Managing editor Ben Wolford, left, and editor Adam Griffiths

From the editor

As we wrap up this winter edition, I keep thinking back to glass ceilings. It’s the notion of not being able to tell how far the limits of the equal rights we presently have can be pushed and overcome.

But this is the fourth issue of Fusion I’ve had the honor of delivering, and after scanning them all, the glass ceiling is getting thinner, lower and harder to see. As we herald the second decade of the 21st century, the ambiguous barrier society erects to refuse us LGBT people our rights is increasingly, well, Plexiglas.

In some spots, it’s inches thick. In Maine or New York, everyone expected same-sex marriage to pass easily this past fall. But there the invisible wall went up again, and it wasn’t clear until after the votes, much as it wasn’t clear in 2004 when Ohio passed Issue 1 banning same-sex marriage, how much harder we’re going to have to fight.

In others, it’s already cracking. In this issue, those we speak to explain how they’re breaking through, how being open about who they are is a non-issue and how the world is accepting them for who they are — straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, whatever.

This past October, thousands took to the streets of our nation’s capital in an effort to bulldoze preconceptions, misconceptions and the ignorance in-between. For the first time in this generation’s memory, walls became and keep becoming mirrors. And while I hope you see reflections growing stronger, we must keep pushing until, no matter the image, all people are equal and united.

So go ahead, use this issue of Fusion and hammer away.

— Adam Griffiths

FUSION WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU

Send us your comments in a letter or online at ThatGayMagazine.com. Send letters to Fusion, 205 Franklin Hall, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44240; fax to 330-672-4880; or e-mail us at kentfusion@gmail.com.Look for your response in our spring issue.

“It was just like, I’m not Catholic; I don’t want to be involved in any religion,” says Kat Holtz, a UU church member. (Photograph by Rachel Kilroy)

By Ben Wolford

Kat Holtz never made a big announcement to her parents that she wasn’t Catholic anymore.

“I didn’t even put that much thought into it,” she says with a broad smile. “It was just like, I’m not Catholic; I don’t want to be involved in any religion. At 15, your eyes really open to a lot of things.”

At 52, they’re still open.

Holtz is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent, which has recently gone from being “welcoming” to being “officially welcoming.” Now, it invites LGBT people to join and publicly lobbies for equal rights.

“The congregation was very, very involved in (campaigning against Ohio Issue 1),” says Rev. Melissa Carville-Ziemer, who’s been pastor at the church for five years. “That was a huge defeat for GLBT people in Ohio. It was a huge defeat for the congregation.”

For a place that serves people of all backgrounds and faiths, or non-faiths, the UU building could easily be mistaken for a Calvinist church. The steeple blew off in a windstorm in the 1920s, but the bell tower is still there, and they ring the rickety bells for very special occasions. The pews are wooden, and they hold hymnals.

But they don’t sing Glorias; they sing about love. The pianist doesn’t play Brahms’ German Requiem; rather, he plays Brahms’ perfectly secular Rhapsody in G minor. The readings aren’t from Psalms. They’re from Shakespeare.

The themes of life and death and love are there. The metaphors are similar to the ones in the Bible — albeit more poetic, perhaps. “We draw from all the different religions for readings,” says Holtz, “and from great literature.”

Holtz grew up in Portage County’s conservative parts — Crestwood High School (just north of Ravenna) class of ’75. She earned a degree in elementary and special education from Kent State and now spends her time educating at the church and in the community.

Her primary job is at Kent’s Townhall II where she teaches HIV prevention. Beyond that, she teaches teenagers at the church about sexuality. “It’s a very comprehensive program. We cover just about everything you could think of for seventh to ninth graders … anatomy, communication, STDs, pregnancy prevention, birth, protections, gay and lesbian, transgender, uh, positions.”

It’s comprehensive.

And progressive.

“I’m personally also involved in the Hogwarts program,” she says. “It’s a local school of witchcraft and wizardry. Now that’s something to photograph, let me tell you.”

There’s something for everyone. The order of service bulletin has a note at the bottom: “Please see one of our greeters if you would like to use a set of headphones, a large-print order of service or hymnal.” At the top, it asks the congregation to “please rise in body or in spirit.” And the church has a handicap accessible elevator.

“It’s really a mix,” says Carville-Ziemer. “We have people who were raised Jewish. We have people who were raised Catholic. We have people who were raised in various denominations of Protestantism.

“And we have a substantial number of people who weren’t raised religiously,” she says, “people who just grew up in nonreligious households and as young adults or adults are exploring and seeing what’s out there in the world of religious communities and find ours of interest.”

Ben Wolford is a junior newspaper journalism major.

(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2009-10 print edition.)

Two things need to change here. First — and I may not see this in my lifetime — people, maybe soldiers especially, need to stop being so misanthropic. It’s misanthropic to hate gays, Arabs, foreigners in general, those without crew cuts, etc. Apparently, all the dog handler did to earn enough abuse to give him PTSD was to refuse to have sex with a prostitute.

And second, “don’t ask, don’t tell” needs to disappear. President Barack Obama has said he would repeal it but hasn’t yet. This country won’t live up to any admirable stand of equality until every last policy like “don’t ask, don’t tell” is repealed and forgotten.

— Ben Wolford

Managing editor

According to an Associated Press report, the diocese is apparently asking its priests to take up a special, second collection during services this weekend to raise money to give to activist groups trying to reverse a law that allows gay marriage in the state.

The offense of banning gays from marrying is only part of the diocese’s breach of morality. It spits in the face of all the good things a Catholic Mass tries to accomplish. First, church and God and religion should not be muddied in politics. Church is for transcending the vulgar in the hope of something better.

Not only that, but Mass is when Catholics come together to hope as a community. Fighting to exclude gays from marrying is not in line with the effort to create a universal church. And perhaps moreover, taking up a collection during Mass over a divisive issue — divisive even among heterosexuals — destroys any chance of receiving the body and blood in a friendly, communal way.

The Catholic Church does many great works and has been a vehicle for hope, solidarity and learning for 2,000 years. But it threatens to negate all that good with political statements and exclusionary teachings that, to many people, look a lot like hate.

— Ben Wolford
Managing editor

A Proposition 8 protester paraded a sign with those words around downtown Houston Nov. 15. The Houston demonstration was one of scores that day in all 50 states, Canada, England and Australia, speaking out against the California vote to ban same-sex marriage.

Photographers were there, too, taking thousands of pictures of thousands of signs and thousands of faces. Hordes of people filled streets in a First Amendment fashion not seen supporting an American civil rights movement since the ‘60s.

To scan the millions of images on a Google search of “Proposition 8 protests” is sharply captivating. There are mad, screaming faces with bulging neck muscles. There are faces surrounded by police in riot gear. There are contemplative, quiet faces. There are kissing faces.

But can they all be the face of this fresh, re-energized gay rights movement?

“That’s a good question,” says Molly Temple, a University of California at Los Angeles student who’s been active in opposing Prop. 8. “I think that there is a certain amount of unity, but I think maybe if we were to collect a little more and create a larger force, there could be more of a visible movement. There are a lot of little things popping up in different communities.”

But at least people are angry.

That’s what long-time activist Fred Karger says. “I’m glad we lost. We needed that wake-up call.”

The call came courtesy of 52 percent of Golden State voters who passed Prop. 8.

“I think I was shocked and hurt but not terribly surprised,” says Peter Carley, counselor in residence at the LGBT resource center at UCLA. “It was a majority voting on a minority right, and I think in this case people generally voted from fear rather than knowledge.”

The atmosphere at UCLA’s campus Nov. 5 was gloom mixed with hope, Carley says. “The students were really active, really engaged and really devastated … There was kind of an emotional and moral exhaustion. Although it was a bittersweet moment because, you know, the Barack thing was great. There was finally someone reasonably progressive in the White House.”

Temple saw a similar reaction — people weren’t happy.

“There was a lot of disappointment and devastation and not to mention a bunch of protests,” says Temple, a second-year world arts and culture student. “Some demonstrations ended up happening at or around UCLA where students were involved. I went to a couple.”

The reactive protests at UCLA were just a sample of something bigger, a collective barrage of independent revolts. It was obvious from the headlines: “Police, demonstrators clash at Prop. 8 protest,” which the Los Angeles Times ran the next day. The San Francisco Chronicle reported people marching on city halls across the country Nov. 15.

But even those were warning shots for the campaigns in the works.

Karger has campaigned for gay rights since about the time Harvey Milk, the San Francisco city supervisor and the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States, was assassinated in 1978. He says he’s never seen such a surge of involvement.

Karger himself went for the throat with his group, Californians Against Hate. They dug up public records of how much money individuals and firms gave to yes-on-Prop.-8 campaigns. A commercial on the group’s Web site introduces a white-haired woman and the text, “Elsa Prince of Holland, Michigan gave $450,000 to eliminate same-sex marriage in California.” Then a little boy tossing a baseball looks up to ask, “Why did you give so much money, grandma?”

“My goal was to make it socially unacceptable to take away the rights of a minority,” Karger says. But the more common tactic, it seems, is to make it socially acceptable to be that minority.

Equality California came up with the idea of tell-three.org in response to the passage of Prop. 8. The aim of the campaign is to get gays and lesbians to tell three non-LGBT people about their lives.

“Yes, the 15-year-olds of this country are overwhelmingly supportive of our rights,” the Tell 3 Web site reads. “But if we don’t want to wait around for today’s teenagers to become middle-aged before we get equality, we’re going to have to get more people to support us.”

Similarly, Temple and other UCLA students created multimedia stories that look intimately into gay and lesbian couples’ lives and posted them at 13lovestories.com. “I think I fell in love at first sight,” says Maribeth in Temple’s audio slideshow, “Jean & Maribeth.”

“One of the problems that we recognized in the ‘No on Prop. 8 Campaign’ was that there were no actual faces shown, no actual stories shown, or LGBT families or people in the community,” Temple says. “And so (13 Love Stories) is kind of putting a face to this issue.”

Rights activists in Ohio show the face in a different sense.

“College and university students who believe in equality issues for (LGBT) Ohio are registering student teams with us and committing to design and participate in public service projects in their community,” says Peter Caborn, deputy director for Equality Ohio. “So, for example, a team of students from Kent State could register a CAUSE team with us and let us know that they have the intent of donating 10 hours a week to the animal shelter.”

CAUSE stands for College and University Students for Equality. Caborn says the project, which so far has no Kent State volunteers, aims to show Ohioans gay and lesbian citizens “are giving back to their community no less than other people,” as they push for, among other things, equal housing and employment legislation.

All the activism must have inspired something in the air. Iowa’s Supreme Court and Vermont’s state legislature each decided five days apart in April that same-sex marriage should be legal in their states. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, it already was. That makes 46 states that still restrict marrying rights, 46 battlegrounds and 46 chances to make 46 strides toward equality.

Patrick Egan, a researcher in politics and public policy at New York University, co-authored a study after Prop. 8 passed to find out which demographics voted which way. Nothing surprising there. Seventy percent of those who attend a religious service each week voted in favor. Eighty-one percent of Republicans voted in favor. Sixty percent of those without friends who are gay or lesbian voted in favor.

“In other research that I’ve done, that result is pretty consistent that members of those groups — conservative Republicans, more religious folks — all tend to be most opposed to the idea of legal same-sex marriage,” Egan says.

In light of these statistics, two California students, Ali Shams and Kaelan Housewright, proposed a measure for the ballot of next year’s November elections that, if passed, would reword state statutes to make “marriage” a social ceremony and “domestic partners” the legal term. That would effectively dodge the same-sex marriage issue altogether, which, Shams and Housewright hope, would cater to the religious voters.

Meanwhile, other actions build up in California’s legal channels. Since Prop. 8 passed, the California Supreme Court has been preparing for and listening to arguments challenging the changes the election authorized. Any ruling from the court must come no later than June 2.

On March 5, it held a hearing to discuss appeals to overturn Prop. 8, but the court didn’t seem likely to reverse the election results.

“… What I’m picking up from the oral argument in this case is this court should willy-nilly disregard the will of the people,” the New York Times reported Justice Joyce L. Kennard saying to the attorneys appealing Prop. 8. They seemed more likely to budge on another issue: whether pre-existing same-sex marriages will remain valid.

In May of last year, the court ruled same-sex marriages legal when they hadn’t been previously. Between May and November, an estimated 18,000 marriages were performed.

Carley, a husband and father of two children, was one of those 18,000 couples. He says he has feelings of being in limbo while waiting for the court decision. “But it doesn’t change how I feel about my husband or my kids,” he says. “We’re still a family. So they can try, but they can’t really take it away from me.”

Despite the outcome of any current protests, campaigns, ballot items or court rulings, Karger says reverberations from Prop. 8’s passing will speed movement toward equal rights by a generation. “If we’d plodded along like we have been doing — winning legal cases state-by-state, here and there — it might have taken two generations to really get full equal rights, federally. But I think this is going to take 20 years off our battle. I know it.”

Egan’s research shows it’s headed that way. Support for legalizing same-sex marriage has grown over the last eight years. “What happened in California is that a pretty favorable debate regarding same-sex marriage happened statewide,” he says.

“Probably the best example is to look in Massachusetts where the state supreme court required the state to start issuing licenses to same-sex couples, and after a big statewide debate, the state legislature resisted changing the constitution to prohibit that,” Egan says. “As people see that this happens, and the sky doesn’t fall, a substantial proportion of people change their opinion.”

Who knows? Maybe individual grassroots movements are more effective than the conventional unified approach. As Karger says, “We don’t have a Martin Luther King Jr., but I don’t think we need one. We just need to continue with the progress we’re making.”

Maybe unity doesn’t have to mean a march on Washington. Maybe it’s not marching at all.

Carley says it’s telling a story.

“I think we might win the next time,” he says. “If we get clearer in presenting ourselves and presenting our stories, I think people will really take a second look at it.”