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AUGUST
4TH
ATHENS: GAY FRIENDLY IN
I t is the policy of the Athens Clarke County
Police Department to keep tabs on hate
crimes, but in the 24 years that Athens
Clarke County Police Sgt. Joe Walters has
been on the force, he doesn’t remember a
single report of such a crime being directed
at gays or lesbians.
Angela Denton, associate campus minis
ter of the Campus Christian Fellowship, says
her group has gay and lesbian members.
“Our job as Christians is to love everybody
and that’s what we do," Denton says. “We
don’t condemn homosexuality; we try to
take each person individually.”
Pat Allen has worked at the AIDS
Coalition of Northeast Georgia for four years.
In that time, he never received so much as
one crank phone call. “That seems to say a
lot," Allen says.
When asked if Athens is gay-friendly, resi
dent Jim Richardson, who is gay, echoes the
sentiments of dozens of gay and lesbian
Athenians interviewed last week by Flagpole:
“I’ve never had any problems or run-ins with
homophobes in the six years I’ve lived here,”
Richardson says. “The slogan ‘We Are
Everywhere’ definitely applies here. It’s so
open everywhere. I don’t even have many
gay friends. I choose my friends based on
criteria other than their sexuality.”
Outside of Atlanta, Athens collegiate, col
legial atmosphere arguably provides
Georgia’s most placid oasis for gays and les
bians. Despite the bonhomie, however, the
city is sorely lacking when it comes to the
institutionalization of that benevolence.
This spring, the Atlanta-based gay news
paper Southern Voice ran a story that asked
“How Gay-Friendly Are Atlanta’s Top
Corporate Citizens?” The story found that of
Atlanta’s nine top corporations, three
offered health benefits to domestic partners
— Turner Broadcasting, NationsBank and
Hewlett Packard. The story also quoted a
Coca-Cola account representative as predict
ing that the soft drink giant would offer such
benefits within a few years. Coke is already
among six of the nine companies surveyed
that include sexual orientation in their cor
porate non-discrimination statement.
COMING UP SHORT
When Flagpole replicated the survey in
Athens, the results found the city far behind
the curve — when we got results at all. Of
Athens’ top 10 employers, half would not
share basic employment policy relating to
gays and lesbians.
The corporate citizens who would not
participate —r either by refusing to return
calls, declining outright or claiming that no
one was available with knowledge of such
information — are Seaboard Farms, Gold
Kist, Inc., Reliance Electric, General Time
Corporation, and ABB Power T&D Company.
Representatives of the five top employers
that did respond all stressed that creating a
diverse, tolerant and comfortable workplace
for all employees was an extremely high pri
ority. “We certainly wouldn’t treat an individ
ual differently because of a sexual prefer
ence," says Carl Trinrud, human resources
director at Athens Regional Medical Center.
Athens Regional — like the University of
Georgia, the Clarke County School District,
the ACC government and St. Mary’s Hospital
— does not offer health benefits for same-
sex domestic partners. And of those five
employers, only the university includes sex
ual orientation in its non-discrimination
statement.
Many gays and lesbians who work at
these and other businesses around Athens
seconded management claims of friendly
work environs. Sasha, 28. a performer in
Boneshakers’ drag queen revues, is a com
puter programmer at Athens Regional. He
says he has experienced “little things, com
ments, but nobody has confronted me.
Athens Regional is very gay friendly." Sasha
says he’s even performed in drag at the hos
pital’s Christmas talent shows.
Trinrud, the hospital’s human resources
director, laughed at the idea of exploring the
topic. “This is a pretty wild story," he said.
“Why take that angle?”
A BREAKING TREND
This story’s not as wild as Trinrud thinks.
Across the nation, the trend toward offering
health benefits to domestic partners is grow
ing.
According to the D.C.-based pro-gay
group Human Rights Campaign, there are 62
cities with domestic partnership .policies —
not just New York and Los Angeles, but cities
like Chapel Hill, N.C. and iowa City, Iowa.
More them 100 colleges and universities and
400 private employers offer similar policies.
And including sexual orientation in non
discrimination statements has not just
become the policy of large corporations like
BellSouth and Delta, but also the policy in
Republican congressional offices like that of
Athens’ U.S. Representative, John Linder.
The Human Rights Campaign notes on its
web site that federal law currently “provides
basic legal protection against employment
A GEORGIA HOMOPHOBE TOP 10
r
These are a few of our favorite gay-baiters
sodomy law — a relic of the mid-l9th centu
ry. This year, the Supreme Court let stand a
lower court's ruling that allowed Bowers to
withdraw- a job offer to lawyer
Robin Shahar after Bowers learned
^ she was a lesbian. Bowers later
NP admitted to a lorig-running extra-
also illeoal in
1. JOHN OXENPINE. In 1996, Georgia's cur
rent insurance commissioner refused to allow
a major insurance company to give domestic
partners a break on their auto
insurance similar to those enjoyed
by married couples, according to
Atlanta's daily papers. He also
opposes granting health coverage
to same-sex partners, though this
hasn’t stopped corporations from
doing so. The GQP commissioner
faces Democrat Henrietta Canty in
upcoming.elections
marital affair,
Georgia. Oops.
3. LINDA SCHRENKO. Schrenko, the
state school superintendent,
recently accused the PTA — that's
right, the PTA, not PETA — of being
2. MIKE BOWERS. We'd list hirti as No. 1, but too pro-gay. Why? Because, as the Atlanta
the Peach. State's most ardent defender of dailies report, a section of the PTA web site
Georgia's sodomy law is putting himself out deals with "Talking to Your Kids About Sex,
to pasture for a while after losing the GOP HIV/AIDS and other Sensitive Issues."
gubernatorial primary, to Guy Millner. Former Schrenko refused to join her local chapter.
Attorney General Bowers won a 1986 U.S. She faces Democrat Joseph Martin in the fall
Supreme.Court case defending the anti- elections.
John Oxen dine
□ FLAGPOLE AUGUST 5, 1998