
unable to present evidence supporting that
charge. Nevertheless, the Marine Corps
proceeded with its prosecution on charges that
Meade had a “long-term personal relationship
with a known lesbian,” that she on one
occasion had slept “in the same bed with a
known lesbian,” and that she was on one
occasion "in the presence” of persons
suspected to be lesbians. Meade’s court-
martial resulted in a recommendation for other
than honorable discharge.
Meade was one of scores of women
investigated by the Naval Investigative
Service in connection with alleged lesbian
activities at the Parris Island, South Carolina
Marine base.
— Gay and Lesbian Military Freedom Project
Judge Robert V. Campbell. Meanwhile,
Kowalski’s father, Donald Kowalski, has
requested that he be removed as her guardian.
Kowalski, 32, had been moved to Miller-
Dwan by Campbell’s order in January for a
period of rehabilitation and further evaluation.
Prior to that time, she had been kept since
1985 in a nursing home in Hibbing by Donald
Kowalski. While there she received little
rehabiliation and was prevented from seeing
any visitors not approved by her father.
Although he became her guardian in 1984,
following her 1983 automobile accident, only
in September 1988 did she receive full
competency tests, which are required at least
annually by Minnesota guardianship law.
The National Committee reiterates that the
story of Sharon Kowalski represents a
powerful lesson about the need for all couples
who choose not to marry or do not have legal
access to marriage to create durable power of
attorney documents for their own protection.
Sharon Kowalski may receive cards,
flowers, etc., at Trevilla of Robbinsdale, 3130
Grimes Ave. N., Robbinsdale, MN 55422.
— National Committee to Free Sharon
Kowalski
▼
Kowalski case
successful;
committee closes
down
Gay Pride
cancellation ires
Helms
▼
“ E v e ry th in g is set in place for a secure
Erffuture for Sharon,” said Tacie
Dejanikus, co-chair of the National
Committee to Free Sharon Kowalski. “With
Sharon’s move, we have substantially
completed the agenda around which we
organized in 1987. Sharon is getting good
rehabilitation; she has contact with Karen
Thompson and her other friends; she has
returned to the Minneapolis area, where she
had made her home; we’ve promoted the book
Karen wrote with Julie Andrzejewski, Why
Can’t Sharon Kowalski Come Home?, to get
the facts of the case out to the public; and as a
bonus, Donald Kowalski will be replaced as
guardian. We’re proud of what we’ve
accomplished.”
On June 12, Sharon Kowalski moved to
Trevilla of Robbinsdale. an extended care
facility near Minneapolis that provides
rehabilitation and transition to less structured
care for brain-injured persons. The move is
the first step in the rehabilitation plan
recommended by Kowalski’s therapists at the
Miller-Dwan Medical Center in Duluth, as
reported to St. Louis County District Court
n July 11, the Massachusetts Senate
voted 22 to 13 for initial approval of
H5427, the Gay Civil Rights Bill. The
Massachusetts House passed the bill by a
margin of 80 to 68 on April 3. The Senate
will vote on the bill again in October.
First filed in 1973, H5427 would prohibit
discrimination based on sexual orientation in
housing, employment, credit, insurance, and
public accommodation. The law would also
direct the Massachusetts Commission Against
Discrimination to investigate and prosecute
cases of anti-gay and -lesbian discrimination.
“Never before has the climate seemed so
favorable for passage of this bill,” commented
David LaFontaine, lobbyist for the Coalition
for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. “Passage
will be a milestone in the history of the gay
rights movement. Massachusetts will set a
precedent for states across the nation and the
movement to advance federal gay rights
legislation will receive a boost.”
Two years ago, the bill was defeated in the
Massachusetts legislature although it had
attained a majority in both the House and the
Senate. The bill died in the Committee on
Bills in the Third Reading when Arthur
Lewis, a Boston Democrat, held the bill
through the end of the legislative year. On
January 3, 1988, fourteen people were
arrested when more than 6(X) men and women
gathered inside the State House to protest
Lewis’s action and the death of the bill.
A poll conducted by the Boston Globe in
July showed that Massachusetts residents
strongly support passage of gay rights
legislation.. The poll revealed that nearly
70 percent favor the bill while 23 percent are
opposed.
▼
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t the request of the Gay & Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD),
the U.S. Post Office issued a special stamp
cancellation (featuring artwork designed by
prominent artist Keith Haring for Heritage of
Pride, and reproduced below) that was
available at the June 25 Lesbian and Gay
Pride march in New York City. The
cancellation was issued in conjunction with
the 20th Anniversary of the Stonewall
Uprising, when patrons of a gay bar fought
back against police harassment and launched
the modem lesbian and gay liberation
movement.
When apprised of the cancellation. Senator
Jesse Helms, R-N.C., castigated the Post
Office on the Senate floor for celebrating
“perversion.” He attacked the lesbian and gay
movement for trying to subvert “American
values.” He also submitted into the
Congressional Record similar remarks —
attacking GLAAD by name — by Rep.
Robert Doman, R-Calif.
Craig Davidson, Executive Director of
GLADD, responded “The nastiness of Sen.
Helm’s remarks reveals the desperation of
one who knows he is losing his battle to deny
Americans the truth that lesbian and gay
people are decent, loving and proud.”
“The Post Office regularly celebrates the
cultural diversity of America with special
stamps and stamp cancellations, and that is
exactly what they have done here. While Sen.
Helms wishes a pox on postal officials who
approved our cancellation, we thank them for
their fairness — the most fundamental of
American values,” Davidson added.
Founded in 1985, GLAAD discourages
stereotypes and misinformation about lesbians
and gay men by sponsoring visibility projects
such as the Stonewall stamp cancellation and
organizing grass roots response to public anti
gay bigotry, particularly in the media.
▼
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just out ▼ 13 ▼ August 1989