So F ar ,
SO good
The Rural Organizing Project has been pulling together
people from every comer of Oregon for 10 years
by
T om S tevenson
ts a simple little house, nestled between a commercial area
and a quaint neighborhood in a small Oregon town.
I
Inside that little house, however, many fabulous things are
being done to benefit generations to come. The dedicated
people doing the work have made a profound impact on the
lives of every gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans person who calls
Oregon home.
Big things happen in this little house
They accomplish their work on a budget that at times is tight.
They accomplish their work because they believe until it is safe to
be a gay person living out in the most remote section of Oregon,
no one is actually safe. They fight for farmworkers just as hard as
they fight for sexual minorities. They remind us that much work
remains to be done.
They are the folks who make up the Rural Organizing Project.
That little house sits in Scappoose, a small town just a short dis
tance from Portland but in many ways a world apart. Co-directors
Marcy Westerling and Kelley Weigel, along with two other staff
members, pull together people from literally every comer of Ore
gon to accomplish some of the most amazing tasks imaginable.
All of those who have benefited from the work of ROP can
thank Lon Mabon in a weird sort of way. Had it not been for the
Oregon Citizens Alliance’s attempts to wreak havoc on the gay
community, ROP never might have come to be.
Yet, as so many people have noted during the past nine years
since that first major fight, he actually started a dialogue in Ore
gon that never really had taken place. Certainly every family had
a gay uncle or a lesbian neighbor, but the topic was not something
that was discussed over the dinner table in Klamath Falls, Bums,
Brookings or The Dalles.
“Every family in this state had to talk about it,” says Wester
ling, who was the driving force in the formation of this one-of-a-
kind grassroots organization. “Before then, it was there, but they
didn’t have to talk about it. What we did was say: ‘OK, since
you’re talking about it, maybe we can tell you about it. Maybe we
can tell you the truth.’ ”
An informational handout describes the ROP mission: “The
Rural Organizing Project supports the growing grassroots move
ment for social justice in small-town, rural and frontier Oregon.
Since 1991, rural Oregonians have been organizing human dignity
groups across the state to uphold the values of democracy and
inclusion in their communities with the support of the ROP.
Member groups seek local, community-based ways to promote
common values around social justice and come together to affect
issues statewide through the ROP.”
More than 50 groups, along with countless individuals, consti
tute ROP. The staff works closely with a board that includes resi
dents of such diverse counties as Josephine, Lake, Coos and
Columbia.
Working hand in hand with human dignity groups is truly the
backbone of ROP. The organization focuses on four “justice areas”:
racial, democratic, gender and economic. Collaborating with
groups such as the Illinois Valley Task Force on Social Justice in