It is no secret that there is no love lost between me and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Greater Cincinnati, but someone whose opinion I genuinely respect called me out this morning on being perhaps a bit mean-spirited towards them in the past.

To the charge of being mean-spirited: duh. It's what I do best.

To respond, however: they need it. I have said that journalism in town is cheerleading, and I knew, going into this project of blogging, that my writing and my person would be sprayed for my opinions, as more divisive than helpful. And despite the rolled eyes as to my qualifications as media, well, I'm a blogger, not a journalist. I've taken it upon myself to be the critic; if people choose not to listen, then that's fine. Seriously. But I have never once stated that I was going to fill the roll of any of the journalists in town -- these are my opinions, unedited (usually).

That said, perhaps there has been some unexplained mean-spiritedness in my past posts, so we came to a deal: I was allowed to write one more post attacking the Community Center and then I would stop the nasty, indirect commentary.

And this is my post:

In many ways, my feelings towards the Center are similar to my feelings towards the community as a whole: vast disappointment. As a kid growing up in South Carolina, I read about cities with places like this and drooled. To have places that were exclusively gay, that were safe, that I could meet people like me, was a dream. And to have a community network of people and organizations dedicated to people like me was unbelievable, and it was something I so desperately wanted to be a part of.

We didn't have GSA's in the south... we still don't, really. Hell, we barely have openly gay anything in the south.

It was natural, when I came to Cincinnati, that I would connect myself to the Center. I'm not going to detail my history there -- I fucked up quite a bit, and the then-President Harold fucked up as well. But that's not the basis of my distaste -- believe it or not.

It's there, and we do nothing with it.

We have taken things like the Center for granted so much so that we don't even care that it exists anymore. Who goes? Nobody. There is a fairly steady crowd of folks who run through the measly building, all the same people, much like any place else. But it's not used, really. Groups don't go there ("it's too small"), individuals don't go there ("no one's ever there"), and it's never open ("there are no volunteers"). We have this place -- a physical center for our community -- and we don't even care that it's there, and the group that has run it seems to even have forgotten why they bother.

Cincinnati, apparently, is so hip, so post-gay that the need for central identity is unnecessary. We'd rather spend our times elsewhere, doing other things, with other people. We'd rather give time to other charities; we'd rather socialize at bars; we'd rather volunteer for other causes. The Center, meanwhile, gets left behind. And the people who run it can do nothing but whine that no one stops by anymore.

Everybody has to prove their muster to the world, occasionally. Speaking personally, I went from Oxford star to nothing, from AVOC star to nothing, from blogger to JoinTheImpact star back to just blogger (meaning "to nothing"). Every few years, we have to prove our worth. The Center has had that opportunity over and over and over again -- Pride, the moment when they could have bought a new building, the rebuilding of the Coalition, the retakeover of CYG, etc. etc. etc. Whereas, yes, the community has forgotten about the Community Center, the Community Center has not truly served the community for years.

Like most things gay in this town, it's dead and dying and has very little fight left in it. It does nothing, is left empty, and will quietly pass into the night. And, conversely, the community will forget about it as if it was never there.

My distaste for the Community Center has nothing to do with my history with it. I am angry at a community that has left a wonderful organization behind and seems willing to let it die, and with a pantheon of individuals who are doing nothing in its final death throes but repeat the same tired lines of inactivity and inopportunity.

And I know it's hard -- I was there, too. I volunteered for two and a half years; I was on the board for 9 months. I know it's hard, but it was hard work to create, and it's hard work to maintain.

I blog because this is all the time I have to give, anymore, outside of the occasional project that I involve myself with. I cannot give completely right now, with school, two jobs, and a slew of personal things I am working through. What the Community Center needs, and the foundation for my criticism for the current administration, is that it needs people who have the time to give and the time to affect change and the time to recreate it.

Not people who are already burnt out from the trying. Experience is a wonderful thing, but the Community Center needs change, drastic change, or I'm afraid we'll all lose it. More importantly, the Community Center needs people who are dedicated and caring to what it could be, not what it is now. And while it's easy for us to blame past or current Presidents for its rancid state of affairs, it is all of our faults for not trying harder and doing better by ourselves and for ourselves.

My criticism of the Center is the same criticism I have for everything: Where are the queers? Gone, and going. Columbus and Chicago are nice, folks, but we're here now. I know we're all busy. I know we're all worried about economic crises and our jobs and our own personal concerns. But take some time. Remember, you didn't come out alone. It's getting easier, but it's still not easy. We all need this, and I think we'll be lesser of a city without the Center.

A classic debate for a board meeting seems to center on one question: are we a place -- for people to meet and gather and talk and organize and volunteer -- or are we an organization -- running the Coalition and Pride?

I think the question is still open for debate.

And, with that, I lance the boil.

Barry blogs regularly at QueerCincinnati.com and Twitters even more regularly.