Articles From Our December, 2002 Newsletter

IT'S HOLIDAY POTLUCK TIME AGAIN

Its time once again for our annual holiday pot luck at PFLAG/KC. It's a festive time so bring some festive food, enough for yourselves and maybe for an extra person who maybe forgot it was potluck time. Bring food and silverware, and PFLAG will provide the meat.

The festivities will begin at 3:00 PM at the regular place, Room 303 at Village Presbyterian Church, 6641 Mission Rd.

Come join us and bring your loved ones along. It'll be a typical PFLAG great time of celebration and fellowship.

It's time to order your tickets for the next Heartland Men's Chorus Concert, "Let Heaven & Nature Swing" on Saturday, Dec. 7 at 8 pm and Sunday, Dec. 8 at 4 pm at the Folly Theater.

Follow this link to order your tickets! www.hmckc.org/swing.htm

This concert is a program for the entire family that everyone will enjoy:
Familiar holiday tunes in new arrangements for men's chorus in Jazz, Swing, and other popular styles. Plus the high-energy accompaniment of Vince Bilardo and his Swing Orchestra!

It will be the fun entertainment experience that you have come to expect
from the Heartland Men's Chorus.

Forward this message to your friends and invite them to join you at the
concert. See last month's newsletter for more details.

From our President

Following the midterm elections last month I felt grief and rage knowing that, at the national and state levels, justice for minorities is threatened. Legislation and judicial decisions that benefit all but the wealthy and corporations are in danger. The radical right elected officials who now hold power in Washington and Jefferson City will attempt to turn back rights that have been hard won for lgbt people and for all people who experience discrimination and bigotry. 

But I also remembered that wonderful old labor credo "DON'T MOURN, ORGANIZE". 

So on November 16 I attended a meeting in Columbia, Missouri sponsored by PROMO (for the Personal Rights of Missourians) to plan for political activity and lobbying for lgbt rights in Missouri. PROMO is the Missouri lgbt lobby organization based in St. Louis. It was founded in 1986 as the Privacy Rights Education Project (PREP). Since that time it has worked to protect and expand privacy rights in Missouri. In 1999 PROMO made history when it successfully lobbied the legislature to add "sex, disability and sexual orientation" to Missouri's Hate Crimes Law. It has defeated more than four dozen legislative attacks on the lgbt community and is the only organization with a presence in Jefferson City keeping an eye on legislation that affects lgbt lives. PROMO PAC interviews and endorses candidates who support lgbt issues and mobilizes supporters to volunteer and help elect those candidates to office. PROMO is working to extend the existing Missouri Human Rights Statute to include lgbt people.

At the PROMO meeting, participants engaged in an analysis of the 2002 elections, discussed the current status and likely future of lgbt issues, considered strategies, set goals and identified focus concerns and activities. Attendees agreed that our message is "No going back". We will continue to work to widen lgbt rights and to defend the rights that have been won. Our work will focus on fairness and ending discrimination against lgbt people in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodation. We addressed specific strategies and tactics for achieving our goals. The meeting was an opportunity to meet and plan with people from around Missouri. There was clear commitment to continuing our work in a politically hostile environment and to maintaining a positive attitude for progress. I found the meeting inspiring and have recommitted myself to political activism for justice and equality for all. I met wonderful people and renewed my belief in the power of dedicated people to effect progressive change.

I am proud that PFLAG-KC is an organizational member of PROMO. To become an individual member and to support the essential work of PROMO, send a contribution to PROMO, P.O. Box 24106, St. Louis, MO63130. Updates on the work of PROMO will be published in this newsletter along with invitations to participate in political activity to further the rights and safety of lgbt people and their families.

In the meantime - HAPPY HOLIDAYS and Best Wishes for a peaceful, joyous, gay New Year!!!

Helen Cohen

Court of Appeal rules against Berkeley Sea Scouts

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

A local scouting group can be denied a city-funded rent subsidy at the Berkeley Marina as long as its national organization insists on discriminating against gays, a state appellate court ruled Monday.

The ruling Monday by the three-judge Court of Appeal panel in San Francisco was a defeat for a local Sea Scouts chapter and showed that local governments have some leeway to enforce equal-treatment policies for gays and lesbians against private organizations even if they can't prohibit those organizations from discriminating.

The local Sea Scout group, like some other nonprofit organizations, had been using space at the Berkeley Marina for decades. In 1998, the city adopted a policy putting an end to subsidizing groups that discriminated on various grounds, including sexual orientation, and imposed a dock fee on the scouts. The fee now amounts to $516 a month.

The chapter's leaders and some individual members sued the city in 1999, saying the fee was an unconstitutional punishment for free speech and association. The local chapter says it doesn't ask members about their sexual orientation but can't renounce the Sea Scouts' national policy without losing its Boy Scout charter, which it uses to get a break in insurance rates. The Boy Scouts refuse to admit gays, a policy upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.

By requiring the Sea Scouts to pay for docking space they previously used for free, Berkeley "has not attempted to muzzle anyone's speech," the panel said Monday. "It has simply prevented them from collecting a subsidy, unless they agree not to discriminate."

At the same time, the appellate panel said the scouts were free to express their views and maintain their policies without a city subsidy.

The court cited the case of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, which was stripped of its federal tax-exempt status because it banned dating between students of different races. The school, which said its policy was based on its religious principles, lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal in 1983.

A lawyer who backed the Sea Scouts rejected the comparison.

"Gender and race aren't in play here, issues the federal government has very strongly spoken out on," said Harold Johnson of the Pacific Legal Foundation. He said the Berkeley fee penalized the scouts for exercising their rights and took away money that otherwise would go to youth scholarships.

To the Church, It Was a Case of 'Dirty Dancing'

Cara Mia DiMassa, Times Staff Writer

All Pastor Edgar Chacon wanted to do, he says now, was protect the children. If a child were to stumble across a snake, he says, he would kill the snake to save the child.

This time, he killed the dancing.

A nonprofit arts program was evicted last week from the campus of the church where Chacon presides. As a way to build self-esteem and artistic talent, the program encouraged kids to dance and practice yoga.

The decision mystified students, most of whom do not attend the church.

When the church board voted to close "Creative Planet", it also fired Bill C. Rugh from his teaching job. (His brother, Robert, remains on the church board.)

Most board members did not return calls seeking comment, but Bill E. Rugh said the meeting held to decide the program's fate had been divisive, with members criticizing a Creative Planet performance in October at the L.A. Arts Open House.

"I don't think they understood," he said. "They were stuck on this German song by Beethoven."

The chorus the children sang, "O Welche Lust!" is from "Fidelio." The opera is set in a prison, and the chorus evokes the gratitude of prisoners briefly allowed outside their cells.

Rugh said church leaders misinterpreted the German lust as the English "lust." A translation of the opening lines gives a far different meaning:

"O welche lust!/ In freier Luft/Den Athem leicht zu heben" ... "Oh, what enjoyment/ to breathe the fresh air of heaven."

When asked about the performance, which portrayed the dream travels of a young boy with both secular and religious music, Chacon said that it had featured an "evil" modern dance.

Bill C. Rugh's defenders say another issue has been lurking behind criticisms of Creative Planet: Rugh is gay, and some of his teachers are as well.

Rugh said Creative Planet students and parents have long known of his homosexuality. "I sing with the Gay Men's Chorus. I was on an episode of 'Will & Grace,'" the popular television sitcom that features two gay characters. "It's not like they didn't know."

Rugh hopes to find a new location for Creative Planet.

Chacon, meanwhile, hopes to open a program that would teach computers and Spanish -- "things that we believe would be better for the children."
And, perhaps, less controversial.

"I told myself, 'Well, the parents will be happy that somebody is taking care of the children,'" he said. "But what a surprise I had.... They were so mad with me."

PFLAG SUPPORTS REAL FAMILY VALUES