ju st ou t ▼ aprii 19. 1 9 9 6 ▼ 13
A M ER IC A N
C l lO R EC X R A P I I HRS
SH O W CA SE
ROSE CITY GAY FREEDOM B A N D
PRESENTS
A
Sousa Spring Thing
by Inga Sorensen
E
rika Silver is still trying to figure out
what all of the fuss is about.
“Everyone around me seems to
think this is the neatest thing,” says
the 32-year-old executive director of
Bradley-Angle House, a Portland-based organi
zation providing services to battered women and
their children.
Silver, who is openly lesbian, has been tapped
to carry the Olympic torch as it wends its way
through Oregon on May 5 and 6.
She is one of 90-plus Oregon and Southwest
Washington residents who were chosen by the
United Way and Coca-Cola Company to partici
pate in the 1996 Olympic
Torch Relay, which kicks
off April 27 in Los Ange
les.
An estimated 10,000
people will carry the torch
for distances of up to a
mile as it makes its way
across the country. The
15,000-mile relay is slated
to last 84 days, ending July
19 in the Olympic Sta
dium in Atlanta, site of
the O lym pic Sum m er
Games.
“My family is really
into it. My dad said that he
wanted to come out [from
New York] to watch me
carry the torch, and my
Erika Silver
brother said he might
m otorcycle in from
Montana,” says Silver,
who, while not a running
fanatic, puts in her fair share of miles at the gym.
“I’m actually kind of surprised at people’s enthu
siasm.”
So how exactly did she find herself in this
position?
“My partner [Pamela Pegg] and my 11-year-
old son, Sage, filled out the forms a few months
ago,” she says. “The next thing I know, I’m an
Olympic torchbearer.”
“When I heard about the relay, I thought
[Silver] should be nominated right away,” says
42-year-old Pegg, who works for the Portland
Housing Council. “That’s because she is so active
in the community and the battered women’s ad
vocacy movement. She’s active in special-needs
housing issues and civil rights. She’s on all of
these committees in the county. She likes to run.
She’s great at bringing people together. I felt she
should be recognized for being the local hero she
is.”
As Just Out went to press, Silver had yet to be
informed about where she would run her leg of
the relay.
“Maybe I’m being a little cynical, but it seems
like that information is being withheld for some
reason,” she says. “Maybe they’re worried about
protests.”
For generations, the Olympics and contro
versy have been linked. This year is no different.
“We told Olympic officials that we estimated
at least 1,000 of the torchbearers will be gay,
lesbian, bisexual or transgendered and that it
would be a total affront to them—as well as gay
men and lesbians everywhere— for the torch to
pass through Cobb County,” says Pat Hussain, a
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force board
member and the principal organizer of the Olym
pics Out of Cobb Coalition.
In July 1994, the Atlanta Committee for the
Olympic Games agreed to remove the 1996 Olym
pic volleyball competition from Cobb County,
Ga., following months of talks with Olympics
Out of Cobb Coalition members.
They were angry about the Cobb County
Commission’s approval the year before of a reso
lution that condemned the “gay lifestyle,” saying
it was incompatible with community standards.
The coalition, comprising primarily gay and
lesbian citizens, met several times with ACOG to
request that the competition be moved. ACOG
had reportedly hoped to see a compromise
between Olympics Out of
Cobb Coalition and the
Cobb County commis
sioners, who adamantly
refused to rescind the reso
lution. A com prom ise
failed to transpire, and
ACOG decided to pull the
volleyball com petition
from Cobb County.
Hussain and others
hailed ACOG’s move, and
vowed to deactivate the
Olympics Out of Cobb
¡5 Coalition as long as Olym-
§ pic-related events were
^ kept out of Cobb County.
0
Hussain is singing a
□ different tune these days,
m She says the group was
P jolted back to life several
1 months ago after ACOG’s
Payne told a local televi
sion reporter during an on-
air interview that Cobb County would be included
in the relay route.
“We were shocked and just outraged and we
came roaring back,” says Hussain.
She says, however, the reaction prompted
Olympic officials to get tight-lipped about their
plans, and subsequent questioning regarding Cobb
County has been met with resistance and secrecy.
Hussain says there has been talk of gay and
lesbian torchbearers donning rainbow gloves when
it comes their turn to carry the torch. Torchbearers
must wear a designated uniform, so individual
ized T-shirts, shorts, etc., are a no-go. She says
some people may throw pink confetti at the torch,
while others plan to dress in black and lay down
in the middle of the route with makeshift tomb
stones that say “Human Rights Rest in Peace.”
“We’ve talked about what we would like to
do,” says Pegg, who is actively involved in Love
Makes a Family, a Portland-based organization
that promotes the visibility and rights of gay and
lesbian families.
“We thought about writing ‘Love Makes a
Family’ on Erika’s shoes, or holding rainbow
flags along the route where she’ll be running,” she
says. “We are hoping we can get her interviewed
on TV. She will say, ‘My wife and my son
nominated me for this.’ It will be our way of
letting people know that we are a family.”
Boycotting the relay, adds Pegg, is definitely
out of the question.
“No matter what, this is a wonderful opportu
nity for Bradley-Angle House and for our com
munity,” she says. “We shouldn’t ignore that.”
For more information about Olympics Out o f
Cobb Coalition's plans, call (404) 212-9695.
Sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc.
R O SE C IT Y
Carrying a torch
Many queers plan to make visible statements along the
Olympic torch run route—some will do so as torchbearers
j
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