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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 17, 2005)
36 »june 17.2005 Continued from Page 35 ascended through the Cascades, where a spring snowfall had dumped 8 inches on the woods around me. It was snowing heavily, but the roads “I’d been up to visit a few times,” says Hanna, 54, were relatively clear from the passage of log “and 1 always enjoyed myself here. When rhe business trucks. The Ponderosa pine trunks stood opportunity fell into my lap, 1 decided to move.” reddish-orange and were covered on their west Hanna admits that Bend is a smaller town than he is ern surfaces by a dense powder. accustomed to, having lived in both Phix-nix and San As I followed the Rogue Francisco. He sees the gay scene as small, but growing. River down toward Medford, “It is not formal; there is no center or club or bar. Here Despite the fatigue the snow turned to rain, and a lot of people meet through the Internet or at informal associated with his sick the trees turned dense and gatherings. You have to be introduced into the scene.” ness, Foust works doggedly shaggy—Douglas firs and He enjoys going to a monthly gay men’s dinner, for queer visibility in Sitka spruces covering dark, which is held at a kxal restaurant and generally attracts Southern Oregon. His ferny undergrowth. The river 25 to 30 people. devotion is evident, and he was animated with rain and “I’m noticing a lot of people who are moving here is quick to laugh despite full of fishermen seeking trout identify as gay or lesbian, bur there still isn’t a kind of the obstacles of organizing with slow sinking lines. central meeting place. I’m not accustomed to being an in a conservative area of At Medford, I stopped for organizer, but I may have to do something here.” ' the state. coffee and called Jeffrey Hanna hopes to start a Frontrunners chapter in “Things just keep com Foust, the Southern Oregon Bend, and maybe even hold a fun run as a Pride event ing up. I can’t drop the field director for Basic Rights next year. ball. There has to be per Oregon. He invited me down “As far as 1 know, this year there may be someone Grants Pass ’ finest can be found hanging sistence in the movement, to Ashland for lunch, so 1 organizing a picnic, but that’s it.” out at the Green Room. as well as consistency. We headed south and was greeted In terms of the drawbacks of life in Bend, Hanna all feel like second-class citi- by a congenial group that had notes that although it appears very liberal, there is a zens in this area, and that has to change. We’ve made a assembled to have lunch and talk about life in queer strong and well-organized Christian right community, choice to live here, and the work is more important Ashland. fueled by a right-wing radio station. Foust is a tall, gregarious man who was dressed in an here.” “I’ve had conservative people come to my business I Support SB 1000” T-shirt. He Most recently, the Ashland community has had to wanting me to write letters went to Eagle Point High School respond to incidences of gay-bashing and hateful notes against Ben Westlund [the posted around the Southern Oregon University campus. in a small community outside Republican House mem Ashland and describes the flores The tide of right-wing rhetoric and plain old ignorance ber who sponsored civil is generating a challenge for activists in this town, cence of the queer community in union legislation]. Ashland 20 years ago, before it which on the surface looks calm and relatively liberal. Sometimes I wonder how Over lunch, 1 got to know the majority of the was decimated by HIV and out I want to be here. It is AIDS. When his friends started AbiIl-Ellis Community Center’s board. Chairwoman very different from places dying, he became active with Danielle Mancuso is also head of the Queer Resource I’ve lived before. I’ve ACT UP and Queer Nation and Center at SOU. Originally from New York, the 27- never lived in a rural set W*P0H1 spent time in Boise (where he year-old lived in Seattle before she made her way to ting like this where 1 B inr»* ’ helped start the Idaho capital’s Ashland. At first she was scared to move to a small depend on customers, first gay Pride Parade), Portland town, and found a small community of queer people, gay or otherwise, for the and Los Angeles. When he life of my business. It’s a many older and partnered. became sick himself, he moved “I’ve never been more conscious of how we come out challenge." Jeffrey Foust and Danielle Mancuso work every day,” she says. She acknowledges that her political Derek Hanna is will back to his hometown. In together to keep Ashland the kind of place ing to take that challenge, Ashland, he has been active work around visibility has also caused her to get back in where they want to live. and it seems apparent that with Jackson County Demcxzrats, touch with anger she knew as a younger person. small-town life will make an activist out of him. helping with John Kerry’s presidential campaign, as well “When something happens to challenge my identity, as spearheading the No on 36 movement there. 1 feel angry again,” she says. “But this work doesn’t take “We didn’t do ads or radio spots. We did direct mail anger, it takes compassion." and knocked on a lot of doors. So many doors. We got Matthew' Reynolds is attending graduate sch<x>l in In the morning I took Highway 97 south through the about 37 percent of the vote in Jackson County, which I Ashland, in preparation for teaching high school drama. flat high desert. I turned west toward Crater Like and consider a great victory,” he recalls. 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