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5/95

It's hard to believe it, with rain clouds still slung ominously across the sky, but in less than a month Sonoma County will once again host its annual Lesbian and Gay Pride Celebration.

Of course, the local parade and celebration does get earlier every year, in order to allow locals to travel to various other parades in such far flung places as San Francisco and Washington D.C. These other events are held closer to the actual anniversary of the Stonewall Riots (the last weekend in June), the protest that launched the lesbian and gay civil rights movement.

Everybody who supports the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and other sexual minorities is invited to partake in the festivities, which includes a parade down Santa Rosa's Mendocino Ave. from downtown to Santa Rosa Junior College, beginning at 11 a.m., and a picnic with entertainment, crafts booths and other goodies at the SRJC campus.

Since June is also traditionally the month for weddings, the festivities will feature a mass wedding and re-commitment ceremony. Opposite sex as well as same sex couples are invited to participate, and can register by calling Cindy Barnes at 537-8990.

Even if they don't want to get married, heterosexuals can still be an integral part of the fun by volunteering as a monitor for the parade. The plan is to allow gays, lesbians and bisexuals the freedom to march, by having our heterosexual friends take on the less exciting, but equally important, task of monitoring. Call Georgia Prescott at 527-0485 if you are interested.

This is the ninth annual local Pride Celebration, which is something to put on the plus side of your balance scales when contemplating the universe and how it seems to be such a violent and repressive place these days. Another little item on the plus side of the balance beam is the courageous stance taken by three of the five members of the Cloverdale School Board who voted (successfully) to allow gay groups to talk to the high school's student council about what it's like to be a gay or lesbian teen.

Most heartening of all, in this small town tug of war between the forces of freedom and the forces of repression, was the wisdom and courage of the students who were willing to take on the local (and vocal) fundamentalist Christians in order to bring a little enlightenment to their school. Led by their indomitable student body president Sara Romain, the students fought to bring this presentation about gays and lesbians to their school, in the hope that it would help counter some of the rampant homophobia on campus.

Some of the parents who opposed the presentation have threatened to pull their children out of the high school. There is also some talk of attempting to recall the school board members who voted for the presentation. If you live in Cloverdale, or you have friends in Cloverdale, you might consider offering some support to the school board members, or any of the students, who come under attack.

Unfortunately, things are not going quite as well outside of Sonoma County. The rights of sexual minorities are being threatened in several states, including California, and nationally and internationally, as well.

In 11 states, California, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Washington, legislators have introduced various bills which would deny gays and lesbians from adopting, children, providing foster care for them, or conceiving children through artificial insemination. Florida and New Hampshire already ban adoption by gay or lesbian couples.

But the US does not appear to have cornered the market on anti-gay discrimination. A law prohibiting all three of these avenues by which lesbians and gays can become parents was recently passed in Sweden as part of a bill which also allowed gays and lesbians to marry. (Try to find the logic in that!) Hong Kong, Italy, France and some other European nations are also considering denying lesbians access to artificial insemination. (Think about these things when you decide where to spend your vacation dollars.

In an even more direct attack, the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinatti ruled in early May that states and local municipalities can repeal laws that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, and pass laws that make it impossible to create anti-discrimination ordinances for gays and lesbians.

Now, don't throw your hands up in dispair. This is not one of those articles that tells you what's wrong and leaves you stranded. If you want to do something to stop this madness, contact the National Center for Lesbian Rights or the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project in San Francisco and ask them how you can get involved. And, by all means, join the parade and celebration June 11, whether you are gay, straight, or whatever. If you don't exercise your rights frequently, you may find yourself losing a lot of flexibility.