Greensboro to move forward on domestic partnership benefits
Article taken from Yes! Weekly Paper
Jordan Green
News editor
After waiting in vain for guidance from the office of the NC Attorney General, Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday is putting aside caution about cohabitation and crimes against nature, pledging to move forward this month to implement a policy extending domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian employees of the city of Greensboro.
The city has been frustrated by efforts to get guidance from Attorney General Roy Cooper on whether providing benefits to domestic partners would violate state policy and expose the city to lawsuits. A Feb. 22 letter from Kelly Chambers, the state's special counsel for development and diversity, advised the mayor that the city has the authority to define the term "dependents" for the purpose of purchasing insurance for employees and their family members "so long as the definition of dependent is not illegal or against the public policy of the state of North Carolina." Holliday wrote back seeking clarification, and Chambers replied in a second letter that the city would have to assess the risks of the policy on its own because "the Attorney General's office is not authorized to provide legal representation."
"The information back from the Attorney General did not give us what I considered a definitive answer," Holliday said. "We were asking for permission, so now I think we'll ask for forgiveness. I think we're going to go forward with a decision."
With the last communication from the Attorney General's office coming in March, the domestic partnership policy has been on the Greensboro City Council's backburner for four months now. The mayor said the budget and other items have commanded its attention.
"We have been going strong on so many issues, and I'm not saying the dust is settled," Holliday said. "It's just one of those issues that we've had on the desk for awhile, and we need to address it. August is an opportune time."
At-large Councilwoman Florence Gatten said City Manager Mitchell Johnson polled city council members in an informal meeting on July 25 to gauge their opinions. Gatten has been a vocal supporter of extending domestic partnership benefits to city employees.
City attorney Linda Miles said extending benefits to domestic partners was an administrative decision and wouldn't require a vote by city council. "Once council approves the budget, then the city manager has the authority to set all compensation, and that includes benefits," she said.
The city considered implementing a domestic partnership benefit for about two years, Holliday said. Greensboro would be the second city in the state to establish such a policy, after Durham, but the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro were the first local governments to do so. Durham and Orange counties have also extended benefits to domestic partners. The legality of Chapel Hill and Carrboro's policies have been upheld by a superior court judge in Orange County but the law has not been tested by a court with statewide jurisdiction.
The policies generally allow employees to add unmarried partners and their children to employer health plans and allow unmarried employees to take sick leave to care for their partner or family members. In the case of Chapel Hill, both same-sex and opposite-sex couples who live together in a relationship of indefinite duration, have an exclusive mutual commitment to each other and can demonstrate financial interdependence qualify for the benefits.
In his March 3 correspondence with Attorney General Cooper, Holliday asked: "Would it be against the public policy of the state of North Carolina for the city of Greensboro to provide domestic partner health benefits to same sex and unmarried opposite sex couples while there are currently laws on the books which prohibit any man or woman, not being married from cohabitating and which prohibit crimes against nature?"
He also asked: "Would it be a violation of equal protection under the federal and state constitutions for the city of Greensboro to choose to offer domestic partner health benefits to same sex couples while denying the benefit to unmarried opposite sex couples."
Reached by phone on July 26, spokesman William McKinney held fast to the Attorney General's refusal to provide answers, saying, "I don't think we're going to comment beyond what was in the letter."
The first item of concern in Holliday's correspondence was taken off the table with a July 20 state court decision declaring North Carolina's 201-year ban on cohabitation to be unconstitutional. Citing a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas sodomy law, State Superior Court Judge Benjamin Alford ruled that Debora Hobbs' constitutional rights were violated when the 911 dispatcher was fired from her job at the Pender County Sheriff's Office because she chose to live with her boyfriend.
It is unclear whether North Carolina's "crime against nature" statute poses any problem to the growing number of domestic partnership benefits policies across the state. The vaguely worded statute, which dates back to English common law under Henry VIII and was last revised in 1994, states that "if any person shall commit the crime against nature, with mankind or beast, he shall be punished as a Class I felon."
The two statutes appeared to have caused little problem for domestic partnership benefits policies in other North Carolina municipalities. In Durham and Chapel Hill, following a brief stir of passion around the time of their implementation, the policies have quietly become part of the fabric of life with little ongoing controversy.
"There were strong feelings on both sides when it was first implemented," said Michael McGinnis, a Durham human resources manager who helped develop the city's policy before it was implemented in 2003. "Once it was adopted, that has decreased over time. It's just an accepted practice. It's seen as a way to provide benefits to employees, to help us hire and retain."
Officials in Durham and Chapel Hill said their municipality's policies have made only a minor impact on budgets.
McGinnis estimated that between 10 and 15 employees are currently signed up for the city of Durham's domestic partnership benefits package, and the number fluctuates from month to month just as it does for married couples.
Chapel Hill's policy has come under legal attack twice. The first lawsuit was thrown out, town attorney Ralph Karpinos said, after the NC Press Association intervened, challenging the plaintiff's right to maintain anonymity. A second lawsuit was filed in the late 1990s on the grounds that the city did not have the authority to provide health benefits to the dependents of domestic partners.
"Part of the reason we got sued is when this first came up I looked at the law as best I could and I said I didn't think we had the authority to do it,'" Karpinos said. "I cited these cases around the country. We did it anyway, and we defended it."
Karpinos said at the time Chapel Hill was considering domestic partnership benefits the city of Atlanta ran into legal difficulties for its policy. Later, the city revised its policy and the courts upheld its legality.
"Number one, we have a court order upholding what we did," Karpinos said. "Number two, my initial opinion was based on the law at that time, and there has been a subsequent policy. The law is evolving in this case."
Mayor Holliday said despite his earlier concern about the city running afoul of equal protection law he expects that Greensboro would extend domestic partnership benefits solely to same-sex couples because opposite-sex couples would have the option of getting married.
For Gary Palmer, assistant vice president for community affairs at Replacements Limited, a domestic partnership benefit would be the reward for almost three years of advocacy since he and other members of the Human Relations Commission first started developing a policy proposal. Palmer has since left the commission, but he interviewed city council candidates last year to gauge their attitudes. "My understanding is that it should not be a problem," he said. "During the last election I talked to a lot of people about whether they would support domestic partnership benefits. The answer I got was that 'if it's legal we should do it.' When I have done phone interviews with candidates we have had a pretty accepting group of people. Even some people who were pretty conservative on other things were supportive of this."
To comment on this story, e-mail Jordan Green at jordan@yesweekly.com
17-year-old Devon McCauley started dressing like a girl last year.
Greensboro, NC -- High school can be hard for any teenager struggling with self-identity and trying to fit in. One Greensboro senior is facing a very unique challenge.
"My gender is female. People think that gender and sex are the same thing, but sex is like your physical whatever and gender is like your mind," says Devon McCauley.
Devon started dressing like a girl last year, but always felt like one inside.
"I wanted to be straight. I wanted to be normal. I didn't want all these weird feelings. I didn't want to go to hell."
But the feelings didn't go away.
"I tried to commit suicide three times because of my homosexuality. I did a lot of drugs to try to escape from those feelings."
Devon is clean now and feeling better about being transgender.
"Whenever I dress as a boy, I'm always really uncomfortable. I don't feel like I can express myself or move any way I want to. When I'm a girl I'm really powerful."
But that doesn't change how others feel.
"Some guy walks by me everyday in school and yells 'You should kill yourself.'"
"If there was something I could do about it I would because I don't think anyone should have to go through this."
WFMY News 2
Jill McNeal , Reporter
created: 2/16/2007 9:08:24 PM
Last updated: 2/16/2007 11:26:58 PM
An ad campaign's heart: Straights who back gays
Cecelia Thompson
Print Email this Article By Jeri Rowe
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO -- Some call Cecelia Thompson the Grace of Greensboro.
She's straight, outspoken and calls a gay man, Ivan Canada, one of her best friends. That's the "Will & Grace'' tie-in. And like Will and Grace from the TV universe, she and Canada do almost everything together in their universe: shop, bar-hop, see movies, hold dinner parties and eat Thai food every Friday night.
But it's Thompson's belief in social justice, something she first learned about from her grandmother, that could provoke some thoughtful discussion, even outrage, around these parts.
She's spearheading an ad campaign that starts today in the News & Record and Go Triad, spotlighting straight people who support Greensboro's gay community. The catch phrase: "We're straight, but not narrow.''
And what's Thompson's interest? It's her job. She's the executive director for the Guilford Green Foundation, the United Way for Greensboro's gay community. She's the non-profit's first executive director. And she's only 23.
"It has to do with being young ... but I look at the atmosphere today, and it makes me want to go to the JP building with a microphone,'' she said. "I don't care. I may be a little bit ignorant of the mind set, but why put an X on people?''
During its 10-year existence, Guilford Green has blossomed in Greensboro, a city with a history of tolerance dating back to the Revolutionary War.
The nonprofit has created a $300,000 endowment fund, one of the few gay organizations nationwide to have one. The endowment ensures financial stability and helps support a gifting program that has grown every year.
Five years ago, Guilford Green handed out $19,000 in grants to gay and gay-friendly organizations. This year, the figure was $53,000. In the past two years, the group has raised nearly $500,000 and gone more mainstream with the popular social event, Green Queen Bingo, and a holiday wreath auction.
The ad campaign shows Guilford Green's more serious side. It's a move to make the nonprofit more visible, expand its reach and shore up its credibility across the Triad.
And it's all Thompson's idea. She discovered the ad idea during a gay fund-raising conference this spring in Seattle. She came back to Greensboro and told her board chairman, Brian Cockman: "We need to do this.''
"(Her being straight) gives credence to the fact that you don't have to be gay or lesbian to care about gay or lesbian issues,'' Cockman said. "And the fact that she's young and white dispels a lot of stereotypes as well -- that young people can't be socially conscious.''
The ad comes at a time when gay and lesbian rights, particularly the idea of same-sex marriage, have become a hot-button issue nationwide. And local gay rights advocates say they believe the ad could make some people uncomfortable, even upset.
But Thompson doesn't see it that way. She sees it as a thank-you for Guilford Green's straight allies and as the right thing to do.
The need for inclusiveness is something she learned from her free-thinking grandmother, Helen Thompson, a woman she called "Mu.'' That's why a 1976 campaign poster for Jimmy Carter hangs above her home computer. She believes in his ideals.
And that's why Thompson often tells people she's not the only Grace of Greensboro.
"Believe me,'' she's told them. "We can all be Grace.''
See Addison Ore's column in Go Triad for a personal perspective on the straight ally campaign.
Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jrowe@news-record.
Local Greensboro Hotel Denies Transgender Group A Night Stay!
Time to spread the word. I contacted the Battleground Inn in Greensboro NC for the up coming group social for February the 10th. I talked with the manager about blocking off 10 rooms for us and that we normally stay at the Biltmore Greensboro Hotel Downtown but they are sold out on this date. She then told me they had 30 vacancies . Then after I gave her my information I told her the name of the group is TransCarolina and that we are a transgender group. She then told me that she was the manager at the Ramada Inn in Burlington in the past and had experience with Transgenders there. Then she told me that she did not want to deal with us staying there at the Battleground Inn. She was very unfriendly after that, in shock all I could say was thank you then I hung up the telephone.
I hope everyone that reads this now understands what the HRC is about. I hope everyone will tell their friends about this and boycott the Battleground Hotel. I will be writing the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce as I hope you will. Also the Greensboro Better Business Bureau.
I feel like when we come to Greensboro our money is the same as others. We have in the past shopped in downtown and had dinner or lunch in several of the local restaurants without a problem. I feel that this was not right to be refused because we are different. I know all of you are not Transgenders, we are who we are. This practice I thought was in the past ,but I guess not.
Love Ya's Janice Allison
Greensboro does not normally practice this issue. Janice and the TransCarolina visits Greensboro almost every other month and stays in the downtown Biltmore Greensboro Hotel. You will find many of the ladies walking around downtown in full dress going to the local restruants and clubs, they shop and enjoy downtown before going to the Warehouse 29 Club.
TransCarolina have never had a problem at the Biltmore Hotel according to the staff there. They are a great group of people that are very warm and very freindly. We welcome them whenever they want to come and stay wiht here at the Biltmore! We have become to think of them as family and great friends everyone at the Biltmore has said. TransCarolina has changed the date of the group coming to Greensboro so that they could stay at the Biltmore Greensboro Hotel. Welcome back home and we look forward to seeing you here in Greensboro.
Gay men at helm of North Carolina’s Human Relations Commissions
Greensboro’s Wayne Abraham and High Point’s Paul Siceloff reach out to help their communities
by David Moore . Q-Notes staff
Week of December 21, 2006
Despite the notion that it’s hard to be out and proud and politically involved in a small town, two North Carolina men are living exactly that life in two distinctively different towns.
Paul Siceloff is the chairperson of the High Point Human Relations Commission.
Paul Siceloff, 50, became the Chairperson of the High Point Human Relations Commission earlier this year.
Siceloff grew up in High Point, though he attended college in Spartanburg, S.C., and later spent many years living in Raleigh, N.C.
“I spent the last 12 years in Raleigh,” Siceloff explains. “I moved back here two years ago to work with the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival.”
Professionally, Siceloff works as a freelancer, helping art and performance organizations with administration needs and marketing communications.
His role as chair of the commission is a volunteer position, though that doesn’t make him any less committed.
“This is a small town,” says Siceloff. “The population is about 90,000 and they tend to lean politically to the right — they’re pretty conservative. I find it to be an energizing challenge to reach out to these people and help broaden their perspectives.”
When the commission’s Director Al Heggins took on the job with High Point three years ago — she set out to include all aspects of the town’s diverse population — including the LGBT community.
It was at the behest of Louisa Hart of the High Point Theatre that Heggins appointed Siceloff.
“She’s been absolutely great,” says Siceloff. “She’s very supportive of the gay community.”
This past September for High Point’s Racial Equality Inclusive Communities Week, Siceloff was responsible for bringing together representatives of the media to speak to the public about representation of minority communities.
“We talked about coverage of ethnic, religious and the gay and lesbian community,” Siceloff recalls. “It was a very enlightening experience for a number of people.
“As a whole, we work on issues of race relations between the black and white communities, although that’s not our exclusive concern. We’re committed to creating better understanding between all the differences in our community, be they ethnic, cultural, religious or of a sexual orientation nature.”
In the upcoming year Siceloff plans to continue working with the High Point community to foster better relations by holding panel discussions with representatives of the Jewish, Islamic and Christian faiths. He also plans to screen topical films to initiate further dialogue.
‘Guilford is a blue county. Fairly liberal. It’s a good place for gays to live.’
— Greensboro Human Relations Commission Chair Wayne Abraham.
“This past year we screened ‘Crash,’” Siceloff recalls. “That was a very dynamic film and represented a broad cross section of the population, so a lot of people could relate to it. The dialogue that was generated as a result of the screening was amazing.”
Despite Siceloff’s enthusiasm, he admits much of the population has a way to go with issues regarding the LGBT community.
“Homosexuality is not broadly enough on the plate here,” he offers. “It’s still a very closeted community and not very gay friendly in some aspects — but that’s why I think it’s important for people to step up to the plate and offer their services, especially if they are gay or lesbian living in a small town like High Point. It educates and informs people who otherwise might not know a gay person.”
In decidedly more liberal Greensboro, N.C., openly gay Wayne Abraham, 47, is chair of that town’s Human Relations Commission.
“Guilford is a blue county,” says Abraham. “Fairly liberal. It’s a good place for gays to live.”
Abraham is very politically active in Greensboro — he’s one of the founders of the Triad Health Project and a former president of the organization. He’s also the chair for the Democratic Party in the sixth congressional district.
His interest in human equality and politics are what set him on the path to his role as chair of the Greensboro Human Relations Commission.
“I asked one of the city council members to nominate me,” he says matter-of-factly. “This is my fourth year with the commission.”
Abraham grew up in Maine, but has called Greensboro home for the past 29 years. He shares his life with his partner of 14 years, who is a teacher at a nearby school.
For the two of them, one recent accomplishment by the commission holds particular significance.
“We were able to get Greensboro to add domestic partnership benefits for city employees,” Abraham beams. “People could start signing up at the beginning of this month. It takes effect Jan. 1.
“It’s extremely rewarding for me to see how my work can have a positive impact on the community.”
GAY & Out, Trying to join the Armed Forces: Arrested!
   
The photos of the arrested, Matt Hill and Alex Nini from the News & Record and the cited
source/photo credit is: "Lynn Hey/News & Record"
Thousands celebrate NC Pride 2006
October 1st, 2006 by Matt Hill Comer
On Saturday, September 30, an estimated 8,000-9,000 people gathered in Durham, NC, for the annual NC Pride Parade and Festival. According to festival organizers, this year’s events were the largest and most successful in the more than 20 year history of the event.
Festival goers spent the morning on Saturday milling about the lawn of Duke University’s East Campus checking out the hundreds of vendors, non-profit organizations and attractions. HGTV was there, of course. Every year HGTV gives out small backpacks at NC Pride and other pride celebrations across the country. Alternative Resources of the Triad pumped their new “Guys of the Triad” calendar and their community website, OutGreensboro.com. Political and education groups were also present, including HRC, EqualityNC, the Log Cabin Republicans, PFLAG Triangle, PFLAG Winston-Salem, iNSIDEoUT, Triangle Community Works and more.
The Parade was one of the largest and longest I’ve ever seen and the on-looking crowd was huge, too. The Parade included a large presence from college and university LGBT student groups, including groups from UNCG, App State, NC State, Chapel Hill, Duke, ECU, Guilford and others.
The NC Pride Festival also awarded Jim Baxter its first annual community award (pictured right). Jim Baxter is the former editor of the long-running and well-respected LGBT paper in North Carolina, The Front Page. After a 30 yera run The Front Page merged with Q-Notes, where Jim Baxter now works.
The Night Festival in Raleigh drew a large crowd of party-goers and great nightlife. From what I hear, Club Legends on Hargett Street was THE place to be on Saturday night. Friday night’s Pride kickoff party, “The Big Top,” was also a huge success.
Like PrideCharlotte, however, the NC Pride Parade had its share of radical right, religious fanatics. Ironically, it was the same group which protested in Charlotte. OperationSaveAmerica and their leader Flip Benham stood on the parade route, opposite of the entrance to Duke’s East Campus. As our group from UNCG marched past them, we began to sing “Jesus Loves Me.” The entire crowd joined in, drowning out any noise the fanatics could make. After the parade the crowd around crazy Flip and his crazy group swelled and we headed back over. Once again we sang “Jesus Loves Me.”
One of Operation Save America’s members came up to one of UNCG PRIDE!’s members and harassed her. She asked our member (who uses a wheel chair) if she would “believe in God if He would take her out of that chair” and that “Satan wouldn’t take her out.”
Overall, despite the nine folks who protested, the thousands of festival-goers had a great time. The Pride Festival is one time every year that the North Carolina LGBT and straight allied community can unite and celebrate our freedoms and empower ourselves to continue working for equality.
Check out the Durham Herald-Sun article on the Festival.
Photos from NC Pride:
Opinion - Columns Thursday, September 28, 2006 Lorraine Ahearn on the street: Readers on the not-so-gay '50s'
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A couple of Saturdays back, before a story appeared Sept. 17 under the headline ''The gay scare of '57,'' I called a retired professor in town to let him know the piece was running.
The professor, who had moved to Greensboro shortly after that long-ago roundup of 32 accused homosexuals, had talked freely about the pall he felt the episode left over the community in the late 1950s. But now that the story was about to appear, the elderly retiree had cold feet.
"I don't want my name in the paper," he said. "You have no idea the fear and hatred that (gay) people of my generation have had to live with. And I don't believe it's changed."
It seemed fair to respect his wishes. But as to his conclusion about social attitudes 50 years after Greensboro's "morals trials" took place, not all readers who wrote in, some from near and some from afar, agree.
Wrote a minister: "I am utterly appalled at your story on the gay trials from the '50s. So many lives ruined and for what?"
This from a High Point attorney: "How thankful I am that we have come so far from those times. Today, the bar gives continuing legal education credit for seminars taught by the N.C. Gay and Lesbian Attorneys..."
Wrote a social worker who was born in 1957, the same year the trials resulted in more than two dozen active prison sentences for the defendants, consenting adults convicted of "crimes against nature:"
"We often think about how badly gay folks can still be treated. But lordy -- have we come a long way. Things have changed so much in my lifetime. But it also reminds me why 'coming out' was such a big deal, and why I am often happy when I meet much younger gay folks who have such a different experience."
A High Point reader: "I am saddened to learn this event happened, yet I am not surprised, due to NC being in the 'Bible Belt.' "
A former resident living in Atlanta: "There is a back lash now among some religious and political influences in our society that would have us return to the closet for their own comfort or other ends. ... I believe that the Church, the government and private citizens can find common ground on the issue."
A former resident living in California: "I was in junior high school at the time and remember the whole thing vividly. I was gay and knew it. Those events pretty much scared the daylights out of me and caused me to develop a fear that followed me for much of my life. My domestic partner and I ... still have 'issues' about coming back to North Carolina, even to visit children and grandchildren."
Wrote a former local pastor: "It is a reminder of how far folks have come in 50 years, but a somber reminder of where we could be once again if (sexual minorities) can be demonized in such significant ways. Interesting, of course, that this was all about males. When will we recognize that so much homophobia comes out of fear around 'proper' gender roles and a need to protect masculinity?"
An educator: "Now let's see an article about the many gays and lesbians who are today mainstream Americans, often living quiet, unassuming lives, while contributing as lawyers, doctors, judges, nurses, dentists, ministers and other professionals contributing in Greensboro. P/S: You did not mention that the archaic 'crimes against nature' is still on the books and should be deleted permanently."
From a longtime Greensboro resident: "I remember the times you mentioned ... many good people suffered because of the lack of knowledge and understanding of a few. ... It would be nice if the media would dwell more on how far we have come and quit rekindling the fires of hate."
An anonymous caller: "Tell those people, it is a sin. Tell them to read their Bible and they will see. It is the only unforgivable sin in the Bible."
Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com
Sunday, September 17, 2006 News and Record
Greensboro’s untold story: The gay scare of ’57 
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By Lorraine Ahearn
Staff Writer
On Feb. 4, 1957, a Guilford County grand jury emerged from its closed session and issued a bundle of indictments of a scope unlike any before or since — against 32 men accused of being homosexual.
After witnesses named the men during police interrogations, the suspects were tried one by one in a Greensboro courtroom for crimes against nature, almost exclusively with consenting adults.
The now-obscure episode, which some longtime residents came to call "the purge," was the largest attempted roundup of homosexuals in Greensboro history and marked one of the most intense gay scares of the 1950s.
Unlike sweeps of subsequent decades, involving raids on public parks and gay bars, Greensboro's 1957 trials focused on private acts behind closed doors.
The purpose, in the words of the police chief, was to "remove these individuals from society who would prey upon our youth," and to protect the town from what a presiding judge called "a menace."
Some 32 trials in the winter and spring of 1957 would end in guilty verdicts, 24 of them resulting in prison terms of five to 20 years, with some defendants assigned to highway chain gangs.
Based on dozens of interviews over a four-week period with those who recall it, this is the story of what happened.
The trigger
Beginnings of a panic
The first time Wallace "Wally" Pegelow laid eyes on his son was when his mother-in-law brought the baby, a few weeks old, to the Greensboro jail.
"My husband can never know that I brought this child here," Pegelow, then 19, would remember her whispering before she hurried out, careful not to be seen leaving the basement of City Hall.
Months before, detectives had come to Fort Bragg to arrest him, and the Army had taken the young paratrooper's stripes. By the time of his mother-in-law's clandestine visit, Pegelow had been in jail long enough to sense that this was no mix-up.
But as he sat in his cell waiting for his court date, little did the New York native realize that what was about to unfold would cast a shadow over the rest of his life — and to an extent, over the city where he would go to trial.
It was the winter of 1957, and almost daily, newspapers carried stories of what Greensboro headline writers called the "morals trials." Then-prosecutor Horace Kornegay, who later became a congressman and who is now retired, said recently that he thinks all the defendants are dead and he has only a vague recollection of the incident.
But at the time, say lawyers who were in practice in the 1950s, the cases had the effect of a bombshell. Pegelow and 31 other defendants were accused of a crime so deep and dark that even the stories below the headlines never came out and said what the men had allegedly done.
In 1950, homosexuality had for the first time become an explosive political topic in the course of the McCarthy loyalty hearings — and had been classified as a mental illness by the psychiatric community. But even seven years later, it was hardly talked about in places like Greensboro.
Publicly, officials hinted only of "unnatural relationships" between the men on a long list of names detectives gathered during a series of interrogations.
Before the months-long investigation was brought to an abrupt halt, that list came to include the manager of a country club, a judge, two lawyers and a policeman who was part of the investigation.
None of these high-profile suspects was ever convicted, according to the typewritten docket book that is the only record of the cases at a Greensboro courthouse. But between the names that were struck through with capital X's, rendering them illegible, remain the entries of the less prominent. These men were put on trial that year at the Guilford Courthouse — some more than once before prosecutors won convictions — and after imprisonment were typically paroled on the condition that they not live within a 100-mile radius of Greensboro.
One was Wallace M. "Wally" Pegelow, whose widow today lives in South Carolina and shared his story and personal papers for this article.
Pegelow came from a small town near Niagara Falls, where he and his widow both grew up, and he joined the Army at 17, stationed with the 82nd Airborne. He played halfback on a semi-pro football team, the Mac Bulldogs, and friends remember his tough, '50s image. He rolled his cigarette pack up in his T-shirt sleeve and got into fights when he drank beer at the bowling alley.
In the fall of 1956, seemingly out of the blue, he would later recall, detectives from Greensboro showed up at Fort Bragg and placed him under arrest.
At first, they wanted to question him about a burglary that occurred in Greensboro, where he frequently visited his girlfriend, later his first wife. Before long, however, his case became part of something larger — what a police lieutenant more than a decade later would describe to a Greensboro Record reporter as "the biggest mess we ever got into."
And it all began with a traffic stop one Sunday night in June 1956.
The Arrests
'In trouble again'
They were a loose group of friends, in their late teens and early 20s, and they liked to go cruising at night — the seedy blocks around the old Greensboro bus station at Commerce Street, the High Point movie theater where one of the defendants worked, the General Greene Bar & Grill, near where the new baseball stadium sits today.
The General Greene, with a mix of female prostitutes in the booths and men at the bar, was the closest thing Greensboro had to a gay bar, though it wasn't strictly gay. And hardly anyone used that word. This was an underground culture that survived on secrecy.
In one series of letters that police seized as evidence, a UNC-Chapel Hill student from High Point wrote to a male classmate in code. "Hilda Sara" stood for "homosexual." He closed his letters with "B.B.B." — "better be butch" — and assigned male friends female nicknames such as "Thelma" or "Mamie," a nod to America's first lady in the Eisenhower years.
As campy and facetious as the letters sound today, an anthropologist who years later taught North Carolina's first state-approved course on gender and homosexuality notes that there was reason for such intrigue.
In larger cities, beginning with Washington, the FBI had recruited local vice squads to conduct surveillance on suspected gays and enlisted postmasters to monitor mail for telltale material such as men's "physique magazines."
Even in private conversation, people were discreet.
"If someone heard a man say, 'I went on a date with Betsy,' that wouldn't raise any suspicion," observed retired UNCG professor Thomas Fitzgerald. "People had to camouflage their lives. The '50s were abysmal."
Mostly, the letters seized by police give a giddy, carefree look at the promiscuous sex lives of the young men. The one cloud on the horizon — and the event that would ultimately splash their private lives onto the front page — gets only a passing mention, in a letter dated June 30, 1956:
"Jesse and Ray are in trouble again," the student wrote to a friend on vacation in Florida. "It seems that some of their paratrooper friends broke into one of Jesse's neighbor's houses, and stole $900. The police are trying to blame it on Jesse and Ray. Jesse was very upset when I talked with her (him) last night. …"
In fact, court records show, police had stopped their car and discovered burglary tools. But rather than charging the Greensboro pair, Jessie Taylor and Charles Ray Roberts, police charged two paratrooper hitchhikers, Pegelow and a fellow married soldier, with possession of burglary tools and conspiracy to break and enter.
It's unclear how Pegelow and the others from Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune knew Roberts and Taylor, whom defense attorneys recall attracting attention with broadly effeminate manners — and parties that sometimes ended with police arriving.
What is clear is that Roberts and Taylor, who city arrest records show had earlier been picked up as a "female impersonator," were about to become the key informers against a series of suspects. Under incoming Police Chief Paul Calhoun, who took office in the summer of 1956, the juvenile and vice squads were assigned full time to work a widening morals investigation.
Police charged suspects one after another, including an N.C. A&T graduate who was served with a warrant in the Rock Hill, S.C., classroom where he taught and was arrested in front of his students.
Each suspect was, in turn, questioned about a list of names detectives were developing, according to transcripts at the N.C. Supreme Court. Jessie Taylor, 19 when the indictments hit the newspaper, described in these documents how the accusations surfaced.
"Yes, I talked to officers about this when I was first apprehended," he said under oath. "Yes, one of the officers did tell me that if I didn't not only plead guilty, but implicate other people, that they had 20 different warrants they could throw at me."
Taylor and Roberts both faced multiple charges of crimes against nature, and the possibility of lengthy prison terms. Likewise, a teenager who accused his employer of sodomizing him revealed in testimony that despite being the state's witness, he was under indictment, as well.
The teen also described how police had read a list of names to him when he was taken in for questioning, without his parents present. At one point, Capt. F.E. Gibson said in the transcript, detectives brought the businessman in and had him face his teenage accuser in an interrogation room — this in the years before police were required to read Miranda rights.
Investigation 'just escalated'
Initially, police said parents' complaints prompted the investigation. However, only one of the 32 defendants was charged with having sex with an underage teen, and the rest involved consenting adults. And with the charging of ostensible victims in the cases — making everyone involved subject to prosecution — the naming of names accelerated. The investigation began "to skyrocket," in the words of former Sheriff Sticky Burch, who in 1957 was a major in charge of operations for the city police.
"It might have started with the (suspects) on the street, but it began to involve people who were upstanding in the community, people in the Jaycees, people who did paper drives," Burch said recently. "It just escalated to the point where the investigation was called off."
The reason the police investigation began and ended is uncertain. Those directly involved — Lt. Maurice Geiger, Capts. Gibson and Bill Jackson, Chief Calhoun — are dead.
In a 1971 Greensboro Record story headlined "Gay Subculture Losing Social Inhibitions," an anonymous vice lieutenant who had worked the morals cases was quoted as saying that the "names of innocent people" had been brought in, and that police suspected a "star witness" had been paid to leave town before others could be implicated.
But at the time of the grand jury session in 1957, ending the police phase of the case, Calhoun said only that the detectives' work was done.
"Developments have now reached the stage," Calhoun told the Daily News, "where it is deemed advisable to return the specially assigned investigators to their regular units."
What had driven the police investigation this far — a period of months, producing 60 warrants and 32 defendants about to face trial — was the need, Calhoun said, to remove those who prey upon youth.
Lawrence Egerton, one of the few attorneys involved in the cases who is still in practice, said members of the defense bar viewed it differently.
"There had always been homosexuals, but the police never pursued them with such intensity, never before and never since," he said. "The truth? It was a long, hot summer, and the police had nothing to do."
The Era
'You just repressed it'
In 1957, Greensboro was, as now, the third-largest city in North Carolina. The difference was, instead of 238,000 residents, it had less than a third of that population.
It was just a town, a town poised, like the rest of the country, on the brink of a social sea change — civil rights, women's rights, sexual revolution. And as if braced for the floodwaters, the 1950s were the most rigidly conformist decade of the century.
In the society pages, women continued to be identified by their husbands' names — "Mrs. John Smith" — and any story mentioning a black person took care to specify race — "a Negro."
At a time when newspapers had only recently ventured to publish the word "rape," and when the discovery of a moonshine operation could still lead the local news, the word "homosexual" never appeared. It wasn't merely taboo. It was practically unheard of.
"People talked about 'sissies' and 'queers.' But we had no idea what they did," recalled Eleanor Dare Kennedy, who in the mid-1950s was a college student and a police reporter for the Greensboro Daily News.
On her morning rounds to gather items for the police blotter in the years before the '57 trials, Kennedy one day happened upon a report of a "crime against nature" and asked the shift commander what that meant.
"I honestly thought someone had done something to a tree," Kennedy said, recalling the commander snatching the report out of her hands. "He said, 'You can't write a story about that. Send a man over here.' "
Not that homosexuality was unknown on the national scene. The massive mobilization of World War II created what many historians conclude was the first awareness by gays that they were part of a group.
The postwar medical view of homosexuality as a mental illness lasted until 1973, with early treatments including lobotomies and aversion therapy — administering an electric shock each time a patient was shown a picture of an unclothed person of the same sex. But Dr. Arthur Guy Matthews — author of the 1957 book "Is Homosexuality a Menace?" — used less radical means, claiming to have cured a lesbian through cosmetics and a hair styling.
"If a person had homosexual tendencies, you just repressed it," recalled Greensboro lawyer Dick Douglas, 94, who was a special agent in the FBI's Washington office during the J. Edgar Hoover years, working in surveillance. "You got married, you had a family, and you didn't engage in it."
What ultimately put a national gay scare on the front pages, more than any psychiatric curiosity, was when homosexuals in federal jobs became a target of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's campaign to expose Communist sympathizers in government.
Known as the Red Scare's accompanying "lavender scare," the story first broke in 1950 with a State Department undersecretary's revelation: Ninety-one people made to resign from the agency as "security" risks were not Communists, per se, but rather "deviants" — a 1950s synonym for homosexuals.
As the hunt went on, the stated threat posed by homosexuals and Communists became increasingly intertwined in speeches by McCarthy and supporters in the House, including Rep. Arthur Miller of Nebraska.
"I sometimes wonder how many of these homosexuals have had a part in shaping our foreign policy," Miller told the House, arguing that "the Russians are strong believers in homosexuality."
But far from being a peril confined to Washington, no community was considered safe from the twin threats, and the fear lingered well after McCarthy's censure in 1954.
By Feb. 9, 1957 — the same week the Greensboro morals indictments came down — a report to the House Un-American Activities Committee cited North Carolina as a hotbed for Communists.
Specifically, the report said, party members had used a farmhouse in Walnut Cove while training to "colonize" the nation by infiltrating key industries.
Such was the backdrop for the trials about to be played out in the big, stately second-floor courtroom that is today the meeting room of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.
At the center of the scene was a white-haired, 6-foot-1 judge who taught Sunday school at the Baptist church in Lexington and ran his courtroom with an iron hand: the Honorable Hubert E. Olive.
The Trials
'A lot of maudlin testimony'
Even a quarter-century before local attorney Bob Cahoon gained fame as the orator who helped get the Nazi-Klansmen acquitted of killing five Communist protesters, he was known as a lawyer who didn't shrink from unpopular causes.
The morals trials, however, were a different animal. One winter morning in 1957, as Cahoon climbed the marble steps to the ornate courtroom, a prospective client breathlessly approached.
"They've got me charged with a crime against nature," he said. "What should I do?"
Cahoon, who died earlier this year, replied without hesitation, former law partner Egerton remembers, with one word: "RUN."
It wasn't a charge of murder, rape or highway robbery. It was, as the statute read, "the abominable and detestable crime against nature."
"It would be hard to imagine a blacker mark against a man," recalled Percy Wall, the veteran trial lawyer. "You could be accused of murder and be acquitted and people would forget. But this was considered dirty, sinful. The climate was not good in Greensboro. It would have been hard to find a juror who didn't have an opinion."
Rather than try to argue against the fairness of the state's sodomy law — which at the time carried a maximum sentence of 60 years — defense attorneys' strategy was to plead for mercy. A few defendants, including one whose tearful mother testified on his behalf, persuaded judges to set suspended sentences, on the condition that they remained under the care of psychiatrists.
But those were not the cases that went before Olive. An unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1952, Olive twice came out of retirement to be a sitting judge and was known for his booming voice and "no-nonsense" style of conducting court, in the words of a 1972 obituary.
Olive made clear that prison — and not what he termed "second chances" — was the only remedy for those convicted in the morals trials. And after the brother of an accused Greensboro businessman testified as a character witness and criticized the statute as too strict, Olive took issue and gave the maximum sentence — the longest handed out in any of the cases.
"I've heard a lot of maudlin testimony here today," Olive said as he set the sentence. "But I'm not convinced the law is wrong."
Court records show that what lawyers began to dub "the gay docket" was almost exclusively called when Olive was visiting on the bench. At the height of the trials in March 1957, Olive said he had heard so many cases that he didn't know "if this court could stand to hear another." Even so, when the next session convened, Olive at the last moment took over for a more lenient judge who had been scheduled to hold criminal court.
And so it was that Wally Pegelow and a third fellow paratrooper were tried before Olive, who was quoted in the Daily News as finding homosexuality "as disturbing as anything in our nation."
Throughout the trials, a number of witnesses took the stand to recant their testimony. Pegelow had signed a statement that he had witnessed a sex act between two co-defendants, but he testified that he saw no such thing and only signed the statement because police promised to help him in exchange.
Pegelow received no help, and like his fellow paratroopers, was convicted on the testimony of Jessie Taylor and Ray Roberts, though both were discredited: Taylor had by then admitted to giving false affidavits against several defendants, and Roberts testified that a paratrooper could have been "unconscious" when the alleged offense took place.
In setting the sentence in that trial, Olive said the country's large Korean War-era military buildup helped spread homosexuality.
"Boys in Army camps don't have the inhibitions they might have otherwise," the Daily News quoted Olive, a World War I artillery officer, as saying. "History shows that where large armies are maintained, those nations begin to weaken. I am not so sure the dangers from within are not more than those from without."
Though most of the juries returned guilty verdicts, one case before Olive resulted in a mistrial — and a harsh rebuke from the judge to the deadlocked jury. Before banging his gavel and telling the jurors, "You are excused," Olive said that the case "was not even close," and that the police testimony should have been enough to convict.
"The police," he told the jurors, "told the truth."
That defendant, who was retried before Olive and found guilty, received five to 10 years — one of at least 24 morals defendants to receive prison sentences ranging from five to 60 years.
Pegelow, who would spend three years behind bars and working on highway chain gangs, appealed his conviction, partly on the grounds that Jessie Taylor, the accused "female impersonator," had told a lawyer that he gave false affidavits about performing oral sex on a number of defendants. Taylor and Roberts, who could not be located for this article, both had multiple counts consolidated, and each received a five- to 10-year sentence.
In late 1957, the state Supreme Court denied Pegelow's appeal in a terse opinion."The evidence offered by the state — the defendant offered none — is amply sufficient to carry the case to the jury," the justices wrote. "There is no need to soil the pages of our Reports with a recital of its sordid details."
The opinion, recorded in a small volume amid the crowded stacks of the state Supreme Court law library, was the last word on a musty, buried chapter of the city's past — but one that cast a pall for years to come.
The Repercussions
A potent sense of shame
With the defendants driven out of the city, and any remaining gay community driven further underground, the legacy of the trials was denial and fear.
"People talked about 'the purge ' and what an unreal thing this has been," remembered public defender Wally Harrelson, who began practicing law after the trials. "It was really quite unbelievable."
Though the pendulum of social acceptance would eventually swing in Greensboro, there were decades in between. So potent was the prevailing shame that in 1986 — a full 30 years after the morals investigation began — a married state legislator who was a key bank executive in town would drop completely out of public life and move away after being arrested on a charge of male solicitation. Meanwhile, the family of the first known man to contract HIV in Greensboro released a statement that he caught the virus through a blood transfusion — not gay sex.
As for Wally Pegelow, who denied any involvement with his 1957 accusers, the felony conviction haunted him for the rest of his life.
He was forbidden to see his wife, according to his family, and told that his father-in-law had the marriage annulled.
The Army discharged him for bad conduct, a ruling he sought to have reversed in 1965 so that he could serve in Vietnam. As late as 1990, Pegelow appealed to the Army — to no avail — to let him serve with the National Guard in Operation Desert Storm. I am now 54 years old. Over the years since my discharge, I have always tried to be the best person that I could be," wrote Pegelow, who had twice remarried and had three daughters. "All I am asking is, would you please let me hold my head up a little higher?"
Pegelow died of lung cancer in 2002, according to his third wife, who now lives in Darlington, S.C.
In the 45 years following his imprisonment for a crime against nature, widow Rita Pegelow said her husband never registered to vote, for fear of being told that he was ineligible, and never applied for a job where he had to list his felony conviction, for fear of being turned down.
And after the one brief, furtive jailhouse visit arranged by his former mother-in-law, he never saw his son again.
Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com
Baptist convention lashes out at gays — lightly |
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by Jim Baxter . Q-Notes staff, July 1, 2006 issue |
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This is not my area of expertise or, frankly, my area of concentration at this point.’
— Condoleeza Rice replying to a question about gay marriage at the Southern Baptist Convention.
GREENSBORO — The fireworks expected this year at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting, held in Greensboro June 13-14, never happened. The call for Baptists to drop out of “gay friendly” public schools was defeated. Guest speaker Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged “respect” in the gay marriage debate. And a mild-mannered pastor from South Carolina was the unexpected choice for the convention’s new president.
This is not at all what anybody has come to expect from the SBC.
In 1997, the Southern Baptists adopted a resolution calling for a boycott of The Walt Disney Co. after it decided to offer benefits to partners of gay employees. Citing changes in Disney executives and more family-friendly entertainment, the SBC ended the boycott eight years later although the company had not changed its gay policy.
This was just one manifestation of the kind of organization SBC became after moderate churches dropped out of the organization entirely in the early 1990s, following years of fighting with conservatives in the 1970s and 1980s.
This year was different.
The SBC condemns homosexuality, denies gays the right to become pastors and gives churches the right to refuse membership to gays. It also has been supportive of constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.
On the opening day, President George W. Bush — in a five-minute videotaped message to delegates — repeated his usual mantra: opposition to abortion, gay marriage and “activist judges.”
But when a pastor named William Gay from North Carolina proposal that the convention discontinue using the word “gay” to describe homosexuals, his motion met with laughter, according to Greensboro’s Yes Weekly (June 21, 2006). It was ultimately ruled “out of order.”
On the 14th, Rice gave an address to the SBC, st ressing America’s responsibility to secure freedom, particularly religious freedom.
She was interrupted six times by standing ovations, according to a report in the The Charlotte Observer (June 15, 2006). As Rice left the Greensboro Coliseum stage, a spontaneous chorus of “God Bless America” spread like a wave among nearly 12,000 Southern Baptists in attendance.
Later, in an interview with the Greensboro News & Record, Rice urged people to be respectful and sensitive in the debate over gay marriage. However, she avoided a question about her own views on the issue.
“This is an issue that can be debated and can be discussed in our country with respect for every human being,” Rice said.
“When we get into difficult debates about social policy, we get into difficult debates that touch people’s lives, the only thing that I ask is that Americans do it with a kind of sensitivity that real individuals and real human beings are involved here.”
Asked for her opinion of the amendment, Rice closed the subject with a polite, but firm, statement. “This is not my area of expertise or, frankly, my area of concentration at this point.”
Also on the 14th, the convention refused to support a resolution that would have urged the denomination to form an “exit strategy” for pulling Southern Baptist children from public schools in favor of home schools or private Christian schools.
The proposal, offered by Roger Moran of Troy, Mo., and Texas author Bruce Shortt, came as many of the nation’s 16.2 million Southern Baptists are concerned about how classrooms are handling subjects such as homosexuality and “intelligent design.”
Instead of putting the exit strategy before delegates, the denomination’s resolutions committee called on members to “engage the culture of our public school systems” by exerting “godly influence,” including standing for election to local school boards.
Rev. Frank Page, the SBC’s newly elected president from Taylors, S.C., said he’d stand up for the denomination’s conservative beliefs but added that he plans to do it with a smile. “I believe in the Word of God,” he told The Associated Press. “I’m just not mad about it.”
Asked how he would determine who would have a voice in Southern Baptist leadership under his presidency, Page cited “a sweet spirit” as the first requirement.
“For too long, Baptists have been known for what we’re against,” he said. “It’s time to say, ‘Please, let us tell what we’re for: That there is a life transforming, relevant-to-today’s-people message that we have to share.”
In the ultimate irony, anti-gay protesters were at the Greensboro Coliseum to picket the unveiling of a statue of the Rev. Billy Graham.
“I told him we were going to picket his funeral when he dies and he’s not a well man,” the Rev. Fred Phelps, of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., has said. Like Graham, Phelps attended Bob Jones University and was ordained by the Southern Baptist Convention.
Phelps, who is no longer affiliated with the convention, said Graham has become too soft on homosexuals. Phelps was actually protesting at a military funeral in Bismarck, N.D., but members of his church were in Greensboro to demonstrate. |
Out, young and proud: Matt Hill Comer
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| UNCG student forms new LGBT political organization |
by Jim Baxter . Q-Notes staff July 1, 2006 Issue |
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Matt Hill Comer, a 20-year-old native of Winston-Salem, is an LGBT rights and youth advocate with some bright and exciting ideas. Currently a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNC-G), Comer is harnessing the power of the internet not only to connect but to organize.
Coming out to himself as a gay man was remarkably brief, although dealing with his religious upbringing and family proved difficult. While his family was apprehensive about his sexuality six yeas ago, Comer says they are growing more accepting and embracing with each passing day.
“I think I always knew I was different. I remember feeling a lot closer to guys than girls my whole life. In fact, I actually had a crush on the two guys who played in ‘The Never-Ending Story’,” he told Q-Notes.
“I don’t think I was ever actually aware that my feelings were ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ until I was about 11 or 12, though. I got a lot of support and information on my own, at the public library or the school library and such. When I came out at 14, in eighth grade, I got a lot of support from my teachers and a few friends.”
Today, Comer serves on the executive board of UNC-G’s LGBTQ student organization and he has just started a new project called the North Carolina Advocacy Coalition (NCAC). But his activism started much earlier.
“During the summer between my eighth and ninth grade year, I saw the Millennium March on Washington and the students who started the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) in Salt Lake City, Utah,” he said.
“I was actually just flipping through the channels on the television and came across it on C-SPAN. I’ve heard a lot about the arguments and the bickering that was happening back then. I really didn’t know much about all that, but watching the event and knowing that people like me were in D.C. making a stand and working for me, inspired me to do something here.
“The students who started the GSA in Utah, and who had gone through so many legal battles to keep it, were speakers at the main rally. It was then that I decided I wanted to start a group like that. So, in September 2000, when I was in 9th grade, I started it along with the help of about 14 or so other students.
“By the end of my first semester, however, all of those students had been scared or harassed out of being active with the club. I guess the harassment from other students was just too much. For about a year and a half, the GSA was comprised mainly of me. In my junior year the group started to grow and we were probably one of the most active groups on campus by the fall semester of my senior year.
“It was tough, but I had a lot of support from a few awesome teachers. With their help and mentoring I made it through. I’m also just a tad hard-headed, too. I wasn’t going to let much get in my way.”
Comer says he also had help from the Winston-Salem chapter of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and YouthFLAG, the LGBT youth support group run by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Winston-Salem.
“By 2001 I had actually gotten involved with the local GLSEN chapter, so I did have larger, organizational support and plenty of mentors in the LGBT community,” he said.
Comer grew up in an internet-connected world and he has made the most of it. “The GSA had a website for a time and that certainly helped with getting the word out on campus. I’m sure it also helped plenty of students who might not have been able to come to meetings.”
When he enrolled as a freshman at UNC-G, one of the first things he did was start a web log. “MattHillNC.com is probably one of the best things I’ve done. It’s popular with students at UNC-G and with people in the Triad and it helps to raise a lot of awareness. I’m hoping that we can create the same type of atmosphere with the NC Advocacy Coalition website,” he said.
“Having my website has given me the opportunity to not only speak my mind, but to express my thoughts in a more public arena. Talking with people one-on-one is a great thing, but putting the message for equality in a forum accessible to whoever happens to access it can spread our movement further. My website has also opened up a lot of personal opportunities for me, too. I’ve met a lot of great and interesting folks in the Triad area and it is how I first got active with Congressman Brad Miller’s campaign, too.”
Comer naturally got involved in organizing when he got to college.
“One of the first things I remember doing at UNC-G’s Open House, while I was a senior at Reynolds, was going to the UNCG PRIDE office and talking to one of their officers,” he said. “I got involved with the group, first as our organizational senator to our student government. I’m still involved now, as one of the group’s two outreach coordinators.
“I tried my hardest to be a representative voice for LGBT students in student government also. I’m still involved with the student senate and I’ll be going into my second year as chairman of the senate legislative committee when Fall comes around.”
Despite a full agenda of school and volunteer work, Comer wanted something more.
“Politics is how I think and what I think, and a political group was something I have always wanted to do. It all started to come together through last semester. I saw a need for local and grassroots advocacy and activism, especially with youth and the 18- to 24-year-old voting demographic — the college crowd.”
So, from that impulse, the NC Advocacy Coalition (NCAC) began.
“We really want to reach out to youth. College-aged youth are the most progressive age group in America. Using the internet and social networking sites like MySpace.com (where the group does have an account) is turning out to be a great way to reach youth on their level. The internet also makes getting out information easier and quicker,” he said.
His work may have a beneficial effect on organizing in the Triad area as well.
“Since I live in the area and go to school here, I do think that the group’s work will have a lot of impact on the Triad. This is also where I grew up and where I am rooted, so a lot of my political awareness is based in local governments. For example, I can definitely see the NC Advocacy Coalition working to draw attention to what has been some very outspoken anti-LGBT stances taken by the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education.”
NCAC is rolling right along and picking up support from local community members.
Joshua Henson of Greensboro, a college student, gave NCAC its first in-kind donation: the domain name, www.ncadvocacycoalition.org.
The first monetary contributions came from NCAC supporters Charles Hornaday of Mebane and well-known community leader Allen Broach of Greensboro. The group has received further contributions from Bob Page, Janet Joyner, Cris Elkins and Gene Hannond.
“Their contributions are helping NCAC greatly, allowing us to take care of some of our initial financial obligations and outreach capabilities,” Comer said.
The group is working to build its interim board of directors, which will later choose the first official members of the NCAC Board. The group is also working to fill two vacant executive staff positions: executive vice-director of development and treasurer.
A lot of people ask Comer where the difference between the new NC Advocacy Coalition and more established Equality NC lies.
“I guess some people wonder if two state-wide groups is a good idea. I think it is,” he said, “mainly because while EqualityNC is in Raleigh and doing some exquisite work with the General Assembly, the NC Advocacy Coalition will be focusing our resources elsewhere, trying to build up the movement for equality in different areas and new ways.”
NCAC is planning the implementation of its Grassroots Regional Organizing Campaign for areas across the state and is currently looking for individuals willing to serve as regional coordinators.
“As someone who is still quite young myself, I feel as though the most important work in North Carolina surrounds our LGBT youth,” Comer wrote in Boston’s In Newsweekly this past February.
“Slowly but surely, LGBT and straight allied youth are beginning to take action and work toward equality and acceptance in their schools and communities. When I was a freshman in high school, my district had only three gay-straight alliances, including the one I started,” he said. “Now, nearly two years after I graduated, the number of gay-straight alliances in Winston-Salem has more than doubled to seven. Across the state, the same holds true; the number of gay-straight alliances is continually rising….
“As the youth of North Carolina grow older and become active members of society, the fact that younger generations are more accepting of LGBT persons will surely have a positive effect on full acceptance and equality for all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender-identity.”
More information on NCAC is available at www.ncadvocacycoalition.org, by phone at 336-391-9528 or by email at ncadvocacy@gmail.com.
To learn more about Matt Hill Comer’s activities and see more of his writings, including his blog, visit www.matthillnc.com. |
GREENSBORO — The Guilford Green Foundation (GGF), in collaboration with the National Community Funding Partnership for Lesbian and Gay Issues and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, announced April 4 at its annual Black Tie Gala that nearly $500,000 was raised during its most successful fundraising campaign ever.
Marking the first time the three nonprofits have collaborated on this scale, this initiative netted more than $182,000 in 2004 and more than $173,000 in 2005 from area businesses, foundations and philanthropists. Greensboro is one of only 40 cities nationwide to receive the matching grant from the National Community Funding Partnership for Lesbian and Gay Issues and has raised funds faster than any other location.
In addition to the Piedm ont Unity Project, GGF’s annual Friendship Drive raised more than $70,000 surpassing last year’s total by $5,000. This was announced in front of 280 attendees at the Black Tie Gala — where more than $30,000 was given by community supporters.
Mayor Keith Holliday gave the keynote address telling the audience Greensboro needed organizations such as Guilford Green to ensure that everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, has a voice in the community.
“Greensboro has a long history of social justice and the Guilford Green Foundation’s huge success is proof positive our community is one where diversity is valued,” said Holliday.
Other elected officials in attendance were Mayor Pro-Tem Sandra Anderson Groat and County Commissioners Paul Gibson, Kirk Perkins, and Mike Winstead Jr. All money raised by GGF is granted back to the community and helps other gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender organizations and causes.
Brokeback praised and accepted across the board
 
By the time John Johnson bought his movie ticket, worked his way through the lobby crowds and found an empty seat, the feature Brokeback Mountain was running about 15 minutes behind schedule.
He could wait. In fact, he was used to it. Johnson, president of Alternative Resources of the Triad, had already waited a lifetime to see a major motion picture undertake the portrayal of homosexual relationships. Another 15 minutes was no big deal.
Johnson and about a dozen of his friends weren’t the only ones eager to see the Ang Lee picture. Film fans, gays, lesbians and heterosexuals from as far away as Virginia made the trek to Greensboro to see the movie when it opened Jan. 6 at the Carousel Cinema on Battleground Avenue.
“The first couple of weeks we had an almost overwhelming response,” said Tim Davis, a manager at the movie theater.
Greensboro was one of the first cities in the Southeast to land the film, according to Johnson. Although it originally opened only at the Carousel, the Carmike 18 on Koger Boulevard has recently added a screening.
Brokeback Mountain has grossed more than $42 million since its December release. That pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions earned by big-budget blockbusters like King Kong and the Chronicles of Narnia. But the film is faring well against most other competitors, especially given its relatively modest $14 million budget.
But dollars indicate only a part of the impact the film has had. In a meeting room inside the Biltmore Hotel, which Johnson runs, members of Greensboro’s gay-straight alliance met Jan. 24 to discuss their opinions of the film.
“I thought the film did a very good job of depicting just how painful straight people can make it for gay people who have to act like people they aren’t,” said Chris Cannon.
Both characters marry women and maintain their relationship through infrequent fishing trips. Nonetheless, members of the group cheered the depiction of a deep emotional connection between ranch hands Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist.
“I thought that it was just an emotional story,” Cannon said. “It was refreshing seeing a homosexual couple have the same connection that most heterosexual couples have in a romance.”
The movie has already had an effect in the gay community. Some people struggling with their sexuality have seen the movie and come out of the closet. It has also reminded those who live openly as gays and lesbians why some people in conservative areas must remain closeted.
“I could identify with the whole hiding thing,” Jonathan Lucas said. “When I got out of the closet it was so liberating. To see the characters do that their whole adult lives really brought up some unpleasant feelings.”
Their praise for the movie extends beyond its portrayal of gay characters. Out of Johnson’s 13-member group, only one disliked the movie. Others praised the direction, cinematography and acting.
Judges of the 2006 Golden Globe Awards agreed and recognized the film four times, including best drama and best director for Lee. Conservative critics have dismissed the film as a product of Hollywood liberalism that is out-of-touch with the majority of Americans. Despite the complaints, protesters have stayed away.
Davis reported that no complaints have been lodged against the Carousel, and that few patrons have walked out of Brokeback Mountain or requested their money back.
“At one particular point in the movie I turned around just to see what the reaction was,” Johnson said. “But nobody walked out or looked disgusted.”
“I was hoping there would be protesters,” Lucas said. “I had dressed up for it. I was hoping that I would have to push through the crowds.”
On the question of whether the film would have a wider social or political impact, the participants expressed ambivalence. More than a dozen states have adopted a ban on gay marriage since Massachusetts legalized same-sex unions in 2003, which indicates resistance to acceptance of those relationships.
“I just can’t imagine it right now,” Johnson said. “But it may just add to things that are already happening.”
One thing that is happening is a dramatic increase in hits to Alternative Resources of the Triad’s website since they moved Brokeback Mountain screening information to the homepage. Johnson reported almost 32,000 hits by late January.
Those who saw the movie said audiences represented a wide cross-section of society. Karen Atkins sat next to a 70-year-old man when she went to see Brokeback Mountain. Cannon’s mom, who he described as very conservative, enjoyed the movie, as did Lucas’ straight coworkers.
The popularity of the film, even in a small southern city like Greensboro, encourages Johnson, Atkins and the others that same-sex relationships might someday populate feature films with increasing frequency and decreasing fanfare.
“I see it all as a positive,” Atkins said. “Just go with your friends and have a good time. That’s how it should be.”
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Local group's ad provokes controversy
By Michelle Jarboe
Staff Writer
(This is an example of what A.R.T. emailed to Graffiti Ads only as an example)
A Winston-Salem company has been criticized for rejecting an ad from a local education group for sexual minorities.
Graffiti Ads is a small business that specializes in distributing ads for products, places and events at dozens of Triad bars, eateries and clubs. The ad posters often hang in bathrooms. For Alternative Resources of the Triad, it seemed like the right company to go to place an ad for its Web site and Feb. 18 gay movie night.
"We see them everywhere," group president Eric Hinson said about the company's ads. "Everywhere that board members hang out at, we see them."
The Greensboro-based nonprofit, which caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals and their straight allies, was surprised last week when Graffiti Ads called its sample ad "too controversial."
"It never occurred to us that they would not be open to advertising for us," Hinson said.
Company owner Carrie O'Sullivan said she merely wanted to keep out political agendas.
"We want to continue to be a neutral company," she said. "We don't ever want to advertise something that is two-sided."
That might have been the end of it, and the nonprofit might have quietly looked elsewhere to advertise. But last week, Alternative Resources board member Matt Hill, a student at UNCG, wrote about the issue on his blog, a Web site devoted to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender news and opinions. From there, the debate snowballed.
Since Jan. 26, Graffiti Ads has been labeled in local online forums as homophobic and anti-gay. "Things were really blown out of proportion," O'Sullivan said. She's not anti-gay, she says. Content on the nonprofit's Web site, outGreensboro.com, is what worried O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan said the site, which details local gay and lesbian resources and events and was featured prominently in the group's ad, might make readers think her company was taking sides in the political debate over sexuality.
The company reserves the right to reject ads that might make it seem biased, she said.
"We're very picky about what's on our boards," she said, adding that being selective doesn't mean her company is homophobic. "I don't see evidence of that at this point," she said. "But I don't ever want our reputation to be viewed in a negative light, and I'm sure among lots of folks right now it probably is. "Small businesses are so fragile, and our reputation is everything. And once that reputation is damaged, it's hard to get back."
John Johnson, owner of the Biltmore Greensboro Hotel and a member of the nonprofit's board, isn't pleased with the company. In an e-mail to Graffiti Ads last week, he wrote that he won't work with them and encouraged other businesses to follow suit. Johnson is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
Hinson said he's received calls from other local business owners and advertisers, many of whom had questions about the debate over the ad. O'Sullivan also has heard from people taking sides on the issue, and she said she's told them all the same thing: Graffiti Ads is willing to work with the nonprofit on another, less controversial ad proposal.
That's something in which the group also is interested.
"We do want to meet with them, and we do want a chance to talk with them face to face," Hill said, noting that most communication between the parties has taken place via e-mail.
"Sitting down with them face to face will allow us to have an open dialogue," he said.
Contact Michelle Jarboe at 373-7075 or mjarboe@news-record.com
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:09 am
Post subject: Greensboro is North Carolina's Gay San Francisco? |
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http://greensboring.com/viewtopic.php?t=255
I was reading a blog the other day, and one of the comments on it was that Greensboro is North Carolina's Gay San Francisco. I didn't think much of it at the time. But later I began thinking about it. It could be true. In fact we might even be the South's Gay San Francisco. (excluding Florida of course.)
Seriously, a recent billboard campaign by a local activist group has made Greensboro an advertised gay positive city. Our own local blogger Matt Hill, has become one of the most visible voices for gays in Greensboro on the internet. Even my favorite radio station: 107.5's morning D.J. Josie, proudly explains she is the daughter of two lesbian mothers on a frequent basis.
UNCG has a very prominent and noticeable GLBT group, and Guilford College has always been known as a diverse educational institution open to gays, and other such groups.
Even my old High School, Western Guilford, has gotten press, as students spear headed a program to welcome and accept other homosexual students, into a fairly conservative area of town.
It was only a few months ago, here in the blogger community, local bloggers had cited those political officials running for office and their opinion on homosexuality.
I'm certainly not aware of all aspects of this community, but could it be, while Charlotte and the Triangle have found their niches, we've become an oasis for the gay community? Low cost of living, safe neighborhoods, and ironically enough good Christian folks that never would assume your, well.... gay?
Hey I'm all for it. I'm sure some people are going to be upset to find out, Hooters will be hiring drag queens... but I just have to know where the Castro district is here in Greensboro? My vote? Quaker Village Shopping Center. Wait never mind it, practically is. |
Community Foundation Awards Ron Johnson
 Ron Johnson, former Board of Director of the Guilford Green Foundation, was awarded the highest honor the Community Foundation presents to one of its volunteers. The Thorton Brooks Award is presented periodically to recognize the unsung hero, those people who have, behind the scenes, played an instrumental role in the development and success of the Community Foundation. Johnson has provided countless hours of consultation with this clients on charitable giving. Not only does Johnson council others, he is an active philanthropist himself. He has provided leadership to countless nonprofits in our community most notably, Triad Health Project and Guilford Green Foundation. Guilford Green is honored to have Ron Johnson in our family. Congratulations Ron!
People often approach me in public because they recognize me from my photo. I’ve always enjoyed meeting new people, and that’s a fun way to start a conversation.
Another perk I get from this gig is the opportunity to share with you some neat stories about your neighbors here in the Triad. Some of these people I know personally; others I’ve met through writing this column. All of them have one thing in common: They’re committed to contributing in some way to the community where they live.
To borrow from the Yiddish, all of these folks are menschen — people who do good deeds.
So, as the year comes to an end, I thought it might be interesting to check in with two of them to see what they’re up to. You won’t be surprised to find they’re as busy as ever.
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In April, I met Jasma Johnson, an N.C. A&T graduate student who founded PRIDE (People Recognizing Individuality, Diversity and Equality) on her campus. Johnson has since changed the name of her organization to HERO (Homophobia Is Everyone’s Responsibility to Overcome) to garner more interest. It’s working because the last four events that HERO held on campus drew almost 50 students.
HERO’s most recent event was a discussion group held in a coffeehouse setting with groups of people seated at round tables. Each group was given a packet of questions for discussion, such as “Is the black community more homophobic than other communities?” and “Is a gay man a real man?”
The conversations were lively and insightful, and Johnson says she hopes to present some of the issues discussed in a town hall meeting early next year.
“I want to bring together community leaders, people from church backgrounds and members of the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community to provide further insight into the issue of homophobia,” Johnson says.
HERO recently received a $2,500 grant from the Guilford Green Foundation to implement a Safe Zone program on the A&T campus. Safe Zone, a program on many campuses nationwide, is designed to provide books, videos and other resources for students, faculty and staff to help encourage an atmosphere free of homophobia and heterosexism.
Safe Zone members must be certified by attending an all-day training session on topics that pertain to challenges faced by those within the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as well as issues faced by their allies.
Johnson’s biggest hope for the new year is simple: “I would love to see more support from faculty and staff for HERO.”
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Local businessman Allen Broach has been out of school for a long time. But his heart is never far from issues relating to youth and education.
I’ve known Allen for years, and it was a kick to write about his life and the James Allen Broach Scholarship Fund, which he founded on the occasion of his 50th birthday. The Broach Scholarship supports an area college student who will lead others to diminish bigotry.
Broach, now 58, says that recruitment for the 2006 scholarship has already begun under the auspices of the Triad Business and Professional Guild, a local networking group for the region’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
With his scholarship in good hands, Broach has turned his attention to his work as treasurer of the board of directors for One Step Further, a nonprofit United Way agency that strives to reduce the rising number of youths in jail for nonviolent crimes. One Step Further helps at-risk youths build self-esteem and guides them to becoming productive, contributing citizens.
“It’s a great organization that’s been around for a long while, but we’ve hidden our light under a bushel up to now, and we need to get the word out,” Broach says.
Broach also serves on the board of the Association of Retarded Citizens of Greensboro. His work for the ARC hits close to home because his youngest sister, Beverly, is developmentally disabled.
His goal for the new year? To be “more retired,” an ironic phrase for a man who serves on three nonprofit boards.
Broach is a gay man. Jasma Johnson is a lesbian. Gay and lesbian are not the first words that pop into my mind when I think about them and some of the other folks I’ve written about this year.
But mensch sure is.
Addison Ore is the executive director of the Triad Health Project and a local freelance writer. Her monthly column focuses on issues facing the Triad’s gay community. Contact her at Email vaore@aol.com.
Out Did Last Year's Amount! Winter Walk for AIDS
2005…ANOTHER RECORD-BREAKING WINTER WALK FOR AIDS!!!
On Sunday, December 4th, Triad Health Project issued our annual call-to-arms
in the local war against HIV/AIDS, and our friends and neighbors responded
that day with far greater enthusiasm than we could have imagined. So, the
simple words “Thank You” seem a bit inadequate in expressing our
appreciation for the support you have given the event this year. And it is
still not too late to contribute to Winter Walk either by mailing in a check
(THP, PO Box 5716, Greensboro, NC 27435) or contributing on line at
www.triadhealthproject.com.
We could not have asked for a more perfect Walk day. All the elements came
together for us, starting with the weather cooperating for the more than
3,000 participants who trekked 3 miles through the streets of downtown
Greensboro. Not only have you helped us pass our $95,000 goal, but we are
thrilled to report the 14th annual Winter Walk for AIDS has, to date, raised
close to $113,000 and counting…a dollar figure that will again go down in
the record books! And a big KUDOS to Ron Johnson, who led all 120 total team
contributions with a whopping $26,000, followed by the THP Board of
Directors Team, which collected over $20,000.
On behalf of the staff - and most especially, our hundreds of clients for
whom HIV/AIDS continues to remain a huge burden - THANK YOU for your support
of the 2005 Winter Walk for AIDS. A special nod of gratitude goes to our
Premier Sponsors, The Greensboro Jaycees; Time Warner Cable; Cable Positive;
Broach and Company, to the City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation
Department/War Memorial Stadium, and to our Honorary Chairperson, Dr.
Johnnetta B. Cole, President, Bennett College for Women.
From our THP family to you and yours, all the best this holiday season.
Mike Baker
Director of Development
mbaker@triadhealthproject.com
Mike Nelson, Gay Mayor
Equality NC offers our thanks and congratulations to our friend Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson, who steps down tonight after 10 years as North Carolina's first and--as yet--only openly gay mayor. Mike's pioneering leader
ship has made a difference not only for his town, but for LGBT North Carolinians.
As Carrboro's youngest mayor (even after 10 years!), Mike has had an impressive record. He has never shied away from LGBT issues, helping the town adopt domestic partnership benefits for town employees, a domestic partnership registry for citizens, and adding gender identity and gender expression to the town's anti-discrimination policy. Under Mike's leadership, Carrboro also included repeal of the state and federal "Defense of Marriage" laws in its legislative agenda. Mike also led the town to other accomplishments, including the building of the Carrboro Century Center, protecting the Bolin Creek watershed, and joining the Aldermen in taking a stand on national issues like the Iraq war.
Mike is special to Equality NC not only for his work as an elected official, but for his tireless work with our organization. Mike was on the founding board of our Equality NC, then known as NC Pride PAC in 1991, and served as our first Executive Director. Last year, Mike returned to our board and currently serves as Chair of our educational arm, Equality NC Foundation.
Although Mike chose not to run for a sixth term as mayor, we know he will continue his leadership in other capacities, including his work with Equality NC--and we hope a run for higher office will be in his future.
Brave GLBTs Come Out to 80,000 People in Billboard Campaign
By T.J. DeGroat
© 2005 DiversityInc.com
April 13, 2005
© DiversityInc. Reproduced with permission, further reproduction is prohibited.
The coming-out process is difficult enough; imagine doing it publicly, on a billboard, in a conservative southern area.
That's just what 24-year-old Jasma Johnson is doing this week when two billboards featuring her and 17 other members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community are unveiled in Winston-Salem and Greensboro, N.C.
There was little hesitation on Johnson's part. "I knew my face would be plastered on a billboard and I knew people who knew me would be driving past it, but it honestly didn't bother me," said Johnson, who founded the first GLBT group at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. "If I can go out there and put myself on a billboard, maybe it will empower someone else to be who they are. People will see me, will see that I'm out, that I'm African American and I'm proud of who I am."
Once the two billboards are unveiled, an estimated 80,000 people a day will see the faces of Johnson and others above this simple but powerful statement: "Lesbian and Gay People are Valued Members of This Community."
The billboard campaign is the third of its kind organized by Greensboro-based Triad Equality Alliance (TEA). The group was formed 13 months ago by local activists inspired by a South Carolina organization that took its pro-gay-rights message to the people through billboards.
It was difficult finding people who were willing to throw open the closet door in such a public way, especially for the first campaign, said Sean Cowart, co-chairperson of TEA. "Nothing like this had ever been done," he said. "Things are changing, but … it's riskier to be openly gay in our area."
By contacting organizations, sending messages to Listservs and talking up their project, TEA rounded up 24 people to appear on seven billboards in Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point, which make up the Triad.
The billboards' slogan: "We are your neighbors … and we are gay."
Unveiled in time for National Coming Out Day in October, the campaign was the brainchild of TEA members and Greensboro photographer Dave Milstead. The original idea to use billboards came from Charleston, S.C.–based Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), which joined the same-sex-marriage push with a photo of the Constitution next to the text "Gay or Straight Americans deserve protection under the law."
AFFA founder Linda Ketner spoke at a meeting of the Triad Business and Professional Guild, the local GLBT networking group, in November 2003. At the end of the talk, she issued a challenge: She would give the guild all the materials she had if members agreed to launch a similar effort.
In the audience were Cowart and Judith Kobler, who oversaw the creation of TEA four months later.
Things moved quickly. In mid-February 2004, Ketner sent the materials her group used to create its Constitution billboard. By April 5, it was up. In between, President Bush announced that he would seek a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
It was a good start, but it wasn't enough. "Last year, it seemed that LGBT people were more seen as issues than as people in the media," Cowart said. "We wanted to put a face on our community."
So, abOUT Face, the October campaign, was born. Notice the double entendre? Kobler explained, "If you see our faces and get to know us as people you might do an about face in terms of your opinion of what the gay and lesbian community is."
One of the most surprising things to come out of that campaign was Kobler's invitation to appear on a local Christian radio station. A host promised to play a radio spot TEA created, based on an AFFA ad, if a member would appear on the show. With a promised audience of as many as 2 million people, Kobler jumped at the chance.
The build-up was scary, but the experience was "very positive," said Kobler, who brought along her minister. He fielded questions from listeners about the Bible while Kobler explained TEA's mission. "We didn't feel any animosity at all during the hour," she said. "And we never would have been able to raise money to have 2 million people listen to our message."
Getting that message out to those who wouldn't normally interact with GLBT people is the point, Cowart said. "We want to start a dialogue with [a] broader community—that's where change is going to happen," he said. "Even if they have negative things to say, it gets views into the light."
Cowart, 38, always has been a bit of an activist, he said. "Being gay has always been a part of my life. There's too much progress that needs to be made to sit back and not do anything," he said.
Johnson, a graduate student concentrating on adult education, became active when she realized there were few activities for GLBT students at the historically black universities she attended, A&T and Shaw University. The native of Brooklyn, N.Y., hopes the billboard and her student group will spur people to be more accepting of themselves. "The more comfortable you are, the better off you'll be," she said.
Forty-four years Johnson's senior, 68-year-old Kobler has seen the country's attitudes toward the GLBT community change dramatically. "I certainly saw what the world was like when I arrived in [Greenwich] Village in 1959, when they were still locking people up for being gay," she said.
It's hard to stand out in New York City, she said, "but here in North Carolina, I felt I could make a difference."
And she—along with Cowart, Johnson and the dozens of volunteers who put their personal lives on display—certainly has.
Domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian Greensboro City employees? |
by Roch Smith, Jr
Email: admin (nospam) greensboro101.com |
05 Nov 2005
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[This question was asked of the at-large City Council candidates at the September 27th Greensboro Bloggers Candidates Forum. It was asked during the "jump-in" round where each candidate was asked two questions directly and had an opportunity to also answer up to five of the fourteen other questions initially directed to other candidates. This question was initially asked of George Subasavage.]
If elected, would you support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens of this city by supporting domestic partner benefits for City employees?
George Subasavage was eliminated in the primary election. He said he has "some difficulties just dealing with the concept of gay and lesbian activities" and, although he has gay and lesbian friends, he would not be able to support such benefits at this time.
Joel Landau: "Yes, I would support domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian couples. I know of gay and lesbian couples that have very happy committed relationships, I mean, they're marriages for all intents and purposes. You know, whether we like to admit it or not, our current concept of marriage changes with the times, it just happens to be right now a man and a woman is what is the predominate norm. But I would be in favor of extending those benefits to other couples too. We need some criteria for determining how since we don't have sanctioned marriages of gay people, so we have to figure how to determine who will qualify."
Florence Gatten: "This is a subject we've been working on at the City and an initiative that I certainly support. The Human Relations Commission is where this has been vested and this discussion has occurred and we are currently asking, through our City attorney, for a ruling from the Attorney General about exactly the particulars for a wording of an ordinance and how it could be, as Joel says, evenly applied. So this an issue that has been on the table, it has gone through our Human Relations Commission and now we hoping that we will have a ruling from Roy Cooper that will give us direction for how we can put this into process."
Diane Davis: "My question about the whole thing is, if we support lesbian couples, gay couples, what about boyfriend/girlfriends who live together and have been living together for several years? Would that also be considered or would they have to be married? So there are a lot of questions that we really haven't discussed and maybe the Human Relations thing and the ruling by the State Attorney can straighten that out, you know, exactly who would be qualified to receive the benefits.
Previous questions and answers here |
Hogg's Blog
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