6 j M t mmt »march. 17. 2QQQ
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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.