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
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