Just ou t ▼ d«c a m b a r 1, 1909 T 37
AMAZON TRAIL
TABOR FLORIST
Announcing the
opening of a
second location
Crossing the line
Environmental and human-rights activists can accomplish
great things with a currency called respect
▼
by Lee Lynch
ne by one, holding hands, the men,
measures. It seems like people who respect life,
some in suits, and the women, some
respect life in all its forms. And I was not the only
white-haired, crossed the line to be
gay person there that day.
arrested. Three or four hundred pro
In this time when so much I hold dear seems to
testers broke the stillness of the old
be on the line—the right to health care for the old
growth forest with applause. I photographed
the the right to jobs and housing for gay men
and poor,
historic crossing through tears. A woman behind
and lesbians, the right to clean air and water—I
me broke into a searing scream, giving voice to the
greeted this informal coalition of human-rights
mutilation going on around us.
and environmental activists with jubilation. We
This was a protest against the timber “sale”
need to acknowledge that our bottom-line goals
called Sugarloaf. People who love the trees, the
are the same, whether we champion salmon, edu
earth, and the life that both sustain tried to stop the
cation money, a decent minimum wage or freedom
greed which was— at that same moment— power
from persecution. We can accomplish great things,
ing chain saws that severed the trunks of trees so
those of us who value all of creation, with a
old only wild animals and the ancestors of Native
currency called respect. Our power comes from
Americans had seen the saplings.
honoring the dignity of one another and of the
On our way up the Caves Highway in southern
planet that supports us.
Oregon truck after truck roared past us, most
I remember the old woman from the wildlife
carrying no more than three logs apiece. These
refuge who came to town for help. Laws allow
trees dwarfed even logging trucks. At Sugarloaf
farmers to use water from the refuge for irrigation.
the rent-a-cops were waiting, paid for by the timber
It was a drought year. When the pelicans came, as
company, Boise Cascade. We stood in a respectful
they always do, by the hundreds, to birth and raise
circle asking the forest to welcome us.
their young, there was no water. The baby pelicans,
It was another day of shame for the United
forced to march miles to water with their parents,
States. The same radicals
dropped and died. The
who refuse to recognize
woman got no help from
their common humanity
the regulating agencies.
with gay people refuse to
Alone, she carried some
honor nature itself. They
of the babies. She ex
snuck Sugarloaf and many
horted us to write letters,
other sales through Con
to make phone calls.
gress. The courts had held
When the pelicans re
back the forces of greed
turned the next year, there
and destruction with the
was more water, partly
strong arm of the law. The
because one woman
radicals chopped off that
spoke out and reached
arm— undid the law. They
out.
knew legislation to take
We do not know the
the timber would never
extent of our careless
pass on its own, so they
cruelties, nor can we
added a so-called “salvage
imagine the breadth of our
rider” to an appropriations
concerted power.
bill. Competitive bidding
At the Sugarloaf dem
was not required. We tax Lee Lynch at Sugarloaf
onstration, the police re
payers not only got noth
fused to openly arrest
ing from the dirty deal, other environmental laws
those who had crossed the line into the sale area.
including the clean air and clean water acts were
The police waited up the hill, around a bend, out of
also lifted for these sales.
sight of the media. As the morning wore on, 95
Many of the right-wing politicians who gave
people crossed the line. A few at a time, they went
away Sugarloaf were elected on platforms that
the whole distance up the hill and disappeared.
included anti-gay provisions. Now that the Oregon
We cheered them. We pressed against the rope.
Citizens Alliance and its confederates in other
I had traveled there with two local environmental
states have amassed enormous mailing lists and
leaders, level-headed people like me. We came
funding through the use of gay-bashing propa
with no intention of getting arrested. Yet at one
ganda, and have built political clout by demon
moment, we looked at one another and nodded in
strating that they can influence the vote in Colo
unison. If the crowd crossed the line that denied
rado, Cincinnati and Queens, N.Y., they are using
access to our public lands, so would we.
that power to feed corporate greed and irreparably
There was some negotiation with the media:
damage the quality of life provided by these last
The arrests would only be worth the risk with
untouched lands.
witnesses to bring our action out of the forest. But
It’s not just Oregon. The Everglades in Florida
if the media went with us, their equipment would
are being smothered in concrete. A bill before
be confiscated. One reporter went up the hill only
Congress would allow a huge coal-mining opera
to be tackled by the police. A white-haired woman
tion by Anadalex, a Dutch-owned company, on 20
was maced trying to protect him. The moment for
million acres of federally owned land in the Red
the crowd to surge forward into mass arrests passed.
Rock Canyon country of southern Utah (near Bryce
Later, another old woman tried to be arrested. The
Canyon and Zion national parks). More legislation
police wouldn’t take her until she returned with a
would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National
group of younger women and stood in the shad
Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Are there any wetlands
ows, where no cameras could reach . They wouldn’t
left in your town? Where do all the wild critters go?
arrest kids at all.
This ecological holocaust goes on and on.
The Sugarloaf giants are at the mills. The baby
Out in the Sugarloaf woods, everyday people,
pelicans are dead. Gay kids are still killing them
kids who’d stayed out of school, politicians and
selves, and poor people are scared. The old women
environmental advocates crossed that line to pro
cannot stop the radical right alone. We can’t either.
test lawless logging. I stood beside heterosexual
In the chain of life we all need one another.
folks I’d met while fighting the anti-gay ballot
O
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