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