is making a perfect career shift. I have decided not to continue marketing Yukon Pride Adventure Tours; there are a variety of reasons for this but the bottom line is at this stage of my working life I need to invest more in work that brings me joy and can make more of a difference.

It is for this reason that I am seizing the opportunity to be the Executive Director at the Whitehorse food bank. It is a position that I can use many of my existing skills and develop some new ones. I start work there on June 7th.

One of the things that helped me pay for Yukon Pride ventures has been selling travel, as a travel agent. I will still continue to do this as a part time venture. I will focus on the more complicated specialty travel products, the vacations that are planned in advance. I will be setting up regular hours for that early next week. Yukon pride is carrying some debt and that is how I will pay that down, so whatever I decide to do with my company in the future can be done with a good name.

I am also going to streamline some of my other volunteer activities so that with this I can spend time with my family and continue on my fitness regime.

So wish me luck in my new endeavor, I am really looking forward to working on such an important thing as the Whitehorse Food Bank.

What Jerry Falwell Meant to me.

On May 14 I received a heartbreaking phone call informing me that an old and dear friend Alain Lacroix of Calgary passed away at his home on Saturday, May 12, 2007 after a short struggle with multiple myeloma at the age of 52 years. I was shocked because it was so sudden. I was not even aware that the myeloma had attacked him again. The first time was back in 1987, at that time he was not even aware he had that cancer until he went to lift a thirty pound box and his arm broke in the process. The cancer had eaten enough of the bone that it could not support the weight. He had been complaining that his arm had been sore but he had no idea why. What Alain was aware of in 1987 was that he had AIDS, and the cancer was AIDS related. He had already lost his partner, and most of our mutual friends, if not already dead were at death’s door.

It was a horrible time in both of our lives, but Alain had a lot more to worry about than me. For the next several months he had the fight of his life. They were just beginning some of the trial drugs that are now commonly known as the “cocktail”. For those that may not be aware the “cocktail” is a combination of drugs that are taken with a very specific regime, some before meals, some after, some before bed, some after, some exactly at the same time as another, some an hour before a meal. When one drug stops working or creates side effects that are too adverse they switch them around. It can be very daunting to keep up with and the side effects could be debilitating at times. This was especially true at the beginning of their use in the late 1980’s.

I cried a fair bit when I found out about Alain’s death Monday night. I was angry that I hadn’t had the chance to say good-bye. I was upset that I would never get the chance to play cards with him again. Alain was a world class card cheat and it was great sport to try and catch him. To me Alain also represented another loss from an era that lost too much. From my entire circle of friends from the eighties there are four of us left alive and only three of us are HIV-. Calgary’s gay community was hit very hard by that ruthless and non-discriminating disease.

Then something happened on Tuesday May 15 that made me feel a whole lot better. Jerry Falwell died. You may find it shocking that the death of someone like Falwell could make a person feel less saddened by the death of a friend. Well, you haven’t lived my life. Let’s review the facts about Jerry Falwell.

In 1977 he supported Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign based on "Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and the perceived threat of homosexual recruitment of children and child molestation" in Dade County, Florida to repeal an ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In urging the repeal of the ordinance Falwell told one crowd "gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you."
He's been called an agent of intolerance and the founder of the anti-gay industry who regularly demonized and dehumanized gays and fought against gay rights. In the early 1980s when the AIDS pandemic was still in its early years and could have been addressed more proactively as a national health crisis, he swayed public opinion against people with AIDS (PWAs) saying “AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” On Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour" broadcast (March 11, 1984), when the mostly gay Metropolitan community church was almost accepted into theWorld Council of Churches Falwell called them "brute beasts" and stated, "this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven." In 1999 he claimed that Tinky Winky, a Teletubbie, was gay. The immensely popular UK show was aimed at pre-school children but Falwell stated "he is purple - the gay pride colour; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle- the gay-pride symbol." Apart from those characteristics Tinky Winky also carries a magic bag which Falwell said was a purse and added "role modelling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children." In response, Steve Rice, spokesperson for Itsy Bitsy Entertainment, which licenses the Teletubbies in the US, said "I really find it absurd and kind of offensive."

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Falwell said on the 700 club, "I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" Fellow evangelist Pat Robertson concurred with his sentiment. After heavy criticism, Falwell apologized, though he later said that he stood by his statement, stating "If we decide to change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built, we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past."

Falwell's ghost writer, Mel White, said Falwell remarked about gay protesters, "Thank God for these gay demonstrators. If I didn't have them, I'd have to invent them. They give me all the publicity I need." Falwell has also said, "labour unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers." Jerry Falwell and the so called group he founded “The Moral Majority” was instrumental in electing then president Ronald Regan. The AIDS crisis hit and hit hard. This so called “Moral Majority” worked to prevent funding towards AIDS research, causing to delay the much needed research that if had been done earlier, I believe, a good number of my friends would be alive today. Of course our less than enlightned government at the time followed suit. They were even as negligent to be buying blood from US prisons to be used in Canadian medical systems.
In his later years many of the things Jerry Falwell said softened. For example, he said that housing and employment were basic rights that should be extended to the Gay community.

To me, he was a villian, one that I feel every right to hold personally responsible for the deaths and suffering of some of my friends and hundreds and thousands of others. Freedom of speech is one thing, but when that speech extends to political power aiding and abeting in the suffering and deaths of others, wouldn’t that qualify as voluntary manslaughter? Dictators in third world countries have been judged for crimes against humanity for similar activities, although usually more overtly.

I do forgive Jerry Falwell, but I will not sit by silently while any other of his kind try to cause as much hatred towards a people as he did. Regardless of your personal belief system, I truly believe that my friend Alain is in the same place that Jerry Falwell is.

God Bless America

My husband and I recently had a vacation/business trip to the United States. For the vacation portion we went to Honolulu and Maui. The business was conducted in Los Angeles and Seattle.

It might surprise you to know that I had a number of chatty conversations with a variety of people in all those locations. Upon learning where we were from it was amazing the number of admiring comments I would get because of Canada’s equality in Marriage and leadership in Human Rights Canada has taken. At first I took these compliments with pride, but then something started really bothering me. Much of the battle for equal rights we have achieved in Canada originated in the USA. The problem is that country of such promise and inspiration for the common person has been hijacked from its path of freedom and justice. I say that because that is what the great majority of the Americans I met told me.

The beginning of the modern Gay and Lesbian civil rights movement can really be traced back to the Stonewall riot in New York City. On Saturday morning, June 28, 1969, not long after 1:20 a.m., police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. As this was another of many such raids, the patrons had had enough. Resistance broke out across the crowd—which quickly overtook the police. Stunned, the police retreated into the bar. Heterosexual folk singer Dave van Ronk, who was walking through the area, was grabbed by the police, pulled into the bar, and beaten. The crowd’s attacks were unrelenting. Some tried to light the bar on fire. Others used a parking meter as a battering ram to force the police officers out. Word quickly spread of the riot and many residents, as well as patrons of nearby bars, rushed to the scene.

Throughout the night the police singled out many transgender people and gender nonconformists, including butch women and effeminate men, among others, often beating them. The riots repeated nightly over five days, peaking on the third night. On the first night alone 13 people were arrested and four police officers, as well as an undetermined number of protesters, were injured. It is known, however, that at least two rioters were severely beaten by the police. Bottles and stones were thrown by protesters who chanted “Gay Power!” The crowd, estimated at over 2000, fought with over 400 police officers.

The riots created the perfect environment for the creation of the Gay Liberation Movement. By the end of July the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed in New York and by the end of the year the GLF could be seen in cities and universities around the country. Similar organizations were soon created around the world including Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand.

The next transformation towards gay and lesbian rights started with an American politician and gay rights activist. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978; his assassin was supervisor Dan White. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter on the grounds of diminished capacity and sentenced to seven years and eight months, a sentence widely denounced as lenient and motivated by homophobia.
After the sentence, the gay community erupted into what became known as the White Night Riots. As soon as the sentence was announced, word ran through the gay community with groups of people walking quickly to the Civic Center and by 8:00 PM, a sizable mob formed. According to the documentary, "The Times of Harvey Milk", the enraged crowd started by screaming at police officers, calling for revenge and death. Then, riots began to break out with the mob setting ablaze a number of police vehicles, disrupting traffic, smashing windows of cars and stores, buses had their overhead wires ripped down, and physical violence resulted against the outnumbered police officers.

After the riots, the humiliated police showed up in force on Castro Street without authorization, and soon proceeded to enter the Elephant Walk Bar at the corner of 18th and Castro, smashing the place up and bashing heads of stunned patrons and employees. Several people required hospitalization, and the resulting lawsuits cost the City a fortune.

Not long after, resistance to persecution flowed to Canada. On February 5, 1981 Metro Toronto Police raided various bathhouses, arresting 306 men, in the largest Canadian mass arrest except for the October 1970 FLQ crisis. Extensive property damage was inflicted by police. For added public humiliation, the "found-ins" were herded into the streets in towels to be processed. The names of those arrested are publicized by the police and local media, destroying several lives.

A major demonstration was held at Yonge and Wellesley the next day by hundreds of Toronto queers and their supporters, closing down the street. Activists started working, and the group Gays and Lesbians Against the Right is formed. Twenty five years later we live in a very different place.

I believe that the rights and freedoms I currently have are a result of the bravery of my Brothers and Sisters in America. For this I am forever grateful. Anything I have done could not have been accomplished without the sacrifice of these men and women over three decades ago. The struggle continues in the USA, as recently as two weeks ago the homophobic state of Alaska passed a resolution to take to vote a state law that would ban extending benefits to the same sex partners of public employees.

After Harvey Milk was assassinated voice recordings were left behind that were to be played in the event of his death. One of the tapes recorded him saying "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."

God Bless America.