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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1995)
ju it out T national briefs CALIFORNIA If San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan gets his way, an athletic field in the Castro district will bear the name of the late Rikki Streicher, owner of the famous lesbian bar Maud’s. According to The Washington Blade, Jordan has reportedly asked the Recreation and Parks Commission to waive a rule that requires a waiting period of several years after a person’s death before naming something in their honor. Streicher died last year of cancer. Maud’s, which closed in 1989, was a lesbian community institution. Streicher was also a co founder of the Gay Games. Jordan’s proposal would name the field in Collingwood Park after her. “Rikki Streicher did a lot for pride in the com munity, and lesbian and gay rights in general,” said Jordan spokesman Robert Oakes. “And because of her interests and support of athletic efforts, she contributed a great deal to the growing acceptance of gay [men] and lesbians by mainstream athletic organizations.” ▼ T T Hoping to start a national effort in the United States to help fight the growing AIDS epidemic in Mexico, 20 Los Angeles AIDS activists have launched Ayuda Mexico, a binational project to provide supplies and support to agencies fighting HIV infection in Mexico. Tourism and immigra tion patterns, organizers say, make it impossible to separate AIDS in the United States from AIDS in Mexico. They believe the two countries must co operate to fight AIDS effectively. The Los Angeles community has donated hun dreds of items. More are needed, among them medical supplies and equipment, furniture, litera ture and condoms. For more information, write Ayuda Mexico, c/o Marta Baca & Associates, PO Box 29536, Los Angeles, CA 90029, fax: (213) 962-1511, or call Roland Palencia at (213) 468-1357. ▼ T T !OutProud!, the National Coalition for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth has joined with PlanetOut, a new international on-line queer com munity, to launch a service on the Microsoft Net work that is geared toward the needs and interests of gay and lesbian youth. lOutProud! has pioneered the use of electronic media to reach lesbian and gay youth. It began providing on-line services in 1993. This year the nonprofit organization established a page on the World Wide Web (http://www.outproud.org/ outproud/), which has been visited by tens of thousands of individuals. Contact lOutProud! at: PO Box 24589, San Jose, CA 95154, (408) 269-6125, fax: (408) 269-5328, ore-mail: info@outproud.org. KENTUCKY A Louisville beverage distributor is the target of an economic boycott led by nine lesbian and gay bars. Products handled by River City Distributing Inc. are banned at the nine establishments because of the right-wing political activities of the wife of the company president. Included among the prod ucts on the boycott list is the entire Miller Brewing Company line of beers. Protesters hope to con vince Millerto cancel its contracts with RiverCity, reported Kentucky’s gay and lesbian newspaper The Letter on Aug. 27. At issue are the political activities of Donna Shedd. Although Shedd is neither an owner nor an employee of River City, protesters state that she benefits financially from the company, which al lows her to travel throughout Kentucky promoting the agenda of the religious right. Protesters insist their action is not an attempt to deny Shedd her First Amendment rights of free speech, but is simply a protest of her support of groups that take an anti-sexual-minority stance. MASSACHUSETTS Junior and senior high schools in Massachu- setts may continue to provide condoms to students, the state’s Supreme Court ruled in July. The ruling came in a case in which a group of parents in Falmouth argued that the availability of condoms at school violated a number of their constitutional rights, including the right to privacy as families and parents, reports The Washington Blade. In its ruling, the Supreme Court stated that since the program was entirely voluntary it “in no way intrudes into the realm of constitutionally protected rights.” To get condoms at school, students had to request them from a school nurse and receive counseling about HIV and other sexually transmit ted diseases. High school students could also get condoms from restroom vending machines. MICHIGAN Attendees at this year’s Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival included three postoperative trans sexual women, who came to the festival to protest the festival’s “womyn bom womyn”-only policy. Transsexual activists have conducted some type of protest/educa- tional action against that policy every year since 1991, when transsexual Nancy Jean Burkholder was expelled from the fes tival. None of the trans sexual women attending this year was expelled. However, unlike in previous years, the transsexu als were not permitted to staff an information table in the One World area, the space set aside for networking, distribution of literature, petitioning and conducting surveys. The transsexual women did conduct educa tional activities at workshops dealing with the issue of transsexual inclusion. MINNESOTA A retired Episcopal bishop has been charged with violating church law by ordaining a gay man as a deacon in 1990, according to the Associated Press. Retired Bishop Walter Righter must go before a formal church trial, because at least one- quarter of the 297 bishops voted to proceed with the trial. Last January, 10 bishops filed charges alleging Righter violated his ordination vows by ordaining a man who was openly involved in a gay relation ship. Stating that church doctrine in this case does not limit a bishop’s right to ordain a “canonically qualified candidate,” Righter has denied the charges. His case will now go before a Court for the Trial of a Bishop. OKLAHOMA In a 5-3 vote, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected the argument that a woman was unfit to have custody of her children simply because she is a lesbian, reports The Washington Blade. In issu ing its July ruling, the Oklahoma court specifically rejected the argument put forth by the Virginia Supreme Court in the Sharon Bottoms custody case that the child of a lesbian mother could be affected by a community’s negative reaction to the mother’s sexual orientation. VIRGINIA It huffed and it puffed, but Hurricane Felix was no match for the power of televangelist-cum-Re- publican presidential candidate Pat Robertson. According to Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, the August storm bypassed the East Coast in answer to the prayers of Robertson and his supporters. Praying went on for a week at CBN. They prayed on the air, in the chapel, even on the Internet. In the end, Felix bowed to the higher power and slunk off, leaving only minimal damage to coastal areas. Compiled by Kristine Chatwood For Those Who Appreciate Superior Service. Deborah Betron i KB. GR1 Broker/Owner IS . I M S W7 Chris Bonner. 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