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24
Southern Voice/April 25, 1991
STOP
SMOKING
NOW
PROFESSIONAL HYPNOSIS
for QUALITY LIVING
Since 1981
Faye Reneau, B.A., C.H.T.
(404) 371-1031
226 S. Columbia Drive, Decatur 30030
Just because you’re lesbian
or gay doesn’t mean you
surrender your legal rights.
Ernest W. Lee, II
Attorney at Law
1739 Cheshire Br. Rd.. 885-9500
ADJUST TO DOWNTOWN
CULBERSON
CHIROPRACTIC
(Free parking, convenient to 5 Pts. MARTA)
Dr. F. Scott Culberson, D.C.
57 Forsyth St., Galleria Level,
Healey Bldg., 522-2225
Psychotherapy
Individual Couple
Rev. R. Lanier Glance
427 Moreland in L5P 373-3679
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Phys. Therapist
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Chiropractor
1164 N. Highland
607-0507
Insurance Reimbursable
Personal
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 7 & 13
377-3513
Wallace & Weir
Attorneys at Law
910 Church Street, Decatur
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TRANSPORTATION ARRANGED, AIRFARE MAY BE PROVIDED
OUT
LINES
Age: 41
Hometown: Atlanta
Relationship status:
Has been with the same lover
off and on for 7 years
Professional and
personal goal:
Making money as an activist
instead of as a contractor
Favorite Womanist Author:
Alice Walker
CALL
8 0 0 - 5 4
PRIDE
Karen Dunigan
SAMANTHA CLAAR:
NOW is the Time For All Good Women
You've probably seen Samantha
Claar's house on McLendon Avenue near
Little Five Points. It has a gay flag and a
pink triangle flag on the front porch and
signs in the window that say things like,
"Sodomy, the Law is the Perversion,"
"Women at Work," etc. Of course you've
seen her house, you just didn't know it
was hers. You might have even seen
Claar out front working in her stone-
landscaped yard. The same signs and
flags were also in front of her house
when she lived in Cobb County, a slight
ly bolder statement out there.
Though President of the Atlanta
Chapter of the National Organization for
Women (NOW), a volunteer position,
Claar has mixed feelings about NOW’s
responsiveness to the needs of lesbians.
"NOW doesn’t address lesbian issues as
openly or as much as I'd like, but they are
still the best game in town," Claar says,
"and I’m not willing to work just on les
bian issues. I think the category has to
be a lot broader for us to get anywhere."
Claar has been actively involved with
NOW for two years. "When I get dis
couraged about the way NOW works or
is structured, I look around for a place to
better use my energies, and I just haven't
found a place that's better."
Claar makes her living as an indepen
dent contractor selling commercial light
ening protection, which she describes as
"basically old-timey lightening rod sys
tems for high rise buildings." She works
in her home where she moved from Cobb
County almost a year ago. From her
home office Claar operates both her busi
ness, called Samantha Systems, and the
Atlanta chapter of NOW. "I need another
desk," she says, "so that I can move all
the NOW stuff to a separate desk."
Claar has been remodeling the house
she shares with her 14 year old daughter
Chance since they moved in. The fact
that Chance Claar lives with her mother
is the result of a hard-won court battle.
Claar, as an open lesbian, was awarded
custody of her daughter in a Cobb
County court. When asked how she
managed that, she replied simply
"money...and being aggressive." After
learning that her husband was planning
to file for custody on the basis of
Samantha's sexual orientation, she turned
the tables and filed suit first for non-pay
ment of child support. "In most respects,
I guess you could say that I was lucky,"
she explains. Claar feels that as a middle
class white woman, she had both enough
confidence and enough cash to fight for
her daughter. "That's why we need a
fund for women who don't have those
privileges," she insists.
Chance has grown up with some priv
ileges even her mother didn't have,
though. "She not only has a choice of
what she wants to be; she has a choice of
who she wants to be, and it infuriates me
that we didn't have those options,"
Samantha explains. Chance notices cute
girls and cute boys, according to her
mother. "She knows that if I had my
preference, she would be a lesbian,"
Claar laughs, "but she also knows that I
love her and that she can be whatever she
wants."
Claar is also active in the Lesbian and
Gay Pride Committee. Though plans for
Gay Pride events are going smoothly, she
feels that the committee needs more
involvement of lesbians and people of
color. "I find more and more that gay
men still need the same kind of education
services that straight white men do,
which is disappointing," she says.
She is looking forward to the National
Lesbian Conference where she hopes to
get a chance to interact with national fig
ures in lesbian politics. In particular, she
is looking forward to meeting Charlotte
Bunch, a writer who deals with global
feminism. "I think it's a unique coming
together," she says, "I'm curious to see
how it's going to work."
Claar is not one to back down from
any struggle, or to pull punches. For
instance, on her "SODOMY" t-shirt, in
addition to "So do my neighbors, So do
my friends, So do my idols” she added
"So do my legislators." But she struggles
with herself in deciding the most appro
priate and effective methods for civil
rights activism. When considering
whether to work politics from inside the
system or fight against the system itself,
she feels that NOW must, in most cases,
do both. "I go back and forth about how
much I want to play in the system," she
says. "My gut feeling is that I'd rather
not be in the system at all. I'd rather
bring it all crashing down and start from
scratch."
—Debbie Fraker