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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1992)
just out ▼ fsbruary 1992 ▼ 7 national briefs C A LIFO R N IA : California election officials approved signature collection Dec. 5 for two ballot initiatives that would ban anti-gay bias. One of the initiatives would prohibit anti-gay employment discrimination, and the other would forbid anti-gay bias in both employment and housing. To qualify the initiatives for the Nov. 1992ballot, organizers must collect nearly 385,000 valid voter signatures on petitions supporting them. ▼ T T A measure that would have required restau rant workers to be tested for HIV antibodies every six months was rejected 11-1 by the Los Angeles City Council Dec. 11. ▼ T ▼ Tom Metzger, a white supremacist convicted of taking part in a 1983 cross burning was denied release on his own recognizance and ordered to begin serving a six-month jail sentence in Los Angeles. The 53-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader was led away from the courtroom in handcuffs after a judge set bail at $100,000. ▼ ▼ ▼ Lesbians over 60 will be recognized for com munity service through an award honoring the late Pat Bond, a well-known lesbian actress and playwright who died last year. The Pat Bond Memorial Old Dyke Award will go to three les bians over 60 who have not been sufficiently honored by their local communities. If you know of, or are, such a person, please telephone (415) 626-7000 and request a nomination form. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 15, with awards to be announced in May. ▼ ▼ ▼ “Roseanne,” television’s most highly viewed program this season, has featured two positive appearances by gay characters. Last year, the program introduced the charac ters of Leon (M artin Mull) and his lover, Jerry (Michael Des Barres). This season, Leon, who plays Roseanne’s boss, came out to Roseanne’s husband during a poker game. In another episode, Leon and Jerry had a quarrel about a visit from Leon’s mother, a situ ation Roseanne could not resist butting in on. To express support for the show’s efforts at com batting homophobia, fans may write to Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, executive producers, “Roseanne,” 4024 Radford Ave., Los Angeles, CA 91604. ▼ ▼ ▼ Magic Johnson, who led the Los Angeles Lakers to five National Basketball Association championship» before retiring from the game last year after announcing he was HIV positive, re ceived this year’s Jackie Robinson Sports Award from the N A A C P. A lso honored at the organization’s 24th annual Image Awards banquet in Los Angeles was Whoopi Goldberg, who was named best actress for her role in the film, “The Long Walk Home.” ▼ Y ▼ . A book by Amit Pierce Buxton, a San Fran cisco author, addresses what hapipens to married couples when one partner declares his or her homosexuality. When that happ>ens, “a basic premise of your life is shattered,” Buxton says in her book, The Other Side o f the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses. (IBX Press, $14.95). Buxton and her husband of 24 years separated in 1982. A year later, he told her he was gay and had had a male lover even before they married. IL L IN O IS: Chicago NBC affiliate WMAQ- TV fired Chicago Bears player Steve McMichael from his “ Spx>rts Sunday” analyst position Dec. 10 after he p>erformed a mock AIDS test on anchorman Mark Giangreco on the air. Accord ing to reports, fellow Bears Tim Ryan and Tom Backes restrained Giangreco while McMichael pretended to draw blood from his neck. HIV testing has been a hot topic in professional sports circles since ‘M agic’ Johnson’s Nov. 11 an nouncement that he is HIV positive and since doctors for a Montreal woman who died of AIDS complications reported in December that she claimed to have slept with more than 50 hockey players. McMichael has previously angered gays by using the term “fag bar” on the air. ▼ ▼ ▼ The Illinois American Civil Liberties Union Dec. 5 filed suit in federal court against a Waukegan hospital that confined an HTV positive patient to his room. The man, “John Doe,” entered Victory Memorial Hospital for an apjpendectomy, Dr. Dionisio Vorro tested him for HIV before the operation and then barred him from leaving his room for the duration o f his eight-day stay. “I felt like a prisoner,” Doe said. “I ’m amazed in this day and age, with all the studies we have about how HIV is and is not transmitted, that something like this could happen.” AIDS experts say there is no need to isolate patients solely because of HIV p>ositivity, noted ACLU AIDS expert John Hammell. LOUISIANA: New Orjeans is the latest U.S. city to protect gays and lesbians from discrimi nation. By a 5-2 vote, the City Council banned anti-gay actions in the area of housing, employ ment and public accommodations (restaurants, parks, etc.). A gay rights measure failed in New Orleans in 1986 after the Catholic archdiocese decried its lack o f an exemption for religious group». The new ordinance exempts religious group» and schools, small businesses, and owner- occupied homes with less than four rental units. A recent survey found that22p>ercent of New Orleans gays and lesbians had exp>erienced job discrimi nation and 12 percent housing discrimination. NEW Y O RK : The Rochester school board voted 5-2 Dec. 5 to bar military recruiters from the city’s pniblic schools until the Department of Defense drops its pjolicy against enlistment of gays and lesbians. “We need to say something about discrimination in this country,” said school The AIDS epidemic hasn’t gone away. That’s a hard reality, and it’s something we have to deal with as individuals and as a community. More and more men like you are making commitments to staying safe. Use latex condoms every time you have anal or oral sex. Don't share needles if you do drugs. Staying safe may be difficult for you, but it can save your life. Keep It Up, Portland! board member* Karen Grella, who voted for the ban. Pentagon officials said the Rochester district is the first one in the nation to ban military recruiting. W ISCONSIN: Plans to make school a better place for gays and lesbians in Milwaukee were gutted after about 1,000 aggressively anti-gay fundamentalist Christians jammed two school board meetings in December. The board's pxo- pxasals called for non-judgemental information on homosexuality in the general curriculum, drop- out-prevention pirograpis aimed at gays, and sensitivity training for faculty and staff, among other things. The fundamentalists-rallied to the cause by broadcast evangelists-sang hymns, prayed, quoted the Bible, spx>ke in “tongues,” and equated homosexuality with Satanism and m ur der. Board members ran scared, abandoning their plans and disbanding the task force thatdevelopied the proposals. MAN TO MAN Issues & A nsw ers About S ex In T h e 90’s for G a y /B is e x u a l M en T u e s d a y , F e b r u a r y 11, 6:30-9:30 p m _ 3835 S W K e l l y S t CASCADE AIDS PROJECT
