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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.