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When I think of my life as an activist I see myself as a bridge. I envision myself as a connecting link between two, often very separate communities, the lesbian/gay/bisexual world and the radical peace, justice and environmental community.

Being in the middle, finding myself transmitting messages back and forth, sometimes things that one or the other of the groups doesn't really want to hear, is an exciting, but not always enviable position.

Perhaps the most painful part of this work is discovering that people with whom I share a sexual orientation, a profoundly fundamental part of my being, do not really think the way I do in any other area. Too many times I have come up against the hard wall of my queer sisters and brothers insensitivity to the basic rights of other human beings who are not white, educated middle-class folks like themselves.

A particularly blatant example of this narrow-minded hypocrisy left me ranting and raving on the telephone to an organizer of a liaison group that works with the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department to protect gays and lesbians against violence.

I had received a call from a young woman, an anti-war protestor, who was organizing a county-wide group of victims of police brutality. Since she knew that gays and lesbians are often victims of police harassment and brutality, the woman was seeking a representative from that community to attend a meeting in Santa Rosa. Others who were part of this coalition against police brutality included homeless people, anti war activists, and parents of kids who had been harassed by police at the county fair because the kids had the wrong skin color.

When I suggested to the gay man that his anti-violence group might be interested in sending a representative to the coalition meeting, he replied that he was not interested in joining forces with "people like that."

"We have our own relationship with the police, thank you very much," he said, or something to that effect.

What a shock. Once again I was brought face to face with the reality that well-to-do white gays, especially men, often fail to recognize the similarity between their own oppression and the oppression of other minority groups. What blindness, what short-sightedness, I told him in no uncertain terms, but he failed to grasp my point.

Many gays and lesbians believe that the struggle for gay civil rights can be won in a vacuum. I want to ask them what value our civil rights will have after all the forests are cut down, or the ozone is destroyed or we kill each other off through warfare and economic devastation.

A perfect example of this one-track mentality is the question of the rights of gays and lesbians to serve in the military. Of course the military should employ non-discriminatory hiring practices, but another question these gay activists should beasking is why does the US spends so many taxpayer dollars on the military.

On the other side of the bridge, among my non-gay activist friends things seem to be a little easier. I have encountered there acceptance of myself as a lesbian and a general understanding that homophobia is another weapon that the power structure uses to maintain its position. My lefty comrades, with whom I have organized, marched and gone off to jail, never batted an eyelash when I came out as a lesbian several years ago. Some of them have even joined me on the front lines by marching in gay pride celebrations, speaking up for gay pride week at the Board of Supervisors and getting arrested at ACT UP demonstrations for better AIDS services.

But there is still an invisibility gap among the liberal and radical left, when it comes to gays. Even those who accept us don't always take our issues seriously, except AIDS issues, of course.

Many activists who are up on the latest happenings in Guatemala and Zimbabwe are not aware that gays/lesbians/bisexuals are not a protected class under the state and federal constitutions, or that violence against gays is on the rise throughout the US.

According to the advocacy group Gays and Lesbians Against Defamation (GLAD), Project Censored, a Sonoma State University based media watch group with a progressive agenda, has not included a single story about lesbian/gay/bisexual issues in ten years of focusing on news stories that are ignored by the mainstream media. What about violence againt gays? What about the high rate of gay teen suicide? What about gays tossed out of the military after they served in the Persian Gulf War?

One factor in the lack of knowledge about gay issues among the heterosexual population is the insularity of the gay community. We, as a gay community, are simply not disseminating this information to the general public. Also the underlying homophobia that is part of our common culture makes it unattractive for even the most well-intentioned "straights" to search out that information on their own.

I don't want to leave you with the impression that gay is gay and straight is straight and never the twain shall meet. Many gays, particularly women, have been at the forefront of the peace, justice and environmental movements. Others share an understanding of the inter-connectedness of progressive movements, but do not actively participate in coalition with others, preferring to work within their own community. AIDS has radicalized a lot of middle class white gay males, as they come to terms with their own fall from the legions of the privileged.

And hey, even if you never think about gays and lesbians any other time, those of you who read this column regularly, focus on this subject six times a year.

Here's an unfortunate afterward to my column in the February-March issue. The gay civil rights initiative which would have prohibited housing and job discrimination against gays in California is belly up. Proponents pulled the measure when they determined that they would not be able to gather enough signatures before the deadline.

You can also scratch the plan to drive military recruiters off high school campuses by invoking local sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws. Some group attempted to do just that in Philadelphia and discovered that the federal government has jurisdiction over all local regulations. I guess its time for a revolution.