Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 23, 1993 TAG: 9304230243
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That probably was a first in the Roanoke Valley, Sam Garrison said.
Garrison, a Roanoke lawyer, is spokesman for the Alliance of Lesbian and Gay Organizations of Western Virginia, an umbrella organization for several groups that organized the news conference.
The idea was "to discuss - and, frankly, to promote - local participation" in this Sunday's gay rights march in Washington, D.C., Garrison said.
Organizers of that event hope as many as 1 million people show up to demonstrate for civil-rights protection for gays and lesbians and to endorse President Clinton's efforts to end the ban on gays in the military.
Garrison said he expects "several hundred" people from the Roanoke Valley to attend the march, including almost 100 who are taking two chartered buses.
"It is time for gay people to become visible," said Myer Reed, a Radford University sociologist.
Still, those who are willing to publicly express their homosexuality are "just the tip of the tip of the iceberg," Garrison said.
"A lot of us never thought we would ever come forward like this," said Roanoke nurse B.J. Bailey. "We'll find out" today what the response of friends and co-workers is, she said.
"It was time for me to come forward and take my place among all of you . . . in the mainstream."
Bailey knows how high the price for such public knowledge can be. She was dismissed from the Navy, she said, "a product of the witch hunts the Navy says it doesn't do."
Several other military veterans also attended the Thursday news conference.
While military policy toward gays and lesbians is bound to receive a lot of attention at Sunday's march, other organizations will be represented as well.
The Rev. Charles Green, president of the Roanoke chapter of the NAACP, said his organization is "concerned about the rights of all people" and objects to all forms of prejudice.
Gerald Meadows, of Roanoke's United Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO, read a statement saying that working people should be judged on their work, not on their private lives.
Groups opposing the gay-rights march already have begun to focus on aspects of the gay and lesbian lifestyle that many within the gay-rights movement admit they find embarrassing.
Activities such as a drag-queen fashion show and a leather-fetish kick-off party being conducted in association with the march already have received some publicity.
Garrison said that while not everyone agrees with the more "bizarre or extreme behavior" of a small percentage of gays and lesbians, he trusted attention will focus on the broader issues the march hopes to address.
He said he also didn't believe the movement would be significantly affected by new studies that describe the homosexual portion of the population as significantly less than the 10 percent figure that has long been cited.
"No matter if it's 10 percent or 1 percent," Garrison said, "oppression is wrong."
Several speakers praised the broad-based acceptance and tolerance that gays and lesbians experience in the Roanoke Valley.
"We find that the majority of people here are open-minded - not holding active prejudice," said Tom Winn, chairman of the Alliance of Lesbian and Gay Organizations.
Nevertheless, most gays and lesbians choose to remain invisible, a condition particularly difficult for young homosexuals, Kathy LaMotte said.
LaMotte is a staff member for TRUST, the Roanoke Valley Trouble Center, and an adult facilitator for Outright, an organization for gay and lesbian youths.
Those teens "need to have good role models" to help reduce the disproportionately high incidence of suicide, drug abuse and other destructive behavior among them, she said.
"Where are those role models?" Garrison asked. "The teachers, the physicians, the carpenters? We know them, but they are not here with us today because they fear losing their jobs."
by CNB