CAPITAL COVERAGE NEWS SERVICE
media in the public interest
Repeal of Issue 3 Cited
Speakers Compare Racism, Homophobia
at Downtown Anti-Klan Vigil
by John Zeh 12/19/98
Capital Coverage News Service
CINCINNATI - A group of over 250 people got a good taste of pro-gay sentiment Dec. 6 at a Fountain Square "flashlight" vigil called to protest racism symbolized by an iron cross erected by the Ku Klux Klan.
Four speakers compared homophobia to racism at the center-city rally, organized by City Councilman Tyrone Yates to "shine lights against the dark night of hatred, bigotry, oppression, and intolerance."
Yates, an African-American, said people must reaffirm that the Klan's message and cross does not represent the Queen City. "We show and reveal tonight that the KKK is unwelcome (here). Since reconstruction, the KKK has intimidated and preached hate and practiced ugly and brutal terror across the land," he added. "They hate Catholics, claim Jews as enemies, and they spurn human rights."
As Bengals football fans and holiday shoppers passed by, 15 speakers joined Yates to denounce serious societal ills. Among them was the National Organization for Women's Kate Curry, who said she loves this kind of gathering because "the Klan can't stand this. It's race-mixing at its best."
As new vice president of social action for NOW's local chapter, Curry cautioned "good people not to let our guard down" because the Klan's "high priests of hatred, encouraged by the torture and death of gay people, are at work year round."
The cross was erected Dec.1 by members of the Butler, Ind.-based American Knights of the KKK, said to be the largest and most active KKK chapter in America. It was torn down later that night, prompting a charge of criminal damaging against a 16-year-old suburban student.
At a rally Dec. 5 to replace the wooden one with a steel symbol that drew Klan members from as far away as Georgia and Michigan, the Rev. James E. Hogg, Ohio's "exalted Cyclops" said damaging the cross "should be a hate crime (because) this is my religious belief."
At the anti-racism vigil the next day, Curry countered that
the Klan hides behind "hypocritical religious trappings,
slinking around to scare the most vulnerable victims they can
find."
Shepard's Death, Issue 3 Compared to KKK's Hatred
Stonewall Cincinnati director Lycette Nelson agreed, noting how
Klan-like victimization can kill people like Matthew Shepard,
the late Wyoming student, and has larger implications. "The
routine beating of gay men and transgendered women reflects the
same hatred" now codified in city law here as Issue 3, she
said.
"Basic denial of human rights" exemplified by Issue 3 is "a much worse evil" than the Klan's 10-day permit, she said. "Let us not be fooled" by the departure of the Klan's cross and white hoods because "anti-gay hatred is now in our very City Charter, setting gays, lesbians, and bisexuals apart from the rest of society."
The ballot-initiative approved by 62 percent of voters Nov. 2, 1993, bars municipal protections based on gay, lesbian, or bisexual "orientation, status, conduct, or relationship." On Oct. 13, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Issue 3 after the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the Charter amendment does not violate GLB citizens' rights.
Stonewall's Political Action Committee is now working "to carefully create a structure with appropriate language" to mount a grass-roots campaign to overturn Issue 3, Nelson told Capital Coverage. A second community-wide meeting is set for Jan 26, location TBA.
Because building a community-wide coalition is so critical for successful repeal, Nelson was pleased that a third speaker included gays in his talk. "Before I be a slave and be buried in my grave," sang the Rev. Dr. William Land, "let no more homophobia come over me." He is chair of the social action committee of the powerful Baptist Ministers' Conference (BMC) here, which is open to all denominations. Pastor Land called for the "liberation of all personkind and elimination of the Holocaust of people based on their sexual orientation."
BMC has no position on Issue 3's repeal, he told Capital Coverage, but as chair of the national United Church of Christ's "predominantly-black" Ministry of Racial and Social Justice he supports gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights. "God respects all humanity," said the senior pastor at Freeman Avenue UCC in Walnut Hills, an African-American. "And we at UCC represent our consciences."
Struggle to Repeal Issue 3 Needs New Blood, Ex-Activist
Says
Stonewall members and others ready to join the new repeal effort
will welcome his support. One former gay activist, Pink Pyramid
bookstore owner George Vanover, said he is pleased so many people
rallied at the vigil. "It's amazing how us old folks are
getting off our rocking chairs and are getting involved again,"
he told this reporter.
"But problems will continue if we don't encourage our brothers and sisters to get involved. We need their enthusiasm and endless energy to push the movement forward," he added. "But to get them involved, we must get them out of their complacency and show them what will happen if they don't take up the fight for equal enforcement of their constitutional rights and freedoms."
The presence of the Klan's cross and resultant protest prompted
varying responses from people in the local GLBT community contacted
by Capital Coverage.
PACT-Men, MCC Disagree
Roger Burgess, co-chair of People of All Color Together attended
the vigil. He said he fears that "as the world's most livable
city, we should look how badly this reflects the (city's) image,
City Council and the Police Department.
"We are spending tax money to defend hatred, plain and simple -(under) the guise of religious freedom. It's absurd and ludicrous and should be looked at more closely. We have fought too hard to get rid of such idiocies in our lives, and Cincinnati is just perpetuating it."
PACT-Cincinnati is a gay and lesbian multiracial and cultural group committed to fostering supportive environments, where racial and cultural barriers can be overcome and goals of human equality realized.
"If the KKK wants to display the cross," Burgess e-mailed this reporter, "let them do it in their own yards...BURNING."
Downtown resident and stockbroker Mark Pankratz agreed. "Displaying signs long-established to represent hatred, racism, murder and contempt of our hard-won freedoms is not, and should not, be considered protected under a constitution that was designed to guarantee us the right to be FREE of such hideous deprivation of basic human dignity.
"The guise of being a religious symbol is a flagrant untruth flaunted in our faces by taking appalling advantage of free speech protections. (They) couple religious freedom facades, while boldly presenting the symbol of hatred that the KKK has always represented," he said.
But the Rev. C. J. Wright of New Spirit Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Northside disagrees, saying the vigil "is one way of letting folks know how we feel about the negative and hateful activities of the KKK.
"The bottom line that the KKK has as much right to demonstrate -within lawful boundaries- as we do. If we are going to work for justice and equality for all, then all will have to be included," he said via e-mail.
"Our focus should be to create change, not tension, and there is another way to effect change," the Rev. Mr. Wright said. "Educate and inform the community . . . All the community, about issues like racism and the damage hatred causes."
MCC Offers Continuing Dialogue on Racism
New Spirit MCC has headed in that direction for several months.
Racism "study circles" will begin in the New Year.
(See Rainbow Cincinnati Bulletin Board.)
"It is not enough to preach about the sins of hatred, MCC's Wright said. "We must get into the community and educate people about what hatred looks like. Then, we have to creatively and actively teach folks how to replace hatred with respect.".
MCC's circles are designed "to educate and provide insight and tools through which we can all be more respectful of our brothers and sistersin the whole community," he said. "My hope is that even the folks who think they don't have racist attitudes will attend. I'm confident all of us can learn and grow from them."
Another vigil speaker, Alea Mihou, president of Students Organized Against Racism at nearby Northern Kentucky University, urged "straight people to combat heterosexism, help defend equal rights for homosexuals, and speak out for prisoners' rights and against police brutality.
"As constructionists of racism, we as white people must work to abolish it as well," she added. "Unless we address our privilege and organize this, no one will be truly free until all are free."
Active involvement in human rights struggles by a wide array of people is indeed necessary, Stonewall's Nelson stressed at the vigil. Mentioning Shepard's viscous murder by two young men he met at a campus bar, she said, "We all were upset, and rightly so. But Issue 3 is not as visible. It's not a cross, with people in hoods. It's only a document. Our job is to keep calling attention to it every chance we get."
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Veteran journalist John Zeh is a correspondent for the Ohio's
weekly Gay People's Chronicle, where an earlier version of this
article appeared
