Posted on 01/15/2005 3:02:05 PM PST by Horatio Gates
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Gay activists in this staid Eastern Washington city are planning to create a neighborhood of gay-oriented homes, businesses and nightlife, which religious conservatives complain will be at odds with Spokane's family-oriented culture.
A gay district would signal that Spokane is tolerant and progressive, proponents contend, the type of community that can attract the so-called "creative class" that will build the economy of tomorrow.
"We're talking about an actual physical part of town we would like to establish as a gay district," said Marvin Reguindin, owner of a Spokane graphic design firm, who envisions an area similar to the Castro district of San Francisco or Capitol Hill in Seattle.
Community Impact Spokane, a network of evangelical Christians, is appalled.
"A gay Mecca is not what we'd like to see Spokane marketed as," said Penny Lancaster, director of the group. "I'd rather see us promoted as a conservative, family oriented community without any reference to sexual orientation."
Too late, some say.
"There is a very large gay population here," said Bonnie Aspen, a business owner who arrived with her partner two years ago to escape the congestion of the San Francisco Bay area.
Even though they face little discrimination, gays stay under the radar, said Aspen, a member of the Inland Northwest Business Alliance, an association of gay and gay-friendly businesses that is pushing the idea.
"Visibility equals freedom," Aspen said. "Invisibility we have dealt with all our life."
She predicted a gay district will exist within the next year or two.
Spokane is some 90 percent white, and a gay district will promote the notion that such a community can still be tolerant and have diversity, Aspen said.
The idea arises out of the theories of Richard Florida, an economist whose 2002 book "The Rise of the Creative Class" contends that the economy of the future will be created by the 38 million workers who toil in "creative" industries.
Florida, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, said members of the creative class consider recreation, culture and ethnic diversity, including a large population of gays, as central to where they live. Places like New York, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle have those qualities. Places like Spokane generally do not.
After Florida spoke here a couple of years ago, Spokane civic leaders embraced many of his ideas. They have pushed hard to create a university district and several arts districts near downtown.
Tom Reese, an economic development officer for Spokane, said city government is not exactly pushing the notion of a gay district, but they don't oppose it either.
"It is our desire to create an environment where diversity and different interests and lifestyles of all types can flourish," Reese said.
No public funds will be used to create the district, which is dependent on developers, Aspen said. No location has been announced.
With about 200,000 residents, the city has little history of gay activism, other than an effort a few years ago that added homosexuals as a protected class to its human rights ordinance.
Spokane — which in trendy Seattle is shorthand for tragically unhip — has long been dominated by conservative politics that stem from its history as a mining and farming center. But it also has a large core of Democrats who push for social justice, and libertarians who share the West's live-and-let-live philosophy.
Most of all the city identifies itself as a good place to raise a family. A gay district clashes with that image, opponents contend.
"We are a family-friendly, traditional-values community," said former Mayor John Talbott.
Opponents fear a gay district will attract sexual predators who prey on gays, plus lead to increased crime, drug use and other social ills, Walton Mize, bishop of the Christ Holy Sanctified Church, said.
"Most people don't know about the underbelly of it," Mize said. "It's a culture based upon sex."
Aspen rejected the notion that a gay district will bring social problems to Spokane.
"I can't see why they think they will have more of that than is already here," Aspen said.
Spokane already has a gay newspaper, Stonewall News Northwest, and some businesses that cater to gay residents. It has had an openly gay member of the City Council.
But creating a district is still important, Reguindin said.
"It would help youth struggling with their sexuality to realize they don't have to go away to a big city to be gay. You can be gay right here in Spokane," Reguindin said.
Farand Gunnels, local representative for the Pride Foundation, a Seattle-based group that gives grants to support the gay community, wondered if there were enough gay residents in Spokane to support such a district.
The INBA is also preparing to launch a "visibility campaign," in which businesses will be asked to display signs in their windows proclaiming their support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
"We'll know where we will be welcome and patronize those businesses," Aspen said. "We've had a very positive reaction from the business community."
Gay customers will be able to leave special cards at businesses they patronize, to let the owners know they were there, Aspen said.
"It will give Spokane an idea of the economic impact gay people have," Aspen said.
I'm not who you posted this to, but I lived in Spokane from 1980 to 1986 and moved to, thankfully, an even more conservative part of Eastern Washington and I can assure you that gays were not then and are not now 'quite a force there'.
In fact I would advise any limp wristed ones whose car broke down in the area to act as macho as possible in dealing with the locals. All of whom are as we say 'packing' :)
LOL! I should have said - it was singles groups to meet up and go camping, go to movies, go out to eat and such. I knew a lot of people who were in the gay community back then, and thought they were quite "out" 16 years ago.
Ping.
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Umm... dontchamean "Pink"??? ;-))
Sure they're serious. And if they don't get their way the ACLU, or whoever represents these wingnuts, will sue Spokane and try to get some money out of the city in the process
I live in Spokane, and with the exception of one gay bar downtown and one monthly paper, the gays are not a force here. As a matter of fact, this whole idea of a gay district is being met with a strong show of resistence by the community. IOW, we are ignoring them. Just as we ignore their infantile gay "pride" parades.
Thanks to you and Scott and Maigret for your replies. I wasn't very political back then, beyond wanting a Republican president to be elected because I didn't like the democrat party platform.
Now that I live in one of the most gay-friendly states in the nation, CA, maybe my perception is a little colored. After all, it was 16 years ago, and I'm older, but not necessarily smarter.
That is the critical difference. Art districts with a lot of galleries, small unusual shops and such often attract gay clientelle and business owners, but not because they are gay. No one is going to cross town to seek out the Gay Hamburger place.
plant a flag in a particular neighborhood
Yep then it would be so much easier and convenient for the married male closet cases to plant their flags (rolls eyes). That will be Oprahs next show.
" asked to display signs in their windows proclaiming their support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. "
Kind of creepy like posting nazi swastikas all over the place. Ewwww. In drag Fraulines
Which is to say... where's the WHITE stripe ??? ;-))
more like a pink light district.
"I don't know why it's necessary to plant a flag in a particular neighborhood. Just live, like everybody else."
In theory, I wholeheartedly agree with you. In practice, it's always the Drama Queens that get their way. They're very, very good at being Squeaky Wheels.
I have nothing against the queers being able to setup their own neighborhood. I'm as tolerant as the next fellow. But I wish in the name of fairness and equality to have the same rights as the queers. Namely the right to setup straight neighborhoods where no queers are allowed.
Flag Wars....Sodomites harass poor & middle class Blacks to get their homes. (pos. barf alert)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1158429/posts
Spokane did have a history of mining and farming, and farming is still important, and it had other industries, but now its really world known for its excellant heart institute ......
I have lived here for 27 yrs and never heard of any gay "newspaper"....
I would love for them to settle all their gay businesses together in one section , because then I will know what not to patronize.....
idiots......
Interesting story. I say, watch for more and more of this crap at the local level.
In other words, the Left is increasingly losing its inhibitions. Their utter contempt for this society, and its norms for public life, is on display here. This article illustrates beautifully that Liberal/Left activists are not about fairness and equality. They're about power -- raw, unadulterated, fart-in-your-face POWER. They're about TAKING whatever they can, whenever they can.
In this, they're quite reminiscent of the Soviet Communists of yore. Except they won't be vanquished so easily.
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