This Way Out

I know that we are not in the habit of thinking of ourselves as leading our civilization and yet we do. This power to influence is the major reason for our suppression. The problem is not only the oppression, if you will, by the church and other areas of leadership within the community, but it's also our complicity of silence. Welcome to this way out, the International Lesbian and Gay Radio Magazine. I'm Lucia Chapel. And I'm Greg Gordon. Filmmaker unties the tongues of black gay PWAs. Will we speak another mother tongue in the 1990s? And Tasmanian officials bite their tongues after false arrest judgment. All that and more as we begin our third year with you discovering this way out. I'm Greg

Gordon. And I'm Lucia Chapel. A summary of some of the news in and affecting the gay and lesbian community for the week ending April 1, 1990. An Australian court has ordered the police to pay over $9 ,500 to the lawyers of lesbian and gay rights activists arrested at the Salamanca market in the Tasmanian capital of Hobart in 1988. The arrests were ordered by the Hobart City Council after gays and lesbians tried to set up a booth at the public market to lobby for anti -discrimination protections and law reform. Lee Gwen Booth of the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group described the city council as arrogant and heavy -handed over the Salamanca protests, saying that the payouts highlight the need for better relations between police, government authorities, and the lesbian and gay community. Amnesty International, the worldwide human rights group has confirmed that at least three gay men and two women believed who have been lesbians were executed in Iran because of their sexual orientation. Unconfirmed reports of the executions have been circulating since last January. It was unanimous. On March 26, Seattle,

Washington became the largest city in the United States to fund health care benefits for domestic partners. Tony Krebs has the details. By an 8 -0 vote, the city council approved spending just under $429 ,000 to cover an estimated 300 domestic partners of city employees. The vote funded a policy that went into effect earlier this month, extending the medical benefits available to city workers. City employees who wish to include their domestic partners under the new coverage must sign an affidavit, swearing that they share their home with an unrelated, unmarried adult. In an exclusive relationship, the coverage applies equally to gay and heterosexual couples. The city is covering the benefits out of its own pocket on a self -insurance plan because none of the city's health insurance companies would accept the business. The vote to fund the project completes a process begun over a year ago when the city's human rights department found the city's old benefits policy violated

its own laws banning discrimination based on marital status and sexual orientation. That report by Tony Krebs in Seattle. A Brockton Massachusetts woman has filed the first formal complaint under the state's new lesbian and gay rights law which went into effect February 15th. Charlene Ainsley alleges her supervisor harassed her on the job because he believed she was a lesbian. Massachusetts is the second US state to enact a gay and lesbian rights law. In his first speech on AIDS since taking office more than a year ago, US President George Bush called on Americans to fight the disease through compassion, education, and an end to discrimination against people with AIDS. Bush, who was interrupted once during his speech by a heckler, spoke on the subject March 29th to a group of business people in Arlington, Virginia. Journalist Randy Schultz, author of and the band played on commented on Bush's response to the health crisis during an interview with Berk Wyland. There's two separate issues that when you deal with AIDS on the federal level. There's issues that don't cost money that deal with compassion, that deal with discrimination.

And then there are issues that do cost money that deal with speeding treatments for AIDS, speeding treatments for HIV and education and prevention. What we've seen from the Bush administration is endless support for anything that does not cost money. What we're not seeing is any kind of significant new outlets of funds for treatment research or for education and prevention. AIDS author and journalist Randy Schultz. The New York City Human Rights Commission said its informal survey shows that women are often illegally turned away from city abortion clinics because they are HIV positive. 20 of the 30 clinics the commission contacted wouldn't accept HIV positive women as clients. Commission attorney Kathleen Frank said they are prepared to sue clinics that refuse to serve HIV positive women but would rather see the problem addressed through education of health care workers. In New York she said there is a fair degree of ignorance among health care professionals about AIDS.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the largest lesbian and gay political action group in the U .S., has announced that it will make women's cancer legislation a high priority on its political advocacy agenda. The group will work to increase government funding for preventative health services and education about breast, uterine and ovarian cancer. International criticism of the U .S. policy that denies visas to HIV positive people continues. More than 100 people gathered at the U .S. Embassy in Paris March 3rd to protest that policy. The demonstration was organized by the Paris chapter of Act Up, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and was the Paris group's largest protest to date. And the French researcher now credited with the discovery of the AIDS virus will probably be among the missing at this June's 6th International AIDS Conference in San Francisco. He joins the International Red Cross, the French government, and over two dozen other groups. Mary Van Clay reports. Dr. Luke Montagne said he won't attend the June meeting unless U .S. immigration

authorities changed their policies, restricting entry of HIV -infected people into the country. Montagne could also have other reasons. In the mid -80s, he and Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute fought a bitter feud over who first discovered the AIDS virus. Then U .S. President Ronald Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac had to resolve the dispute. Dr. Mervyn Silverman, head of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, says the heart of the issue was the patent for the AIDS antibody test. Since it was based on the finding of the virus, there was real competition in getting the patent. And in fact, the French had applied for the patent before the Americans, but it was given to Americans first in this settlement, basically divides the royalties between the two countries. Silverman estimates that royalties from the test have well exceeded $10 million by now. But recent U .S. reports have uncovered evidence suggesting all the credit for discovery of the AIDS virus actually belongs to Montagne. Now France's Poster Institute, where Montagne

works, is thinking of pulling out of its royalty agreement with the United States. In San Francisco, I'm Mary Van Clay. An underground student gay and lesbian group has been formed at the University of Bucharest in Romania, according to the International Lesbian and Gay Association. The ILGA said that it's the first known Romanian gay and lesbian group. In the past few months, gay and lesbian groups have been formed in East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union. And finally, an article by journalist Jane Kelly in the English spectator reported on the recent effort to establish an Islamic mission in Ireland. The leader of the team, Dr. Taslim Ahmed, an eye surgeon at University College Hospital in Galeray, insisted that Irish eating habits would have to change. He told reporter Kelly that, quote, it has been proven that the pig is the only homosexual animal. As this perversion is most prevalent in pork eating nations, it is obvious that it gets into your genes through the meat. Perhaps we should refer to future lesbian and gay rights laws as pork barrel legislation.

And that is NewsRap for the week ending April 1st, 1990. No fooling. Remember, an informed community is a strong community. Find out what's happening in your area by monitoring your local gay and lesbian media. NewsRap was written by Jim Schrader, National News Editor of the Advocate, with contributions from other publications and broadcasts throughout the world. For this way out, I'm Greg Gordon. And I'm Lucia Chappelle. I love a man. I love a man. I love him all with every single passing day. I love a man. I love a man. I choose to love each other only openly gay. When will the

ignorance end? When will human can learn to be fun? Tung's Untied, a documentary film using music, poetry, and flowing imagery explores for the first time the issues black gay men are confronting during the AIDS epidemic. Marlon Riggs discusses his critically acclaimed production with Mike Alcole. Brother to brother. Brother to brother. Brother to brother. Brother to brother. In the award -winning filmmaker, Marlon Riggs, newest documentary, Tung's Untied, provides a loving and personal look at black gay men and their sexuality. Riggs says his film is needed because the black community, by and large, doesn't like to talk about sex. Black people, unfortunately, in general, do not discuss sexuality. Do not raise the issue of sexuality or the issue of relations between men and women, let alone men and men and women and any kind of real context. The most you will hear are jokes or sort of sly statements or

witty sort of comic things said. But any kind of real discussion of sexuality is by and large absent in the black community. While the reasons for these attitudes are complex, Riggs says it's partially a defense against the white -held myth of black hyper -sexuality, with the imaging of blacks as hyper -sexual creatures. And when it comes to homosexuality, Riggs finds the church with its long Bible Belt tradition, a potent force in keeping homophobia alive. Abomination is an abomination, mankind shall not lie with mankind for it is an abomination. Until the church, in some ways, it becomes more aggressive, more willing to talk, to acknowledge sexual diversity, to acknowledge sexuality per se. Then it's going to be a tremendous obstacle in terms of dealing with crises of AIDS, teenage pregnancy, venereal disease, explosions of venereal disease, infections

within the black community, and all kinds of problems that deal with sexuality in our community. For Riggs, AIDS is just one of many issues facing his community. Within the black community, you can't just talk about AIDS by itself and see that as an issue to be dealt with, as a problem to be solved, separate from issues of sexuality, separate from issues of racism, separate of issues from issues of homophobia. So many black gay men, I know personally, when they've been diagnosed or when they've just tested positive, go into hiding or leave the community. Riggs says the way to get rid of homophobia in the African -American community is not that difficult. It's a very simple kind of solution, and part of it is just for black gay men, black bisexual men, lesbians of color, lesbians in the general black community, to stand up and to acknowledge themselves, to affirm

themselves. The problem is not only the oppression, if you will, by the church and other areas of leadership within the community, but it's also our complicity of silence. For more information about the documentary, Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs, call area code 415 -8615 -245. That's area code 415 -8615 -245. And in San Francisco, this is Mike Alcale. When, when we'll be

in our hands, when we'll be in our hands, when we'll be in our hands. You're listening to this way out, the International Lesbian and Gay Radio Magazine. With Lucia Chappelle, I'm Greg Gordon. American voters have since 1980 elected federal administrations that are committed not only to not raising taxes, but to cutting taxes. The only way they can do this is by cutting back on domestic programs. The problem with AIDS is just part of the overall problem we have with the federal government and how they deal with their budget priorities. Journalist Randy Schultz was reporting on the AIDS epidemic probably before anyone else. He's the author of and the band played on the best selling chronicle of the AIDS epidemic during the Reagan years. The reason that gay people have had so much influence on AIDS policy is that

for years we have been the people who could say that the people who are against us are a bunch of crazies. We could point to Jerry Fowell and say he's crazy, they're a bunch of crazies. Unfortunately, when you invade a cathedral and take a communion wafer and spit it on the floor, you become the crazy and then the people who are against you are the people who get the sympathy. I think that there have been people in act up who behave like thugs and there's just no room for that. Join us for Bert Wyland's provocative conversation with journalist Randy Schultz beginning next week on this way out. What movement, what culture, what civilization is it that gay people are leading? I ask this not as a rhetorical question, but as a reminder to us of who we are. In the conclusion of Judy Grant's speech to the gay and lesbian writers at the outright conference, the well -known author of another mother tongue and other works discusses the kind of movement, culture and civilization, lesbians and gay men, along with other alternate lifestyle movements are creating in the 1990s and the importance of separatism in the process

of achieving power. I know that we are not in the habit of thinking of ourselves as leading our civilization and yet we do. This power to influence is the major reason for our suppression, we are the measure of suppression. We constitute here in this gathering a marvelous and I know quite an artistic propaganda tool for ourselves, our gay culture and experience, our place in modern history. A chance now to expand into some new tribal names for who we are, cultural definitions of ourselves that go beyond lesbian

and gay, that acknowledge and maintain same sex, gay bonding leadership and culture while spinning out to include bisexual relationship, celibacy, flaming, queenship, hordom cross cultural traditional marriages and the multitude of alternative family systems needed to meet the needs of actual people in a shifting environment. When animal and plant environments themselves are shifting, when the earth is shifting, this is why California is so at the heart of it. The shifting of the earth is so evident to us here and this is why everything that is done in California is called a movement. I'm glad so many gay people have gotten into the recovery movement because to large extent it

seems to me the recovery movement advocates the telling of secrets. In a world that is dying and being born there is not much need in keeping secrets. We may as well tell everything we think and everything we know. As a feminist, I'm not so much interested in taking back the night as I am and taking back the world. This world actually keeps coming back to us as we recover our history and our gods and goddesses. It is in large degree through poetry that we can trace the antiquity of our existence in the oldest mythologies in the Middle East of 5 ,000 years ago. Life and death danced in the underworld in the form of two female figures named Inana and Erich Kegel. In the same area, the story of Gilgamesh where we can find the roots of

materialism. As a philosophy, the two male friends are kissing and loving one another, loving to touch one another. 1700 years before Sappho, herself, the first signed poetry by any individual was written by a woman named N. Haydewana who in all probability, guess what, was a lesbian. A priestess of the goddess of life and beauty, Inana, whose poetry contains the description of a gay ceremony in which the goddess takes two people, a man and a woman, and performs a ceremony that's called head overturning in which she changes their gender. And they are called Pili, Pili, a special title given to them, following which ceremony of head overturning each takes on the tools of the

opposite gender, and then takes on a special gay office, described as ecstasy and trance, expression and lamentation. Is this sound familiar? This was a public gay presence, and it was happening on the eve of the establishment of the first cities. Such public gay presence seems associated with those centuries of gigantic transition of the passage of huge sectors, from rural to urban, for instance, or inclusion of matrilineal goddesses into newer patriarchal religions, or taking women's technology and passing it into male hands, sometimes very traumaticly as with the witch burnings, which are with us still, and family violence, pass down to us. And what appears to be

now a flowering of worldwide male technology that's badly out of balance and in need of female input in current times, male and female are images now as I've just used them, referring as much to lobes of the brain as to people, gender bending as one of the tasks of gay artists. Here we are again in this century with a mass public gay presence, and we are an indication of huge changes to tell you the truth. I actually thought you might all run out when the going got a little tough, but here you are, ready to take on the world in all its agony and glory, and I'm excited for all of you. The remarkable thing about this conference is the mixture of men and women and the representation of people of color, still not enough, but a beginning. 20 years ago, I attended another conference, and at that conference, I think there were 10 women, probably 300 men. There was one person of color,

a very outspoken woman named Omar, and I read a paper saying that men and women should all work together, never been all that timely with my predictions. And we got so frustrated at that conference that we women gathered together and formed lesbian separatism. And this mixture that we have tonight is formed by separatism, which was already being practiced by people like Barbara Greer, with a ladder, and one organization of gay men and L .A. And the black power movement, led by Malcolm X, taught us how to use separatism as a tool, how to recover a base for who you are, and when it's used in net fashion as a tool,

it gives rise to what's here today. We can credit it exactly for this, because it allowed us women, for instance, to develop our own agenda's networks, confidence, media, and presses. And it left men free to do the same thing without having to take responsibility for us for a decade or so this happened. So now we can come together from bases of power as equals and share actual power. This conference then took at least 20 years to develop, and we are in every word of it, every interaction, every disagreement, every common recognition. Guard it and grow it carefully. Thank you. Thank

you. Thank you. Thank you.

The rest will come with time. Thanks for choosing this way out, the International Gay and Lesbian Radio Magazine. This week, Jim Schrader, Bert Weiland, Mary Van Clay, Tony Crabbs, the Gay Radio Information News Service, and Mike Alkalay contributed program material. Blackberry, Meg Christian, and Margie Adam performed some of the music you heard, and Kim Wilson composed and performed our theme music. Satellite distribution of this way out is made possible through a generous grant from the Paul Rappelpoor Foundation. Male from our listeners really sustains this all -volunteer project. So let us hear from you with any comments, suggestions, or questions you might have. Address to this way

out, post office box 38327, Los Angeles, California 90038. This way out is produced by Greg Gordon, and Lucia Chappell, and we thank you for listening on WRV OSwego, K -A -O -S Olympia, and M -V -S Amsterdam. Among others? And for supporting this local community radio station? Of course you should stay tuned.