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SOUTHERN VOICE
SEPTEMBER 23/1993
Forum aims to stop right wing's
alliance with minority groups
Atlanta—An effort by anti-gay/lesbian Chris
tian politicians to drive a wedge between the
community and other minority groups has
prompted three local groups to organize a coun
terattack.
“Not Georgia Next!” a community forum to
build a movement against fundamentalism, the
right wing and racism, will be held at the First
Existentialist Congregation, 470 Candler Park
Drive, at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 27. It is
sponsored by the Congregation, the African
American Lesbian/Gay Alliance and the Prairie
Fire Organizing Committee, a group that works
for liberal and progressive causes.
The alliance between the anti-gay right and
some African American leaders came to the fore
front in Atlanta this summer during the fight
over domestic partnership legislation. Rep. Billy
McKinney, a black state legislator, led the fight
against the city’s domestic partnership ordi
nances, while traditionally vocal white anti-gay
activists, such as Family Concerns’ Nancy
Schaefer, were content to sit at the back of the
room and watch.
“When you look at the people trying to stop
domestic partnership, you can’t miss the fact
that there were representatives from the black
churches and black legislators leading the fight,”
said Judy Siff of the Prairie Fire Organizing
Committee. “It’s possible to mistake this as a
race issue, but it’s not. It does, however, raise
the importance of examining racism in our ef
fort to stop Georgia from becoming the next
Colorado.”
“[During the domestic partnership battle] it
wasn’t that the white fundamentalists weren’t
opposed—they just stepped back and let the
black ones do it,” she said. “It seems like they’re
making a conscious effort to use that kind
wedge.”
Televangelist Pal Robertson’s Christian Coa
lition released a survey recently that suggested
that African Americans and Hispanics share
many of the core beliefs of the Christian Right
movement, including views on “cultural issues”
such as abortion and homosexuality.
“They are the most conservative, the most
pro-family and the most pro-life voters,” said
Christian Coalition executive director Ralph
Rccd. “We can make an aggressive pitch at these
voters.”
“It’s a national strategy,” Siff said, pointing
out that Latino and white fundamentalists joined
forces in Colorado to pass Amendment 2.
The Republican polling firm of Fabrizio,
McLaughlin and Associates, who conducted the
Christian Coalition’s survey, wrote that “Presi
dent Clinton and the Democratic Party could
face future difficulties if these specific issues
(homosexuality, abortion, death penalty, etc.)
are used as wedges to drive Hispanic and Afri
can American voters away from them.”
“Groups that are successful in mobilizing
voters around this core group of issues would
not only threaten the Democrat electoral coali
tion, but position themselves as a potent politi
cal force to be reckoned with in future elec
tions,” the pollsters’ report said.
“As we [in Atlanta] dealt with the issues of
domestic partnership and then Cobb County, it
seemed that it had brought Colorado closer to
Georgia,” Siff said. “We want to put the cards
out so people can see what’s going on. We need
to understand the right wing. We have to under
stand their strategies and how racism is working
both in them and among ourselves.”
For more information about the forum, call
the African American Gay/Lesbian Alliance at
239-8184 or the Prairie Fire Organizing Com
mittee at 621-5793.
Schaefer running for mayor
Continued from page 3
available for comment. But he did confirm that
the Nancy SGhaefer running for mayor was in
deed the Nancy Schaefer who has become known
as Atlanta’s Anita Bryant because of her strident
anti-gay campaign that dates back to the late
1980s.
As president of a group called Citizens for
Public Awareness, Schaefer tried unsuccessfully
to have the city’s 1986 ordinance prohibiting
discrimination against lesbian/gay city employ
ees repealed. In August, during the battle over
domestic partnership legislation, Schaefer took
a lead role in fighting against the measures to
establish a registry for partners and extend ben
efits to the partners of city employees. Her group,
Family Concerns, is providing legal assistance
to a group of plaintiffs suing to have the ordi
nances overturned.
In addition to her political lobbying, Schaefer
has become a spokesperson for the city’s anti
lesbian/gay forces, appearing in public forums
and in the media. She once told a television
audience that gay men were infected with “amoe-
bas,” and, in a fundraising letter for her organi
zation, said, “We are in a major spiritual moral
ity war.”
Among the gay candidates, Loftis, the chief
financial officer for an electrical contracting com
pany, qualified to run in the 6th District, which
includes many of the intown neighborhoods on
the city’s northeast side, including Virginia-High
land, Morningside, Druid Hills and portions of
Midtown. The district contains perhaps the larg
est concentration of lesbian/gay voters in the
city.
Spivey qualified to run in the 2nd District, a
diverse and oddly-shaped district that starts in
the Inman Park-Little Five Points area, goes
west through the Old Fourth Ward neighbor
hood and then south to the neighorhoods around
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Andy Loftis is one of three candidates seek
ing the 6th District City Council post.
Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium and north into
the heart of Midtown. While the district has
fewer identifiable gay-friendly neighborhoods
than does the 6th District, it does contain all of
Midtown south of 10th Street, a heavily gay
area.
Spivey is the host of “Out In Atlanta,” a gay/
lesbian show on Atlanta’s public access cable
channel.
White, an attorney with a practice in Decatur
who is on the national steering committee for
next year’s Stonewall 25 celebration in New
York, is running in the 1st District, which in
cludes much of southeast Atlanta, including the
lesbian/gay-friendly neighborhoods of Grant Park
and Ormewood Park.
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