Red Wing
appreciates
welcome
To the Editor:
New Year’s Eve, 1989, was an especially
wonderful event, for myself and my partner,
Sumitra. We had arrived in Portland from
Massachusetts, on December 29, after a long,
cold and sometimes harrowing journey in our
beat up Ford van with our very patient dogs,
Ajax and Kenya, and everything we owned
tied to the top. We finally arrived on that
rainy morning and within four hours had
found and rented an affordable, and very nice,
house in Rose City. By New Year’s Eve we
had settled into our new home and looked
forward to the Lesbian Community Project-
and Portland Lesbian Choir-sponsored party
at the Echo Theatre. It would be my first
opportunity, as the new Director of LCP, to
meet members of the Portland Lesbian
community.
The party was an enormous success. I
believe there were almost five hundred
wimmin enjoying the music and refreshments,
the dancing, the excitement and the wonderful
sense of community. Scores of wimmin
greeted us, welcomed us to Portland and
offered their assistance. It was truly a
memorable evening, a magic evening.
So, to the LCP, the Choir and the many
wimmin who welcomed us into town, thank
you for helping us begin the “Gay 90s” in
such a warm and friendly manner.
I joined the W omen’s Ordination
Conference, represented the Archdiocese of
Baltimore at the International Eucharistic
Congress in 1976 in Philadelphia, got the
Cursillo back up and running in Baltimore,
and joined an organization of resigned priests
working toward reinstatement in spite of their
marriages. And I joined Dignity.
The percentage of gay working priests is
fast overcoming that of helero ones.
Homosexuals cannot get married legally, and
are therefore free to discretely engage in
relationships while keeping their jobs. Yes,
the Church teaches homosexual activity is
wrong, but it looks the other way in order not
to have a labor shortage at the altar.
We want married clergy. We need a
married clergy. And we have zillions of well
qualified, educated men out there with past
experience in the job, who are married and
raising families. We need to staff our Catholic
churches properly, and leave the bedroom
activity in the bedroom. It’s how he/she docs
the job that counts.
I do appreciate immensely the support that
the homosexual clergy has given gays and
lesbians. And especially when a helero
“Father” detects a coming out and refers him/
her to the associate who is gay and has a
better understanding of the subject. And it is
simply orgasmic if Father has the guts to
come out to you while in conference!
So let’s not knock it, let’s see the bright
side to some of this mess, and at the same
time hope those old fogies in the Vatican get
off their butts and take a long look at the
American Catholic Church.
The present situation is sick.
Kathy Bambeck
Portland
Donna Russell Red Wing
Portland
Lesbian Catholic Setting the record
works from within straight
to change Church
To the Editor:
To the Editor:
I have recently finished reading Rex
Wockner’s account of the events at St.
Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, along with
his atheist point of view on our homosexual
clergy.
I agree with many points he brings out.
However, I am taking a practicing Catholic’s
point of view instead. Unlike him, when I
became angry with the Church about twenty
years ago, I decided to remain within the
Church and work on changing it instead of
dropping out.
I often read your monthly gay newspaper
and admire its content. The recent article by
Dell Richards about the filmmaker Gus Van
Sant bothered me considerably, however.
Gus is talented and deserves a profile.
Mention was made of Mala Noche, the film
which started him off on his Hollywood
career of doing films about so-called
“outsiders.” As a courtesy, why wasn’t my
name as author brought to passing attention?
For 20 years, I ’ve been doing “gay” articles,
poetry, readings in person, on radio and TV.
Recently with Allen Ginsberg and William
Burroughs. In this community!
It’s not that important, except — I’m “the
Walt Curtis
Portland
Editor’s note: Dell Richards does not live in
Portland; she recently relocated from
Sacramento to Boise and was not aware o f
Curtis’s local "fame.” She said that she
didn't mention James Foley, author o f
Drugstore Cowboy, either, because the focus
o f the profile was Gus Van Sant not the
authors o f his source material.
"At least, I didn’t refer to Curtis as a 'skid
road poet' as Newsweek did without mention
ing his name. H e's just going to have to get
used to this,” Richards said in a recent phone
conversation.
Tree recycling
substantial
Coors ad, exposé
perplexing
To the Editor:
I enjoyed reading the exposé on the anti
homosexual fundamentalist Christian political
agenda of the Coors family (Just Out,
December, 1989) very much, but one aspect
of it perplexed me: running alongside the
article, which implicated the Coors company
in using polygraph tests to discriminate
against homosexuals, funding groups which
advocate “the use of an old leper colony in
Boston Harbor for quarantine of people with
AIDS,” and other atrocities, was a full-page
advertisement for Coors beer?!? (Apparently
the Coors company’s discriminatory practices
do not apply to where it chooses to advertise.)
Were you running the article along side the
advertisement on purpose to discredit the ad?
Whatever the case may be, I think you are
doing a better job of discrediting the integrity
of your own magazine — perhaps the people
responsible for the advertising in Just Out
should reconsider their policy towards what is
acceptable in the magazine.
A l Burian
Portland
The Editor replies: In an attempt to overcome
a negative image in gay and lesbian
communities across the country, Coors has
spent a large amount o f money advertising
their product in the lesbian and gay press
during the past year. Many o f us strenuously
objected to their advertising, but the money
talked louder and we were outvoted — which
is not surprising considering the decade we
have just lived through. In the future, Coors
ads will no longer appear in Just Out.
Dear Just Out readers.
Just a quick note to thank you for your
recent support of our holiday tree-recycling
fundraiser for House of Umoja. We kept
careful records o f the results of our publicity
and outreach campaigns for this project.
Except for referrals from Metro ads on the
xmas tree recycling program. Just Out readers
appeared as the most substantial single source
of support for our recycling and fundraising
efforts. All together we kept over 430 trees
from the landfill. We hope that you will
continue to support such efforts in the years to
come.
Thanks again,
Eastside Circle o f the
Columbia Willamette-Greens
Portland
JO needed in NYC
To the Editor:
I was recently in Portland on a business
trip and had the opportunity to read your
paper. It’s a wonderful paper. Just Out is
thoughtful and well written and the content is
balanced between political, social, arts and
leisure information. All that and it’s free!
In short, I wish that New York City had a
paper of the same quality!
Thanks.
James Gandre
New York City
TABOR FLORIST
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outsider,” a gay one, who lived Mala Noche,
worked on Skid Road, loved the Mexican
boys, wrote vividly and well about the
relationship — and also about racism which is
directed toward Mexicans living in Oregon or
visiting here. I did this in 1977, exposing
myself to aspersions and criticism from all
quarters, including The Oregonian and
Willamette Week.
I worked on the film and script, coaching
Van Sant and the lead actor Tim Streeter. I
found locations and my apartment was a set.
Gus scrupulously gave me credit in the
Village Voice and the New Yorker and the
New York Times. It seems somewhat bizarre,
bitchy, and inexplicable that my effort
wouldn’t be recognized in a “gay “ commu
nity newspaper published in Portland. Setting
the record straight —
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just out ▼ 3 ▼ February 1990