Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN
VOCE
Celebrating
Mother’s Day
Page 13
Vol. 1, No. 5
INSIDE
Florida to Quarantine PWAs,
if Governor Bob Martinez has
his way. Described as a "fight
for survival," Bob Kuntz of Cure
AIDS Now details the plans that
may stop this AIDSphobic
administration. Page 3.
Lesbian and Gay Pride Week
returns to Atlanta June 18th
through the 26th. Plans are now
underway for the festive
celebration of gay and lesbian
life in "the city too busy to hate."
Page 6.
Black-feminist Poets are
featured in Terri Jewell's review
of A Dangerous Knowing; Four
Black Women Poets. She finds
haunting rhythms, woman to
woman bonding, and
"poetry...steeped in the roots of
black culture" in the works of
Barbara Burford, Jackie Kay,
Grace Nichols and Gabriela
■ ■.
Pearse. Page 7.
'86 International Women's
Weightlifting Champion,
Colleene Colley breaks new
ground with each "snatch" and
"clean and jerk." Raised in an
exclusively female home, Colley
surges past old records while
making a place for other women
to follow her into the male-
dominated sport. Page 11.
Dear Governor Harris:
Georgians are tired of seeing
their friends die due to your lax
attention to the health of this
State. The Atlanta March
Committee is sponsoring this
clip-out campaign of thousands
of letters to be read at the Spring
AIDS Action '88, and then
delivered to Harris' office. Page
12.
Dykes to Watch Out For
almost makes the term 'dykes'
politically correct. It certainly
makes Keep Refrigerated
funnier. Bestseller Alison
Bechdel draws women and men
into the hilarious escapades of
Mo, Clarice and Lois. Page 14.
Taking Pride in Our Culture
April 26,1988
Gay "Leaders" argue over taping of Police Advisory Committee
meeting. Photo by Cathy Denobriga.
Favorable Ruling by Georgia
Supreme Court in VanderEls Case
Atlanta-In an apparent legal
victory, the Georgia Supreme
Court has remanded lesbian-
mother Leigh VanderEls' appeal
to the Gayton County judicial
system. VanderEls, who lost a
January, 1987, trial to retain
custody of her then 7-year-old
son, Chase, is now preparing her
case to prove that the original
judge, William Ison, exhibited
"actual and personal bias and
predjudice against the
appellant..."
A motion for recusal asks a
judge to remove themselves from hearing a case due
to a possible perceived or actual prejudice against the
litigants,
"The ruling is indicative that the (Georgia)
Supreme Court had extremely serious problems with
the trial judge's behavior,” said Michael Hauptman,
attorney for VanderEls.
Ison, who denied VanderEls' original motion for
recusal, alledgedly made use of the Gayton District
Attorney as an agent to cause VanderEls' supervisor,
Anne Plant of the Gayton County Department of
Family and Children Services (DFCS), to telephone
him During that conversation, Ison reportedly told
Plant that DFCS didn't need "people like that"
working with children. He also was said to have
warned Plant that VanderEls' publicly-acknowledged
sexual orientation would destroy her credibility as an
expert witness in Gayton
County DFCS court
proceedings.
VanderEls was
immediately dropped from
consideration for a new
position and
"constructively
terminated." The
constructive termination
occured when VanderEls
was transferred to an
inferior position and given
demeaning tasks to
perform, considering her
past experience and training.
Ison would not allow Plant to testify to these
allegations when he heard VanderEls' original request
that he remove himself and schedule a new trial.
The new hearing will deterine if Ison should have
removed himself from hearing the motions. If either
VanderEls or her ex-husband appeal the decision, the
case will return to the Georgia Supreme Court The
date for the hearing has yet to be set
Said VanderEls, "I feel optimistic about the
Supreme Court's ruling. However, the length of
litigation still required before a ruling will be made on
the actual custody case is disheartening."
Leigh VanderEls is a staff member for Southern
Voice. Chase, now 8, currently lives with his father
and step-mother in Memphis, Tennessee.
■ Chris Duncan
Atlanta - Representatives of several metropolitan
Atlanta gay and lesbian organizations met April 20
to discuss proposals to alter the present formation of
the ACLU's Police Advisory Committee of the
Lesbian/Gay Rights Chapter. The meeting was the
culmination of a month-long series of events that
began with the March 11 shooting of Midtown
residents Jamie Bowman and Michael Denyou,
involved Atlanta Public Safety Commissioner
George Napper directly, and ended with a fractious
display of non-cooperation which disrupted last
Wednesday’s meeting.
Early reports on the shooting of Bowman, a
transsexual who prefers to be referred to in the
feminine gender, and her lover, Denyou, during an
apparent robbery attempt, led some local activists to
conclude that the incident was a case of anti-gay,
hate-motivated crime. Bowman later stated her
belief that the incident was not motivated by either
her perceived sexual orientation or her status as a
transsexual.
Immediately following the double shooting,
however, Atlanta Gay Center (AGC) Administrator
Richard Swanson and Board of Directors member
Bill Gripp began a frantic media campaign to draw
attention to the escalating incidence of bias-
motivated crime directed at persons who are
perceived to be gay or lesbian. Gripp later termed
the tragic shooting a "window of opportunity" for
the AGC to focus non-gay society's attention to the
dangers the lesbian and gay communtiy face daily.
Gripp and Swanson subsequently formed the
AGC Task Force on Anti-Gay Violence, of which
Gripp is the chairperson. Also on the Task Force
are Jean Levine of AID Atlanta and AGC Board
members Dr. Donald Smith and Michael Wilson.
The AGC Task Force and other concerned
members of Atlanta's gay and lesbian community
met with Commissioner Napper on March 24.
During that meeting, complaints by the AGC
contingent that the current Police Advisory
Committee was ineffective prompted Napper to ask
Gene Guerrero, Executive Director of ACLU-GA,
to "assume the chairmanship (sic) of a committee
that will come up with recommendations on how a
more active and more representative policy advisory
committee can be structured." Guerrero also agreed
to participate, in the meantime, as a liason between
the Commissioner and the lesbian and gay
community.
Agreeing to serve in an official capacity with
Guerrero were Swanson, Gripp, Ray Kluka,
president of the Midtown Neighborhood
Association, and Judd Herndon of the ACLU's
Lesbian/Gay Rights Chapter.
The ad hoc committee was apparently hampered
from its very conception by the radically conflicting
goals of the participants. AGC Task Force members
originally asked that they be accepted as the
Commissioner's advisory committee, but quickly
retreated to a position calling for a body which
would be "completely independent and not
controlled by any organization or group of
organizations."
Representatives of the ACLU's Advisory
Committee, meanwhile, accused the AGC group of
"sour grapes" political maneuvering and maintained
throughout the public fracas that their organization
was representative of the community and performed
its mandate successfully.
In a letter to Napper dated April 13, Guerrero
acknowledged receipt of a summary of the March
24 meeting from Napper’s office, and said, "My
effort in bringing this committee together has been
Continued on Page 3
