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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2005)
In support off Dan Ryan’s school board candidacy To the E ditor : e support Dan Ryan’s candidacy for the Zone 4 position for the Portland Public Schixil Board. He cares about all of our children and the future of our city. He is both highly committed and highly qualified for this position. Dan grew up in Portland and graduated from Rcxisevelt High Schrxtl. Our city and its public schools have helped shape his entire life. He believes todays students deserve at least the strong start in life that he received from attend ing Portland schixrls. He has shown his com mitment to Portland’s students by volunteering in our local sch<x>ls for the past eight years. This experience has given him firsthand knowledge of the challenges that face our schixils both at rhe classroom and the district level. Dan has both the skills and demonstrated commitment to help meet those challenges. As the director of development for Portland State University, he has helped lead efforts to raise millions of dollars to support students. He also has 18 years of management experience working in community organizations, building the kind of trust and accountability that tax payers rightly expect from the schixil district. He will work to ensure that every dollar we invest in our schools contributes to raising the achievement levels of all students. Dan also offers us the opportunity to elect an openly gay man who will serve as a role model for many in our community. He has worked for social justice throughout his life, most recently as a member of Equity Foundation. He has proven he will speak out for the basic rights of all people. We encourage all voters in Portland to vote for Dan Ryan for the Portland Public Schtxil Board. H olly P ruett , K athleen S ad a at , D on P owell , B arbara W iller Portland Log Cabin Republican weighs in on pope, Ronald Reagan E ditor : n the Sunday morning following rhe death of Pope John Paul 11, I was watching the regular call-in show broadcast internationally by C-SPAN. Many people called in from around the world to praise the life and accomplishments of the pope. Judging from the comments, rhe pope apparently left a positive, value-oriented legacy for people of all political stripes. Then suddenly a man called and identified himself as a “gay person.” He spoke in a hideous ly hateful, effeminate tone, stating that the pope opposed gay marriage and that “he should burn in hell.” 1 was immediately repulsed and sickened by the gay man’s diatribe, yet these sort of vile statements are not uncommon among many left-wing gay activists. When I think further of the C-SPAN caller, 1 am amazed at how reckless his contempt was. While the pope did not support gay marriage, he was nothing but compassionate toward gay peo ple, particularly those living with HIV and AIDS. In fact, if there is one area where John To the transitions Dennis Bigelow, 1953-2005 I concentrating on smaller shows such as Triangle Productions’ Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He was slated to direct Artists Repertory Theatre’s Take Me Out in May and Triangle’s The Rocky Horror ennis Bigelow—widely acclaimed as one of Show in June. Portland’s best theater directors ever—was “He was fearless and totally unpredictable as found dead in his downtown apartment a director,” actress Kathy Morison told The March 29. He was 52. Sacramento Bee. “He would throw a cross Bigelow was bom in Altoona, Pa. He attend dressing production of What the Butler Saw inter ed Franklin and Marshall College and Pennsyl spersed with the sweet and sappy Gift of the vania State University. Magi. He woke...audiences up and then made He came to Ashland as an Oregon Shake them feel comfortable and at home in the same speare Festival stage manager in 1975. He served breath.” as artistic director of the Sacramento Theatre He is survived by his mother, Marie, of Company from 1983 to 1988, as the first pro ■ Altoona. ducer of Portland Center Stage from 1988 to A memorial will be held 7 p.m. April 18 at 1992 and later as artistic director of Portland Artists Rep, 1516 S.W. Alder St. Bigelow’s ashes Repertory Theatre. will be scattered in Altoona, New York City and After that company’s demise in 1998, he Portland, where a public celebration of his life worked as a Commodore Hotel bartender while will be held in August. D Paul is criticized, it is in his barely audible criticism of priests who sexually molested chil dren and cost the Catholic Church billions in lawsuits. This hatred for the pope reminds me of many left-wing gay activists who blamed Ronald Rea gan for AIDS. Reagan did nothing and said nothing about AIDS, so go the charges. But that is a malicious lie told by a generation of gay activists. In the early 1980s health officials from the National Institutes of Health fanned out across the nation to visit gay community centers. They gently warned about the transmission of HIV. Yet the gay community did not want to listen to a right-wing government tell them that their lifestyle was killing them. Consequently, most gays stayed in denial a few more years until enough gay people died, creating a large nation al gay movement to mobilize to extend people’s lives. In fact, the Reagan administration sent out the most sexually explicit, taxpayer-funded manual to more than 100 million households to educate Americans about safe sex. Reagan never hated gays; he was a compas sionate man. But so many gays were, and still are, so blinded by hate that they took all the credit for America turning toward safe-sex prac tices and deceitfully blamed Reagan for the death of hundreds of thousands of gay people. Such vitriol is totally counterproductive for the gay movement. Rather than gather inspira tion from John Paul and Reagan for liberating much of the world, which would certainly include millions of gay people, these bitter anti social gays choose hate to define themselves and their community. M atthew V eritas T sien Florida Gold Coast Log Cabin Republicans ire Motors, Inc. MATERIALS and RESOURCES for EUERUDRU ARTISTS Complete Foreign Car Repair & Service Muse A rt+Design 4224 SE Hawthorne Blvd 503.231.8704 museartanddesign.com • Quality Semcss Guaranteed • Serving Downtown Portland Since 1968 equip I infopm I iqspire LINNTON FEED & SEED. NOT THE MALL. 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