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Gay in Roanoke
Many gays and lesbians say the Star City is a relatively tolerant place in which to live and play.
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Photo by Josh Meltzer Shot on 9/17/00
Julie Martin (left) and Crystal Pruitt of Lynchburg laugh at a joke made by comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer, the headline performer at Pride in the Park, the gay community's annual fall celebration in Roanoke's Highland Park.
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By CODY LOWE
THE ROANOKE TIMES
It's not heaven.
Last September's shootings at the Backstreet Cafe -- leaving one man dead and six other people injured -- are ample evidence that being gay or lesbian in Roanoke can be dangerous.
Ronald Gay, a drifter with a history of psychiatric treatment, is accused of the crimes. Police say Gay told them he was frustrated over the use of his name as a synonym for “homosexual” and went looking for gays to shoot. His trial on murder and malicious wounding charges is scheduled to begin in June.
In spite of that violence, however, many gays and lesbians continue to regard Roanoke as a haven. The largest city in Virginia west of Richmond, by virtue of its size if nothing else, is a place where homosexual men and women from smaller communities come to find a social life.
And the city, many gays and lesbians continue to say, represents a level of tolerance -- or at least anonymity -- that is unavailable in the small towns and rural counties that surround it.
Thirty years ago, the words "gay," "lesbian" and "homosexual" were just becoming acceptable in the pages of family newspapers. Though there had been gay-friendly bars and restaurants here before then, they were rarely, if ever, publicized.
Look up the newspaper clips now, and you'll see that the files holding them originally were labeled not "homosexuality," but "sexual deviancy."
The files hold a few stories about heterosexual child molesters and serial killers.
But mostly the stories are about homosexuals. A lot of them are the stories of men and women who wanted people to know they're just regular folks -- except for that sexual thing, the one thing that kept almost all of them from using their real names in print in those days.
Most of the articles by Roanoke Times and World-News staff writers gave gay men and women a chance to tell their stories, to defend their lifestyles in a culture that was beginning to have to confront the issue of homosexuality openly.
It also was a time when nationally syndicated columnist Jim Bishop could write with an acid pen about "homos" and "fags" -- and a local editorial could complain about the co-opting of the word "gay" by homosexual rights groups.
The Gay Alliance of the Roanoke Valley, apparently the first group of its kind here, was formed in 1971. Within a year, it claimed that more than a hundred people sometimes attended its meetings and that it had the largest membership of any gay organization in the state.
Several members of St. James' Episcopal Church left that congregation after it allowed the group to meet in the church. The rector assured his parishioners that the gay group had promised there was no "perversion" during the meetings.
The Gay Alliance would be succeeded by the Free Alliance for Individual Rights, the Blue Ridge Lambda Alliance, the Gay Growth and Support Group, the Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Organizations and others.
News coverage reflected trouble in the mid-1970s when the Roanoke Police Department conducted regular stings of gay prostitutes in Elmwood Park. Police decried the difficulties of prosecuting such crimes, because most offenders were given light sentences and required to get psychiatric counseling.
Many of those convicted of being prostitutes denied being homosexuals, saying they engaged in sex with other men only because it was "easier than stealing.”
About that time, the Roanoke City Market gained a reputation as a hotbed not only of female prostitutes, but also of "drag queens" -- some of whom engaged in homosexual prostitution.
In 1982, a gay man interviewed in the newspaper acknowledged that gays were drawn to Roanoke, where two or three gay bars catered to them, but said some found Roanoke oppressive because of its relatively small size. "You know everyone here," the man said. "It's hard to be open."
In the 1970s and 1980s, several men were killed in separate incidents after meeting their killers at Roanoke Valley gay gathering spots and driving to isolated areas, where they were shot, strangled or beaten. "People of a violent nature knew where gay cruising spots were and used that knowledge to lure gay men into their car," said Sam Garrison, former Roanoke commonwealth's attorney and now a gay activist. Most of the men were robbed by their murderers. Garrison said, "They considered gay men like sitting ducks."
Still, the city was considered a generally accepting place. A 1986 billboard campaign was touted as a positive experience for gays in Roanoke.
"Someone you know is gay . . . maybe someone you love," the five billboards read. One was defaced with white paint, but the experiment was declared a success by its sponsors. Gays' "feelings about Roanoke are extremely positive," Garrison was quoted as saying at the time. "It is a very pleasant, tolerant community.”
Gays and lesbians took their activism to City Council for the first time in 1990, pressing for inclusion in a new city ordinance banning discrimination in private clubs. Although they lost that fight, the publicity surrounding it -- including coverage of an impassioned speech by Garrison for the city to recognize its gay citizens -- raised awareness of the city's gay and lesbian population.
In 1994, a new billboard campaign urged valley residents to "Celebrate Diversity." Although one billboard was defaced, public reaction seemed generally positive. The next year, however, the billboard company refused to post the message from the Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, citing its controversial nature, and Roanoke City Council refused to officially endorse the committee's "Diversity Enriches" campaign. The signs eventually went up around the community as paid advertising on Valley Metro buses.
Gay and lesbian issues occasionally have resurfaced in the city since then, but generally life has been quiet -- quiet, that is, until Friday, Sept. 22, 2000, the night a gunman opened fire in the Backstreet Cafe and drew attention once again to the city's sexual minority.
Kathy Schilling was 19 when she first walked into the Horoscope, a nightspot on Fourth Street with "a huge dance floor," and ordered a beer. It was 1973.
"I had never seen anybody in drag," Schilling said. "It was quite a little shocker."
Even more of a shock was when she spotted her neighbor in the club. She had an idea he was gay, but she was pretty sure he didn't suspect her own sexual orientation.
Eventually she found other sympathetic gathering places in Roanoke, such as the Tradewinds and Murphy's bar, where gays and lesbians from the city and surrounding towns and counties gathered to socialize.
In the late 1970s, gay couples in Murphy's could dance together -- not too close -- but were forbidden to hold hands at their tables, Schilling said. In fact, at that time state law forbade bars from selling alcohol to homosexuals, who were regarded -- along with pimps, drug dealers and prostitutes -- as undesirables.
Schilling grew up in the Northwest Roanoke County suburbs, went to Northside High, was active in numerous sports. She first experimented sexually with other girls at about age 13, she said, though for many of them that was "just a phase." By the time she started at Radford College, she knew she was a lesbian.
Threatened with exposure by a professor there, she said, she dropped out -- only to return to earn a degree in psychology in 1998.
She left the Roanoke Valley in 1979 to live first in Lancaster County, Pa., and later in Lexington, Ky. Both communities are more accepting of homosexuals than the Roanoke Valley is, she contends.
Still, on returning to Roanoke and family in 1991 after being disabled in an auto accident, she was delighted to find a congregation of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, founded by a gay pastor and serving a predominantly gay and lesbian flock.
"I was totally overwhelmed the first time I went," she said. "Just to go up and take Communion with your partner, for gay people that is really special. All these years later, it is still a special feeling.”
The Metropolitan Community Church is just one of the reasons that many gays and lesbians find themselves attracted to Roanoke.
The Rev. Catherine Houchins, pastor there for the past two years, has seen the congregation grow from a handful to 60 or so -- enough to be bursting out of the doors of their Kirk Avenue storefront church. Members drive as much as a couple of hours to attend religious services that don't condemn their sexual orientation, she said.
Houchins, who grew up in Christiansburg and later lived in Norfolk and Los Angeles, believes many in her congregation find the Roanoke Valley a good place to live. Many came from smaller towns and rural areas in Southwest Virginia to take advantage of the social contacts available to gays and lesbians here, she said. Others came for jobs and found the contacts once they arrived.
There's no way to know exactly how many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people live here. As far as he knows, no polling has been done on the subject, said Harry Wilson, a Roanoke College professor who headed the Roanoke Valley Poll during the 1980s. The first such poll in 1984 did show a 55 percent majority of Roanoke Valley residents favoring civil rights protections for gays and lesbians. It was the only time the subject of homosexuality was broached on the surveys.
Nationally, the once widely quoted figure of 10 percent of the population as gay and lesbian is now largely discredited. But newer studies vary widely. Soulforce, a national gay-rights advocacy organization, contends that "a more accurate figure is about 3 to 4 percent of men and 1 to 2 percent of women" describing themselves as homosexual. Less than 1 percent are bisexual.
Some would contend that the Roanoke Valley is likely to have a somewhat higher percentage of gays and lesbians than the national average by virtue of being a magnet for them in the region.
For gay-rights advocates, the percentages are irrelevant. Issues of acceptance and tolerance should not be contingent on the numbers of gays and lesbians, they say, but are matters of justice.
No matter how many gays one believes are in the Roanoke Valley, the evidence is that the region has many drawing cards for them.
For Houchins, of course, her church is a cornerstone. Next door to the church is Out Word, a gay and lesbian bookstore. Several other stores, such as Books-a-Million, include a broad selection of gay and lesbian literature. There's a gay-youth support group, Out Right. There's the Friendship Bowling League, a two-decades-old fellowship of gays and gay-friendly folks who get together to bowl every week.
There has been a supper club, a reflection of what may be the most common form of socializing -- friends simply getting together in one another’s homes. And the annual Pride in the Park event is widely known as a family-friendly celebration that lacks the commercialism -- and protests -- that similar events draw in larger cities.
But when you talk to people about what it is that brings gays and lesbians to Roanoke to meet other people for dates, for friendship, for long-term relationships, it's the nightlife that comes up again and again.
"We have to commute to hang out with gay people," said Jennifer Bubka, a 21-year-old lesbian and senior at Virginia Tech. She finds Roanoke more tolerant than Blacksburg, which she said has practically no bars that welcome gays.
It's hard to pin down just how many "gay bars" or "gay-friendly" bars and clubs there are in Roanoke, although there are several. And some gays object to placing too much emphasis on their importance since many gays don't frequent them.
But one name comes up over and over as the biggest attraction in town.
The Park.
Opened by two men in an old warehouse and bingo parlor on Salem Avenue in 1978, The Park was an overnight sensation.
It has a dance floor, plenty of music and an atmosphere in which gays and lesbians are free to openly express affection for each other. Its owners declined to be interviewed for this series of stories, fearing that any attention to the establishment would lead to harassment of its patrons.
Garrison, a longtime gay activist in Roanoke, says he and his partner aren't interested anymore in the smoky, noisy atmosphere of bars and clubs. But he believes The Park is a plus for the community and probably is the single most important reason out-of-town gays and lesbians first travel to Roanoke. After they get here, they discover other reasons to stay, he said, but The Park's reputation extends into at least two other states -- North Carolina and West Virginia -- to attract newcomers.
Mark Mitchell is a Roanoke native who now lives in Harrisonburg, two hours away. When his gay friends there talk about going out on the weekends, the most common destination often is The Park. Even though it's only an hour from Harrisonburg to Charlottesville, where there is at least one "nice gay bar," he said, many people continue to be attracted by the reputation of Roanoke's premier gay nightspot.
Mitchell, 42, didn't know about The Park -- or any other gay hangouts -- when he was growing up here. But now he finds Roanoke a "fairly accepting" place where gays can find a lot of opportunities for socializing, "depending on what you're looking for."
Everything is relative, of course.
Shirley Lesser, executive director of Richmond-based Virginians for Justice, a lobbying organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, laughed at the description of Roanoke as a safe haven for gays.
When she was in the city in the days after the shootings at the Backstreet Cafe last fall, Lesser said she heard over and over how oppressed people here felt. And the perception of gays and lesbians from other larger urban areas in the state -- Northern Virginia, Richmond, Tidewater -- is that Roanoke is "not a safe place to be," she said.
Gays and lesbians do migrate to Roanoke because they can be more open than in smaller cities and towns in surrounding areas such as Abingdon or Wise, Lesser said, but are less free to express themselves than in, say, Alexandria. On the other hand, she said, Roanoke's gay community seems more intimate and close-knit than in larger communities.
For Lesser, however, the troubling question is, "Why do we live in a state, a society, in which people feel they have to flee to a larger city to feel safe?"
Not everyone feels that way about Roanoke, however.
Randy Patch and Mario Moreno moved here about a year ago. Patch had met some Roanokers in 1994 at a national gay bowling tournament in Tucson, Ariz., where he was living. After he met Moreno and they became a couple, they decided they wanted to leave Tucson and they came up with a list of potential sites for a move.
They considered Seattle; Denver; Fort Collins, Colo.; San Antonio; Raleigh/Durham, N.C., and, because of their contact with the Virginia bowlers, Roanoke. First, the couple visited San Antonio. Second, in March 1999, they came to Roanoke.
They liked the employment opportunities, reasonable real-estate prices, the mountains, the prospects of mild winters and summers. The search was over.
"You realize you're moving to the Bible Belt?" a friend asked them. They did.
"I've lived in a lot of cities," Patch said. "This is one of the smallest, but one of the most supportive" for gays.
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