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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 2003)
Q u e e r - view mirror ummer heated up when Love Welcomes All, a queer positive faith celebration, was held in June in response to Focus on the Family tmeking into Clackamas an anti-Ray workshop touting that queers could go straight throuRh faith and repara tive therapy. With help from Basic Rights Oregon, organizers of Love Welcomes All reunited later in the year to present a forum for Portlands progressive reli gious community that addressed separation of Gay performer Wade McCollum became the darling of Portland’s 2003 theater scene, starting with civil marriage rites from his revival of the title role of Hedwig caul the Angry Inch at triangle productions! that earned him a sacred ceremonies. Drammy Award. McCollum went on to star in his original musical titled One before confirming his Less than a week after star status with Portland Center Stage’s Bat Boy: The M usical. the July announcement Scouts of America. Steve Wagenhoffer and partner Mitchell that Mayor Katz wouldn’t seek a fourth term came news that Zahn have two sons who were handed Scout recruitment her gay chief of staff, Sam Adams, resigned to pursue other literature to bring home that included the Scout oath in political aspirations. Adams’ campaign, however, was on-again, which boys promise to “do my best to do my duty to G od and off-again as he bounced among races for Portland City Council, my country an d ...to keep myself...morally straight.” The dis U.S. Congress, Portland mayor and hack to City Council, where trict later apologized for handing the literature to students he remains a candidate in the 2004 election. hut by federal law continued to allow the Scouts to distribute Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced in August the appoint materials at the school. Officials are re-examining policies, ment of Oregon Court of Appeals judge Rives Kistler to serve hut Wagenhoffer said: “We already have a big victory. It is as a justice on the Oregon Supreme Court— likely the first time very clear now to all PPS principals that Boy Scout literature in U.S. history that an openly gay person has been appointed to does nrit get distributed to teachers to give to their students; a state’s highest court. it won’t he going home in backpacks anymore.” Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker announced his resigna And last hut not least, Ju st O ut in November celebrated tion Aug. 29, ending a three-year tenure filled with charges of 20 years as the newspaper for Portland’s sexual minorities increased brutality and decreased accountability among officers, not to mention the tape recordings of Kroeker’s disparaging community. in comments calling homosexuals perverse. Taking over was Assis Features Editor TIMOTHY KRAUSE can be reached at tant Chief Derrick Foxworth, who chaired the Sexual Minori tim@justout.com. ties Roundtable for more than a year. A Portlanders Joyce Arend (left) and Laura Lonac were married July 18 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the first couple from Oregon to tie the knot since the province’s Court of Appeals legalized same-sex marriage July 8, following a similar ruling in Ontario. Nearly six months later, Arend said, “ It feels great to circle ‘married’ whenever there are forms or publications to be filled out.” And, she added, they plan to file a joint income tax return this year. a say C on tin u ed from P age 2 7 Continued from Page 27 gay father filed a formal complaint in September with Portland Public Schools alleging that the district cre ates a hostile learning environment by supporting the Boy H aving FatGirl Speaks: A Celebration of Size and Sexuality sold out Hollywood Theatre on May 3 and led to the creation of a new nonprofit organization called Fat Action Troupe Portland (FAT PDX). Organizer Stacy Bias now plans to make the queer- friendly, body-positive extravaganza an annual event, moving the big gathering in 2004 to the bigger Roseland Theatre. Next year’s event will welcome back the Fat-Bottom Revue girls (below). Bias, incidentally, also oversees TechnoDyke.com, a Portland-based lesbian Web site voted Out magazine's Hottest Site of the Year for 2003 in June. “Madison Avenue should love this show. It’s about how you can make over yourself, but you have to go shopping first. I think it’s disturbing and almost spooky.... The show is all about gay and straight people getting along. How do you do that? With gel, lotion and perfume.... It almost makes me laugh." — Robert Thompson of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television, in reference to Bravo’s Queer Bye for the Straight Guy , to The Boston Globe, July 24- “Suddenly it crossed over and it became much more commercial and now you can find gay at Target." — Actress Sandra Bernhard on the VH1 program Totally Gay, Sept. 19. 'T o me, that’s not a reality show about gay people. A really good reality show for gay people would be five gay men dying of AIDS." — Montana Family Coalition executive director Julie Millam on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, to The Billings Gazette, Sept. 10. “Boys Meets Boy is old news, but I gotz to go there. No one wants to talk about what happened in the final episode. Amcri- ca witnessed two supreme bottom beings pretending to be the perfect match. How is that winning?" — Columnist Paulo Murillo in the Los Angeles gay newspaper fab!, Nov. 7. “Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. Today’s decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this important principle. I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage.” — President George W. Bush, Nov. 18. “We have had civil unions in this state for three years, and as far as I can tell, it hasn’t hurt anybody’s marriage.’’ — Presidential candidate and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to Lo6 Angeles' Lesbian News, November. “W hen legislation in favor o f the recognition o f homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor o f a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.” — The Vatican in the July 31 document “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons." “T h ey’d better think long and hard before they push this, because they’re going to have a war on their hands. A real m ovem ent for an am endm ent will electrify this community and bring about an entire new generation o f dissent and civil disobedience.” — Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner (Angels m America) on a proposed constitutional same-sex marriage ban, to The New York Times, Nov. 23. “I myself have no interest in get ting married and quite enjoy the law as an excuse. 1 just want to be slut and not pay any alimony.” —Gay BBC America talk show host Graham Norton to Palm Springs’ The Bottom Line, Sept 19.
