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VIEWPOINTS
A Full Year of Firsts for Atlanta
By the time the next issue of Southern Voice is published, this round of elections will be
over. Whether or not AIDS and gay/lesbian civil rights issues will play a large role in national
politics in the coming four or eight years is questionable, however, there is no mistaking the fact
that the Atlanta gay and lesbian community has been heard from by local, state and national
politicians on a grand scale in the last year.
The incalculable energy from the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay
Rights has been brought back home, and given an Atlanta feel to it Individuals have popped
out of the woodwork, and defied the political wisdom that said everything we do must be done
like it was first done in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
For the first time, Atlanta sent openly gay and lesbian delegates to the Democratic National
Convention, as well as elected openly gay and lesbian Republican delegates to county party
conventions.
New voters have been registering left and right thanks to the dedicated work of a group of
non-partisan gays and lesbians.
Two openly gay men ran for public office, and gave respectable if not victorious showings in
the August primaries.
Ten percent of the DeKalb County Democratic Party Committee is now composed of open
gays and lesbians, thanks to a lot of strategizing and not a little bit of work.
” And the list goes on.
The obvious question, is "What will it all mean?" Will our political leaders be able to
translate these victories into vote totals for gay/lesbian affirmative candidates on November
8th? Probably not. Not yet
One aspect of Atlanta's own special brand of "queemess," is the absolute independence of
gay and lesbian voters when they get into the voting booth. We have not succumbed to the
mistaken idea that our community ever can or will vote as one 300,000-slrong voting bloc.
Recognizing the diversity that is inherently ours, local political activists have shied away from
telling the community you must vote for this or that candidate, and focused instead on
educating the voters about the candidates and the issues.
Southern Voice is prohibited by federal regulations from endorsing candidates for public
office*, and in the spirit of self-determination, perhaps that is best. Our readers know that 4th
district Representative Pat Swindall (R-GA) has repeatedly used gays and lesbians as a political
weapon against more moderate candidates, even going so far as to say he did not want the
estimated 10,000 votes controlled by 4th district gay and lesbian republicans. They also know
that his challenger, Ben Jones, has repeatedly asserted a "live and let live" philosophy and
supported an increased federal presence in the war against AIDS, while shying away from
endorsing full civil rights protections to gays and lesbians.
The presidential race is very similar, with neither republican Vice-President George Bush
nor democratic Governor Michael Dukakis embracing a gay/lesbian agenda. They're both using
sticks to distance themselves from the community-Bush's stick is about 10 feet long, and
Dukakis' about 3 feel
The political successes our community has achieved over the past year have been so great
because they are the first of their kind locally. But now the hard work begins. As the over
reaching attention on politics fades over the next several months, the work will get grudgy and
hard, with little splash or sensation to spur politically minded people to work late into the night.
The next two years, rather than the last one, will be the true determinant of whether or not
Atlanta's gay and lesbian community has come of age politically. We will have to wail and see.
*Southern Voice is a project of the Southeastern Arts, Media and Education Project, Inc.
(SAME). SAME Is registered with the state of Georgia as a non-profit, tax-deductible
corporation, and complies with Internal Revenue Service regulations as a SOI C (3)
organization. As such, neither Southern Voice nor SAME attempts to influence
legislation, or endorse candidates for political office.
SOUTHERN
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Christina Cash
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Southern Voice is published by SAME (Southeastern Aits, Media and Education Project, Inc.) which is a
non-profit corporation with offices at 1083 Austin Ave., Atlanta, GA 30307. All material in Southern Voice
is protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the Managing
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Guest Editorial
The Battle for Choice
Since July 19, Atlanta has been the focus of the national anti-abortion clinic harassment
movement. This campaign against reproductive choice calls itself "Operation Rescue," and has
resulted in more than 1,000 anti-choice arrests since its first attack on an Atlanta clinic.
I It is rare that our city is the focus of any political or social movement, and this is one
j distinction that most of us would have just as soon passed on. Yet, like it or not, this barrage of
anti-choice harassment has presented itself on an almost daily basis for the past three months
| and those who care about reproductive choice have felt compelled to actively oppose this assault
on our city and our Constitutional rights.
Led by Randall Terry (a used car salesman who devised a plan of anti-choice terrorism to
gain his requisite 15 minutes of fame), "Operation Rescue's" publicized goal is "to make Atlanta
the nation's first abortion-free city."
Largely due to the efforts of the Georgia Abortion Rights Action League (GARAL), OR has
not succeeded in stopping abortion in Atlanta. GARAL's emphasis has been (and continues to
be) on ensuring that each individual woman is able to make her own most fundamental choices.
To that end, we have provided trained volunteer escorts at each clinic under attack. These
escorts safely accompany women and their friends/familics into and out of clinics and protect
them from as much harassment as possible.
Nearly 300 individuals have served as volunteer escorts in GARAL's program throughout
these arduous months. We have conducted four training sessions since July and continue to
receive overwhelming community response for the escort program. Clinic administrators have
said publicly that without our program, the anti-choice extremists would be able to claim a
legitimate victory in limiting women's access to abortion here. The bottom line is that not one
clinic has closed and not one woman who has arrived at a clinic has been denied
access-"Operation Rescue" is a failure.
This is a heartening reality for those of us who have put our organizational and personal lives
on hold to defend the right to choose in abusive and hostile circumstances. It was not the
clearest organizational decision for GARAL to place our total energy in this effort throughout
the past three months. In fact our emphasis on the escort program has been questioned by many
individuals, but the overall success of the program in maintaining access to this important right
has validated our decision.
GARAL's mission statement is "To keep abortion legal and accessible to all women in
Georgia." The activities of OR constitute the most extreme threat to access this city has ever
witnessed. Our commitment to ensuring access made our decision clearer, but it came at the
expense of other programs we had planned to initiate during this time and were subsequently
forced to forego.
Many individuals who were upset by the anti-choice activities (yet did not share GARAL's
philosophy of protecting the right to individual choice) attempted to persuade us to
counterdemonsfrate against OR. Their questions and comments belied a lack of understanding
regarding our purpose-"Why isn't anybody doing anything against these idiots? Why aren't you
out there doing something against them?" The "anything" and "something" they referred to
included picket signs, chants and slogans. Our decision against staging a standard
counterdemonstration was resolute, for us it would have been counterproductive to our purpose.
Any energy put into organizing and implementing a counterdemonstration would have taken
effort from our stated goal of maintaining access. Also, a counterdemonstration at clinic sites
only increases the visual and aural confusion and makes more stressful the experience of the
individual woman. And that is the point of our ultimate allcgiance-the individual woman.
I am happy to say that the emphasis placed on our escort program has paid off by
strengthening our organization, as well as countering this immediate threat. Many individuals
who escorted have joined GARAL and are now working with us to protect choice in other
ways, including working to elect pro-choice leaders and to educate the general populace on
reproductive rights. The program is seen as a successful model for community activism and
pro-choice groups in Virginia and Louisiana plan to implement programs based on GARAL's.
As we have remained firm in our commitment to be at the clinics so long as OR extremists
are there and as the escort program has grown, the media has begun to give coverage of our
presence. Print media as diverse as the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and the London
Financial Times have written about our effective presence, and broadcast media such as the
Oprah Winfrey show and CBS News "48 Hours" have highlighted our program.
I wholeheartedly thank and commend the many brave and compassionate women and men
who have given their time and energy to serve as escorts with us during this trying time. They
have subjected themselves to much anti-choice harassment because of their belief in
reproductive choice and they deserve the admiration of the entire pro-choice community.
Thanks also to fellow organizations such as Georgia NOW, LEGAL, the ACLU, Planned
Parenthood and the YWCA; which ha’ve provided volunteers to be trained as escorts.
Many lesbians and gays come out to escort with us and we owe them special thinks for
supporting an issue which many would not see as being a priority for lesbian and gay activists.
As one woman who attended an escort raining said, "I'm a lesbian and will probably never be
faced with making the choice of whether or not to have an abortion, but I am also a feminist and
I know that when a choice is denied to one woman it pushes back all women."
Many lesbians and gays participated because of opposition to the mindset of the anti-choice
extremists. They know that denial of abortion rights is only the tip of the iceberg a repressive
social/political agenda which includes prayer in school, mandatory AIDS testing, automatic use
of the death penalty and other abominations to civil and individual rights.
On a persona note, I thank individuals who supported us because I (very literally) would not
have had the strength to continue without them. The thought of facing 6:30 a.m. and ugly mobs
at clinics in the heat of July and in the chill of October would have been unbearable had I not
known that courageous and committed like you all (and you know who you are) would be there
to help us keep the faith.
- Sally Tyler
Sally Tyler is the Executive Director of the Georgia Abortion Rights Action League (GARAL).