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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 1996)
j u s t o u t ▼ F e b ru a ry 1 6 , 1 9 9 6 ▼ 3 just out s in c e 1 9 8 3 steppin’ out PUBLISHER A N D EDITOR contents Renée LaChance VOL. 13 NO. 8 FEBRUARY 16,1996 COPY EDITORS Kelly M. Bryan Jeff Boswell FEATURE REPORTERS Radical sensualists Inga Sorensen Bob Roehr Rex Wockner Like other sexual m inority communities, the leather com m unity m ust struggle fo r the freedom ju st to be (p. 17) CALENDAR EDITOR Kristine Chatwood PHOTOGRAPHER Linda Kliewer DEPARTMENTS OFFICE M ANAGER Teri Ventura World news Protections fo r queers m ay remain in constitutions being drafted in Poland a nd South Africa ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Meg Grace ADVERTISING REPS C. Jay Wilson Jr. Marty Davis (P- 6) National news CREATIVE DIRECTOR E. Ann Hinds GRAPHIC DESIGN W aterfront Park in P ortland with the W illamette R iver fille d to the brink. A C T U P ’s Steve M ichael runs f o r president to bring A ID S issues into the debate Rupert Kinnard (PP- 7-10) FORMATTER Local news Rachel Ebora TYPESETTER Jann Gilbert DISTRIBUTION Family matters Ambling Bear CONTRIBUTORS Kristine Chatwood Cathay Che Rachel Ebora Christopher Kamera Rupert Kinnard C. Jay Wilson Jr. just out is published on the first and third Friday of each m onth. Copyright ©1996 by ju st o u t No part of ju s t out may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. T he subm ission o f w ritten and grap h ic materials is welcomed. Written material should be typed and double-spaced just out reserves the right to edit for grammar, punctuation, style, liability concerns and length. We will reject or edit articles or advertisements that are offensive, demeaning or may result in legal action, just out consults the Associated Press Style Book and Libel Manual on editorial decisions. Letters to the editor should be limited to 500 words. Deadline for submissions to the editorial department and for the Calendar is the Thursday before the first and third Friday for the next issue. Views expressed in letters to the editor, columns and features are not necessarily those of the publisher. The display ad v ertisin g deadline is the Monday after the first and third Friday for the next issue. Classified ads must be received at the just out office by 3 pm the Monday after the first and third Friday for the next issue, along with payment. Ads will not be taken over the telephone. Ad policy No sexually exploitative advertising will be accepted. Compensation for errors in. or cancellation of, advertising will be made with credit toward future advertising. Subscriptions to just out are available for $17.50 for 12 issues. First G ass (in an envelope) is $30 for 12 issues. A copy of ju st out is available for $2. Advertising rates are available on request. T he m ailing ad d re ss and telephone num bers for ju st out are PO Box 14400, Portland. OR 97214TM0O, (503) 236-1252. The phone number for the advertising department is 236-1253. Our fax number is 236-1257. Our e- mail address is JustOut2@aol.com. For lesbians and gay men, family has become the frontier issue in our struggle for freedom, justice and respect ▼ by John D ’Em ilio hat is a family? According to opinion polls, a majority of people in the United States understand family as a group of people who love one another and take care of each other in good times and bad. What is a family? In the hands of the radical Christian right, it has become a symbol and a weapon. A symbol of an imagined past when everything was just fine. A weapon that divides people into categories of good or bad, moral or immoral, productive citizen or irresponsible parasite. The allegedly “pro- family” rhetoric of the radical right is deeply homophobic and antifeminist, and exploits historically powerful racist stereo types. What is a family? For lesbians and gay men, family has become the frontier issue in our struggle for freedom, justice and respect. Everywhere we look, family issues are surfacing— in the courts, in state legislatures, in workplaces, in the schools, in communities of faith, in the activities of our community centers and other organizations. Sometimes in picking up a copy of a gay and lesbian newspaper, nothing but family issues of one sort or another seem to fill its pages. It wasn’t always so. When I was first coming out in the late ’60s, as a college student influenced by the hippie countercul ture and the first wave of radical feminist theory, “family” was something I could do without. It seemed that my only choices were to have a family, which meant my family of origin, or to be gay, which meant exile and escape from the constrictions of a heterosexist institution. So why does family seem so important to us in the 1990s? Is the concern for family simply a defensive, reactive move on our part, a knee-jerk response to the “traditional family values” rhetoric of the radical Christian right? Or does the rise of family issues tell us something about how we have changed and what we want? I think it’s the latter. There are good reasons growing out of the history of our movement and communities that have pushed W family issues to the front burner. One has to do with the growing diversity of the public face of our movement and our community organizations. Lesbians, for instance, have often taken the lead in campaigns involving custody, adoption and our right to be parents. Lesbians and gay men of color have spoken and written passionately of the importance of strong, extended family ties for the survival of their home communities in the face of racism, and of their unwillingness to have to choose between family ties or their sexual identity. As gay men and lesbians in smaller communi ties come out of the closet and organize for change, family is something just around the comer, not something to escape from. Family issues challenge homophobia in new and important ways. One of the most destructive and persistent stereotypes used to perpetuate hatred against us and keep us isolated and separate is the claim that we are a danger to children. The gay man who molests children, or the lesbian teacher who corrupts her students, have been common cultural myths. As more and more parents come out of the closet and assert their right to keep their children, as more and more of us choose to have children even after coming out, we force the issue of queers and children in proactive ways. Family issues matter. Whether it be the public rituals we create tocelebrate our committed relationships or our decisions to have children in our lives, the articulation of a lesbian and gay “family politics” has the power to move our freedom struggle forward. John D ’Emilio. Ph.D., is the director o f the Policy Institute o f the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. D ’Emilio is a leading historian on sexuality and the gay and lesbian move ment in the United States. He is the author o f Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities (1983); Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America ( 1988), and Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University (1992). H R C offers support a t the state level; rural educators m ay g et help with m eeting the needs o f queer youth (pp. 1 M 5 ) CO LU M N S Profile S W W ashington Socialites do outings the old-fashioned way (p. 34) ARTS Theater triangle opens The Night Larry Kram er Kissed M e; Show boat is taking the long route to Oregon, but you can see it now in Vancouver, B.C. (PP- 28-29) Opera Sw eeney Todd swings his razor on the P ortland stage (p. 30) Television M arlon R ig g s’ Black Is... Black A in’t will air on OPB (P 31) Cinema From treasures to trash, Gen X ’ers are there (p. 32) Tongue in groove M aria W ebster proves the naysayers wrong (p. 33)