Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 5, 1999)
mi cti5.1999 ». Leading Edge drag and leather corr nunities. Then there are the countless nd often unrec ognized individuals who :end to the myr iad of social, athletic, ; "»¡ritual, cultural and social service grouj s that make up the everyday fabric of our community life. But material differe ces along race, class, age and gender li es— along with ideological disagreeme us about goals and tactics— continue t o shape people’s views of whose leaders <p is legitimate and capable. Carolyn Young, a ke» figure in the No on 9 ballot measure hi tie of the early ’90s and in the lobbyin group Right to Privacy, remembers the 1 largins to Main stream campaign as “a -eat example of how things come together and then fall apart.” Developed by a ;roup of profes sional women in respon i to the Oregon Citizens A lliance’s 15‘ 8 victory, the campaign foreshadowec the burgeoning visibility of the gay righ :; struggle in the 1990s, as well as the deb res about assim ilation and class that c • ttinue to strain our movement 10 years iter. Continued from Page 19 haven’t achieved our objectives, but it may not make a difference if everybody feels satisfied." Many agree that we have fewer charismatic leaders who rally the community around them than we had in the past. But perhaps more importantly, we have little unified sense of a single gay community. “The community is so much bigger now, so much less cohesive,” reflects Powell, who served 10 years on the board of Right to Privacy (now Right to Pride). The sentiment is echoed by Harriet Merrick, the vice chair of Basic Rights Oregon and a leader in Eugene in the early 1970s alongside Randy Shilts and Carol Queen. “We don’t have one community; we’re a composite of many communities and sub groups,” she notes. A s a result, there are queer leaders doing pio neering work who may not be visible outside of their constituency. Portland resident Diana Courvant, for exam ple, is changing the way domestic and sexual violence organizations across the country respond to trans and intersex survivors of abuse. The Portland-based Lesbian Community Project, through the leadership of organizer Deke Law and board chair Liz Deuker, is gaining national recognition for its work on gender and sex identity and intergenerational organizing. The leadership structures of the court system and service clubs continue to flourish among the Cor nued on Page 23 Kathleen Saadat Jerry Weller Portrait of a Past Leader U 1 lo w did one gay activist in the late 1960s meet his mate? Painting red fists on white T-shirts in preparation for the takeover of the college administration building, of course. T hat’s how Jerry Weller, founder and leader of gay organi zations of the 1970s and 1980s— both in Oregon and nation ally— met Bruce Muller, his life companion of 21 years. Like others of his generation, Weller quickly took his activism off the campus and into the streets. When he came out in 1969, Weller realized he would be deemed unfit for military service and could drop out of Penn State to devote himself to his primary passion, the anti-war movement. “I still remember being treated horribly at my draft board physical because everyone knew a faggot was there," Weller recalls. With his deferment secured, Weller headed for the front lines of the movement in Berkeley, Calif. Word on the street was that there was another Pennsylvanian in town, a woman living on Telegraph Avenue. Weller found the house and, while crashing there for three months, he formed a lifelong friendship with the •■*121 woman from his home state. She was Beverly Stein, now chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, whose pro-gay leadership Weller describes as “phenomenal." After returning to Pennsylvania to finish college, Weller and Muller made the obligatory “back to the land attempt.” Weller didn’t last long as a sixth-grade teacher in the isola tion of rural Maine. “1 was feeling my gayness," he says, his laugh rich with remembrance. “Gay men were at the height of celebrating our sexuality, joyously and raucously." Once again, California called. After rejoining Stein in a series of communal households in the Bay area, the three decided they were ready for a change of scene, took out a map, and picked Portland. Moving to Oregon in 1976 from the gay mecca by the Bay, Weller thought Portland was fabulous. “It had a gay bar scene to rival any on the West Coast— wild, wonderful bars," he says. “There were lots and lots of gay people, and a highly organized gay political community.” But Weller hadn’t just come for the party. He got to work right away with the Portland Town Council, where he served as executive director from 1976 to 1983, often exe cuting his duties while surviving on unemployment. PTC was unique in the nation as the only gay organiza tion at that time with a legislative arm, a political action committee to elect pro-gay politicians, and a foundation. The PAC was only the second of its kind in the country, and Weller served as the founding chair o f its successor, Right to Privacy. The foundation, which Weller started, evolved into Phoenix Rising Foundation, where a support group, in turn, gave rise to Cascade A ID S Project. Leadership was not a 9-to-5 occupation for Weller. “Sat urday nights I hit every bar in town— and not to drink. It’s where we organized,” he says. “PTC was grass-roots," Weller declares. "We worked around the state to organize volunteers, get people elected without much money, and turn out hundreds for lobby days.” The "fertile ground for organizing” Weller found in Ore gon also invigorated the movement on the national level. As early as 1973, gay and lesbian activists had brought a gay rights bill to within one vote of passage in the Oregon Legislature. With that and similarly successful campaigns to his credit, Weller was recruited to serve three terms as chair of the Gay Rights Lobby in Washington D.C., the predeces sor of the Human Rights Campaign. When PTC “fell apart because of in-fighting,” Weller moved to the nation’s capital to become executive director of Gay Rights Lobby, followed by a stint as executive direc tor of Chicago’s Howard Brown Memorial Clinic, the largest gay health clinic in the country. Weller moved back to Portland in 1986, as the A ID S epidemic was changing his life and the mover nt that had been at the center of his world. Facing care-gi > ng responsi bilities for Muller and other close friends, We i » r made a decision. “I needed to take care of myself, get a real c b with bene fits. I’d given a lot to the movement. There w i z other things I wanted to do in my life," he says. In February of this year, Weller accompani ( Stein to the Human Rights Campaign’s Portland fund-rais i ,j dinner. “1 used to know everyone,” he reflects. “T 1 » e I hardly knew any one.” The one remnant of his former prominenc is a leader was an encounter with Multnomah County C > nmissioner Diane Linn, who told Weller he was the first) e rson she’d ever met who was working for gay rights. When Weller looks at the movement toda , he appreci ates the staying power of many of the organizi ions he helped to start, but mourns the absence of the spirit that birthed them. He remembers: “There was a greater atmosphere of joy in gay community organizing at the time. It was about libera tion.” He correlates the shift with “class lines that lave become more defined than ever before,” pointing out that the queer community is a microcosm of society. “Right now, money is where it’s at,” Weller believes. Aside from pricey fund-raising events, Weller wonders where queer activists can go today to connect '\ith the larger movement. The answer, he hopes, is in a resurgence of nitty- gritty, grass-roots organizing. In addition to the difficulty the gay commt r tty has “working together across class lines, ages lines, 1 t alone the big one, race,” Weller notes our “tendency to ’ i 1 the leader.” Weller believes: “Infighting killed a lot of i volvem ent. I could fight Lon Mabon my whole life, but I a a t take the infighting.” The community as a whole, Weller thinks, f is learned not to fight as badly against itself. The scars fir >i;i the earlier struggles are still there, however, as Weller ass :r s, “ I would not take a position of leadership again. I don’t have the internal strength." These days, this charismatic leader o f the p m;t is content to play “a very small role doing what I can” or m e board of Our House of Portland. And he takes it as a g. * >d sign that he knew so few at the H RC event. “We used to have one organization and no many people who were out,” Weller concludes. “Now all th st: people are coming out. As a result, the movement, and o it leadership, is much more diffuse." ■ Reported by HOLLY PRUETT
