By BJ Austin, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-855673.mp3
Dallas, TX –
The Fort Worth gay community, often silent, is finding its voice after the June 28th Police "bar check" on the Rainbow Lounge. KERA's BJ Austin says outrage over the event has prompted protests and speeches from the normally quiet community.
At a recent Fort Worth City Council meeting tempers flared. Some members of the gay community voiced their anger over actions of the Fort Worth Police and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. The protests were confrontational.
Meeting: (chants) Hear us now. Hear us now. Hear us now.
The demands came from members of Queer Liberaction, a gay advocacy group. Following the police raid on the Rainbow Lounge, its DALLAS chapter rushed to Fort Worth. They organized rallies and protests. They demanded to know why one patron of the gay bar ended up with a serious head injury after the encounter with police. FORT WORTH gay activists called for the same accounting, but in a much "quieter" manner. The differing approaches are typical of the historical contrasts between the Dallas and Fort Worth gay communities. David Mack Henderson is a member of the newly formed group "Fairness Fort Worth."
Henderson: Fort Worth has a fairly decentralized Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender community. It's been very easy to get in your car and drive 30 miles east if you wanted to stretch your legs a little bit. That's changing now. One of the proactive things that's come out of this event already is that our community has seen the need to come together: not just when something tragic happens, but to build an infrastructure for our community going forward.
The Rainbow Lounge incident seems to be creating a new energy and urgency in Fort Worth's gay community. David Reed with the Tarrant County Gay and Lesbian Alliance, came before the City Council to call for an independent investigation.
Reed: One has to go back 30 years for this sort of thing to have been commonplace. The fact that we've become more used to more reasonable approaches has led, I think, to such a firestorm of outrage that you have seen on the part of our community on this particular incident.
The gay community and Fort Worth police have a rocky history. Through the 1960's and 70's, there were regular police raids on gay bars. Reed says the Paddy Wagon often rolled up and police loaded everyone inside the bar into it. He says "charges" were sorted out at the station.
Reverend Carol West is pastor of Celebration Community Church - Fort Worth's largest gay church. She remembers those raids.
West: It was dangerous. I remember a bar in Fort Worth there was one way in, one way out. The police would come and block the door, and when you left, if you'd had a beer, or sometimes if you hadn't, you'd be arrested for public intoxication. Those raids were quite common.
Gays also remember the Police Department's Vice Squad and abuses they say they suffered at the hands of a few officers. David Reed says Fort Worth Police Chief Thomas Windham made changes to the Vice Squad, and in 1992 appointed the first liaison officer to the lesbian and gay community. The office and duties were suspended under Chief Ralph Mendoza.
Following the outcry over the Rainbow Lounge raid, police have resurrected that position. Officer Sara Straten is the police department's new Gay community liaison officer, and a member of the city's newly-formed Diversity Task Force.
Straten: I believe it's like the job I'm already doing as a neighborhood police officer. People can call me when they have a question about something. I think people are people and so the way you communicate with people is you just talk to them and listen to what they have to say. When they feel like someone's going to listen, they're going to talk to each other.
Austin: So you're the chief listener.
Straten: I hope so. I hope to be, yes.
Dallas P-D has had a gay community liaison officer for more than a decade. A turning point for the Department was in the early 90's when lesbian Mica England won a lawsuit after the department rejected her application to be an officer because of her sexual orientation. In 1994, Chief Ben Click instituted diversity training at the Dallas Police Department.
But the Dallas gay community was making itself heard long before that. By the early 70's, the Oak Lawn area, around Cedar Springs and Throckmorton, was developing into a thriving gay community. In 1972 the annual gay pride parade was launched. There were loud protests when Dallas Police published the license plate numbers of cars parked at gay bars in the 70's. And in 1985, with escalation of the AIDS epidemic, the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance formed the Aids Resource Center, which became one of the largest AIDS outreach/gay advocacy centers in the U.S.
Reverend Carol West and David Mack Henderson are encouraged by the higher profile now developing for residents of the Fort Worth gay community.
West: What I would like to see come out of this is a far better communication with the Police Department, with city of Fort Worth. I think good will come out of this.
Henderson: I think the seeds of that are in place now. I really do.
BJ Austin: Encouraging to you?
Henderson: Very much, very much. Looking forward to it. And apparently the city is willing to work with us in several things pressing forward. We'll see how that plays out. I'm actually eager to do this with the city. I think most of us are.
While the Rainbow Lounge Raid was a reminder of the fearful mistrust of police in the past, Fort Worth gay community members say it could just be the catalyst that gives this community a more visible voice in Fort Worth.