November 1992 ▼ Volume 7, Number 11 ▼ Serving The Baltimore /Washington Community Since 1986
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мешав
CLINTON’S IN!
Where De We
Go From Here?
BY KEVIN BURNS _
THE ALTERNATIVE
For gays and lesbians, the
election of Bill Clinton to
the highest office in the
nation represents the culmi¬
nation of a long, historic
drive to be recognized as a force in
American politics.
The contributions and progress that
gays and lesbians made in the 1992
election were [raised at a press confer¬
ence held by the leading gay activist
groups at the National Press Club in
Washington, DC, the day after the
election.
The results of the election contained
much good news and some bad news
for the gay community. But all the
groups involved in the conference, and
Baltimore’s Gays and Lesbians for
Clinton/Gore, agree that gays and les¬
bians have a lot more work to do,
especially at the state level, and should
be realistic about President-elect
Clinton’s promises on gay and AIDS
issues.
The main good news, of course, is
that pro-gay Bill Clinton defeated
George Bush to become the country’s
42nd President.
But gays rejoiced in many other vic¬
tories as well:
▼ Openly-gay Gerry Studds (D-MA)
and Barney Frank (D-MA) won their
House races.
T Maryland’s pro-gay Barbara
Mikulski easily won her Senate race,
and will be joined by other pro-gay
women who made history this year.
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA) will become the
nation’s first all-female Senate team
and Carol Mosley Braun (D-IL) will
become the first African-American
woman in the Senate.
▼ Openly-gay and pro-gay candi¬
dates for state legislatures won their
races throughout the country.
▼ And Oregon and Portland, Maine
defeated anti-gay referendums that
would have overturned gay rights leg¬
islation, and in Oregon’s case declared
homosexuality “abnormal, wrong,
unnatural and perverse. .
The bad news is anti-gay referen¬
dums passed in Colorado and Tampa,
Florida that will overturn existing gay
rights legislation, and in Colorado’s
case, prohibit new gay rights legisla¬
tion from being passed.
The speakers at the November 4
conference included Tim McFeeley,
executive director of the Human
Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF),
Urvashi Vaid, executive director of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
(NGLTF), William Wayboum, execu¬
tive director of the Gay and Lesbian
Victory Fund, and Scott Sawyer of
ACT UP/New York.
Together they attempted to outline,
according to Vaid, “where the gay and
lesbian community stands, what
brought us here and where we go from
here.”
This can best be done by looking at
the accomplishments and future plans
of the groups, as well as Baltimore’s
Gays and Lesbians for Clinton/Gore.
The HRCF is the largest gay politi¬
cal action group in the United States
with approximately 60,000 members.
According to Gregory King, commu¬
nications director for HRCF, 21 of the
33 HRCF staff members worked on
location with the Clinton/Gore cam¬
paign throughout the country, especial¬
ly in states that had anti-gay referen¬
dums on the ballot or had tight senato¬
rial races between pro and anti-gay
candidates, including California,
Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, and
Colorado.
These staffers mobilized more than
10,000 HRCF members to actively
campaign for Clinton and the other
pro-gay candidates through canvass¬
ing, distributing literature, and
fundraising.
Moreover, the HRCF also frequent¬
ly helped Clinton with talking points
on his various speeches that addressed
gay and AIDS issues.
With 20,000 members nationwide,
the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force is the oldest gay political organi¬
zation in the country.
The NGLTF wrote a briefing paper,
along with the AIDS Action Council,
that was given to each candidate to
help educate them on issues including
See CLINTON page 3
No Gay Unions
Episcopal
Clergy Says
BALTIMORE — Conservative critics say the
head of the Episcopal Church in Maryland
should more strongly condemn the blessing of
homosexual unions by clergy members.
Bishop A. Theodore Eastman on Wednesday
ordered the clergy not to follow the example
of the Rev. William W. Rich, who blessed the
union of two lesbians in a ceremony July 4.
“Because the Episcopal Church has made
no official provision for the blessing of same-
gender covenants, and because there is clearly
no consensus locally or on the wider scene
about the significance of these rites, I have
directed the clergy of the Diocese of
Maryland to refrain from such blessings,” the
letter said.
But The Rev. William N. McKeachie, rec¬
tor of Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church, in
Baltimore, criticized the bishop’s reaction.
See UNIONS page 38
JOHN FONDA 1929-1992
Remembered in a Special Section
