6 j M t mmt »march. 17. 2QQQ nTiTTTTWrCTlnews This should make you comfortable. s mom mokes her way »0 McMinnville by K»ty David«» A recent meeting of Fusion, Linfield College’s gay-straight alliance Jerry Poirier cares more about your best interest than making a sale. Isn’t that comforting? Placing your needs and goals above his own creates happy clients. Happy clients mean more business for Jerry — which makes him happy. Simple, isn’t it? Call Jerry today, and let him make you happy. Jerry Poirier Sales Associate ( 503 ) 284-7755 pager 909-4964 e-mail jerrypoirier@aol.com o W inderm ere Cronin S l Captan Realty Group, Inc. 1607 NE 41st Ave. Portland, OR 97232 Wenty-two-year-old Melodee Smith makes activism look easy. Last spring, when a few party­ going female impersonators report­ edly were verbally and physically harassed at a Linfield College fraternity, Smith urged the campus’s gay-straight alliance, Fusion, to strike back with some proactive force. “We wanted to bring in someone big,” says the freshly graduated Linfield alumna. After a year of hard work, Fusion will present speaker Betty DeGeneres— who could be dubbed America’s favorite queer-friendly mom— on April 1 at the McMinnville Commu­ nity Center. Betty will kick off Linfield’s “Sexuality Week,” in which Fusion and other campus groups will present speakers, workshops and safe-sex talks. Fusion’s original goal was to bring Betty’s daughter, Ellen, former star of a self-titled sitcom and currently on the small screen in H B O ’s If These Walls Could Talk 2. Sm ith says Fusion specifically sought out Ellen because of the pier- former’s patented Melodee Smith quirk-driven humor and the guts she’s demonstrated since coming out publicly. “Ellen didn’t have to come out on TV,” Smith notes. “We like that she has accepted the fact that she’s a role model.” But Fusions hopes of securing Ellen were doused— after eight months of planning, no less— when group members realized their budget had met its match— and lost. “She wanted four times the amount her mom wanted,” Smith says. So Fusion turned to Betty. After Ellen came out in 1997, Betty revital­ ized her career by becoming an activist for les­ bian and gay rights. Betty, who says she did not even suspect Ellen was gay before she came out publicly, now speaks all over the country about the importance of diversity. She also answers three questions a week in an Internet-based column called "Ask Betty” on PlanetOut. She tells Just Out that many of the questions come from teen-agers seeking advice about how to deal with their parents. “I recommend PFLAG so much, I sound like a broken record," Betty explains. “It’s just a wonderful organization. 1 always say, ‘Keep the lines of communi- ' cation open, you never know when a parent will turn around.’ ” As for the changes she has experienced in her own life since her daughter came out, Betty says: “My horizons have been broadened so much. I’ve met some amazing people- if people from the extreme religious right could meet the peo­ ple I’ve met, I think they’d abandon their beliefs completely." Though she now lives in Los Angeles to be closer to her chil­ dren, Betty is no stranger to rural com­ munities. She’s spoken at smaller colleges where much of the quest ion-and-answ er periods were filled with inquiries regarding the Bible. Two years ago, she traveled through rural Oregon with lesbian activist Candace G in­ grich on an equality tour sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay and lesbian political group. This time around, Betty will deliver in McMinnville a lecture titled Unity through Diversity. Smith says one of the most special parts about bringing Betty is that she will actually speak in McMinnville, not in Portland. Where­ as many queer Portlanders believe their city to be somewhat of an epicenter of community action, Fusion knows the importance of having Betty speak where many people might not oth­ erwise be exposed to her. “We thought about holding it in Portland, but we knew that not everyone has a car,” she says. “We wanted to bring her to a small com­ munity.” Jeff McKay, Linfield’s former activities direc­ tor, reiterates Fusion’s desire to bring Betty to an otherwise out-of-the-way community. “They wanted to bring a speaker that would address G LB T issues not only to the students, but to all of Linfield and the greater Portland community,” he says. McKay has been providing organi­ zational guidance since Fusion fast sought out a prominent speaker; he taught the group to take into consid­ eration security and ticket sales, as well as other logistical items on the to- do list. To bring Betty to McMinnville, Fusion has worked in conjunction with several campus and community groups, including Linfield’s multicul­ tural programming board, activities board and student senate. Smith, who first got involved with Fusion when she was a freshman, says that during the last four years the group has evolved drastically to mirror the student body. “The campus diversity has grown so much even since my freshman year,” she says. “Now Fusion is a gay-straight alliance, not just ‘the gay club.’ ” In fact, out of a stu­ dent population of 1,800 at the Baptist- affiliated college, Fusion is now one of the most active groups on campus. And bringing Betty to McMin­ nville is Fusion’s most notable achievement to date. Says Smith: “We hope she will reach the parents and families." ■ B e t t y D e G eneres will deliver her lecture, Unity Through Diversity, at 7 p m . Apnl 1 at the McMinnville Community Center. Tickets cost $8 to $26. For more information, call (503) 434-2685. K aty D avidson is a Just Out staff uniter who practices stand-up comedy in her spare time so she can one day achieve a self-titled prime time sitcom- just like Ellen. G ay - friendly A ction T he Portland City Council voted 5-0 on March 15 to join a friend-of-the- court brief that favors requiring the Boy Scouts o f America to admit gay men. T he brief is before the U-S. Supreme Court, which is slated to hear arguments in Dale vs. Boy Scouts of America at the end of April. James Dale is the New Jersey scout­ master who was removed from the Scouts after the organization learned he is gay. New Jersey courts subsequently ruled the organization is a public enterprise that may not discriminate based on sexual ori­ entation. Portland city officials have an interest in the Dale case because a ruling backing the Scouts’ gay ban could perhaps under­ cut the city’s civil rights ordinance pto- hibiting discrimination based on sexua orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations.