Daily Sitka Sentinel from Sitka, Alaska • Page 9

Weil-Known Alaskans Come Out of Closet Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Friday, August 28,1992, Page 9 By KIM SEVERSON Anchorage Daily News An AP Member Exchange ANCHORAGE (AP)M Jtet researcher Jean Craciun and former Su penor Court Judge Victor Carlson want out of the closet. They're successful. They're happy They re homosexual. And for the first time in their lives, they think it's time 10 talk about it in public. Like thousands of gay men and lesbians in Alaska, Craciun and Carlson never thought "coming out" re vealing one's sexual orientation -was a political statement or, frankly anyone's business.

Instead, they lived their lives balanced between friends and family who knew they were eav and a public who didn't. But the stakes are different now Both Craciun and Carlson see discussing their sexual orientation as part of a complex surge of personal, political and social change raising America's consciousness about homosexual ity. For Craciun, a 38-year-old researcher, coming out of the closet is not easy and has taken almost 15 years of personal and political evolution. During her Roman Catholic upbringing Outside, acknowledging and coming to terms with her sexual orientation was slow and difficult. "I would be quiet when we were talking about who was important in my life," she said.

But silence about one's personal life was impossible in Craciun's Italian family. "To be able to continue to be honest and share my life with my mother and father and brothers and sisters I had to involve them," she said. "I didn't want them to feel like I didn't have a full, healthy life." Her mother still worries about her, Craciun said. And she is uncomfortable with Craciun's openness. "She thinks other people will do something to me as a result of it, but that comes out of her experience as an immigrant, of how the ethnic people were treated when they came over," Craciun said.

Craciun moved to Anchorage in 1980, building her small business into a successful market research firm. She became a eucharislic minister, handing out communion wafers in her Catholic church. She worked hard on feminist issues and built an eight-year relationship with a woman, serving as a parent to her partner's child. She doesn't apologize for not getting more active in gay rights. Feminism was her issue.

"I thought if we could elevate 50 percent of society, certainly gay rights and other rights would come along with that," "But what's happening now is the gay rights movement has developed some image problems, basically." She cites fear of AIDS, a disease many still see as exclusively the problem of gay men, and myths that all gay men and lesbians are child molesters. Her church's view on homosexuality also troubles her. The Catholic church condemns homosexuality as a sin. Craciun's personal life also helped change her view on being open. Over the winter, she ended her long-term relationship, in part because she didn't feel accepted by her partner's family.

Now she is involved with a woman whose family is active in the Bellevue, chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and who accepts Craciun as they would any of their other children's partners. Craciun still fears what will happen as she publicly announces she is a lesbian fear of being harassed, or losing business or being forced to take on the role of gay leader, a position she doesn't want. "I want to be a business person," she said. Leading a group as diverse as the city's gay population would be too frustrating. Her primary concerns are her family and her business.

"I want them to see that first," she said. "So when I go to a cocktail party or a business event, they say, 'Oh, you two are But don't think I'm going to be the new gay rights leader. That's not my intention." The same fear fell by Craciun of harassment or loss of work keeps other successful Alaskans in the closet. Consider their answers when asked to be interviewed for this story: A mid-level administrator in the Hickel administration said she would lose her job if she was publicly identified as a lesbian, and warned that any article mentioning the number of gay men and lesbians in the governor's administration could trigger a witch hum. A state legislator said he doesn't fear the political ramifications of going public; he simply is not comfortable talking to strangers about his personal life.

A white collar worker on the North Slope who is active in the Anchorage gay political scene said "fag" jokes are so commonplace in his office that public expression of his sexual orientation could threaten his job and possibly his physical safety. He likens the anti-gay sentiment to a snake: Don't bother it and it won't bother you. A city fire official who is open about being gay to the people close to him said publication of his name could alert the administration to his sexual orientation and would result in his firing. National political consultant Cathy Allen, a former Alaskan who ran nine state and local campaigns in Alaska in the 1970s and 1980s, said sexual orientation is increasingly less a factor in achieving national or local public office. Recently, Allen ran a campaign that put lesbian Sherry Harris on the Seattle City Council.

"We found out that we overcompensated for her gay status," said Allen. "People were far more concerned about what she was going to do about the potholes." Allen thinks Alaska is not that much different when it comes to accepting homosexuality. "Anchorage community that looks at a 'sexuality as'hone'of their damn business, she said. With that philosophy in mind, she is helping to craft an Anchorage mayoral bid with veterinarian Joyce Murphy, who believes voters will care more about her work on energy and utility issues than her 18-year relationship with a woman partner. Former Mayor Tony Knowles, who was on the assembly during a major debate in 1976 over gay rights, said he'd like to believe the city has progressed to the point where gay people don't face overt discrimination.

But public debate about homosexuality brings out the worst civic side of Anchorage, giving extremists on both sides of the issue a platform and making the city seem more divided on the issue than it really is, he said. Otter Nonsense! Last Chance This Season! Price Cruise Saturday, August $40 kids 12 under Leaves Crescent Harbor for Salisbury Sound at 4:30 returns at 7:30 p.m. By reservation only 747-8100 747-8941 Allen Marine Tours, Department PO Box 1049, Sitka, Alaska 99835-1049 Trips run June 1 (o September 7 accepted The debate has again resurfaced before several public bodies. "What everybody wants to have is a community that is more understanding, more fair, less discriminating. I think that's happening, despite the public debate," he said.

Peoples' attitudes have changed over the years, according to some observers. 'The reason gay rights has changed over the years is people have had a chance to meet people and hear stories," said Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington professor of sociology and author of six books on issues of family, relationships and gender in America. "Important and effective gay people are taking leadership positions," she said. "It's not just gays. It is the friends and families of gays, or people who believe in civil liberties in general.

Churches are discussing homosexuality with a new view. The whole society has gotten much more sensitized about it." Victor Carlson, who spent 15 years on the Superior Court bench, never thought Alaska was ready to handle an openly gay judge. Carlson, 57, a family-law judge, said slaying in the closet was important to keeping his job. From the first election campaign he faced in 1978, Carlson feared his homosexuality would become a campaign issue. It never did, though questions about his sexuality hung over him during the latter pan of his tenure.

In the mid-1980s, Carlson became the target of several loosely organized groups that believed he was too hard on fathers in divorce and custody cases, and loo easy on child sexual abusers after a defendant he allowed on probation abused another child. In 1989, a police officer fired after being videotaped performing a sadomasochistic sex scenario with a teenage boy claimed it was part of a secret undercover investigation of Carlson, an assertion his superiors denied. At about the same time, Carlson's enemies enlisted the support of then state Sen. Jack Coghill, who authorized a series of public hearings on how the courts dealt with family cases. In Anchorage, the hearing was largely an opportunity for complaints about Carlson.

By 1990, it was clear Carlson's opponents were well-enough organized to mount a fight against his retention for another term, and Carlson retired. But the stir over his sexual orientation didn't end. In June, a man angry about how Carlson divided the property in a divorce case was charged with trying to arrange for Carlson's murder. One- reason, according to a interview with the hit man he tried to hire, was because Carlson is "queer." Carlson is not particularly proud that he wasn't more up front about his sexual orientation, but only within the last decade has he come to be comfortable with it himself. Now he is active with the Anchorage Aids Assistance Association and is increasingly seen as a leader for the gay rights movement.

"I have to ask myself: Have I set a poor example for them? Have I set back their lives?" he said. He recalls an Equal Rights Commission hearing in May on the issue, which he did not attend. "I didn't see any purpose in attending, Carlson said. "Now I see there may well be a purpose to be there -to help my fellow gay person. It wouldn't have changed (the decision), but it may have offered other gay people a role model." The commission hearing was part of a general heating-up of the gay rights issue in Anchorage this year.

In July, the commission recommended gays and lesbians not be included among those protected from discrimination. The city assembly recently has debated the issue, and the city's educational institutions are debating gay rights too. At a Board of Regents meeting later this year, the University of Alaska will decide whether gays and lesbians who work and learn there should be afforded protection from discrimina- tion. And for the first time in the history ot Anchorage education, the newly signed contract between the school district and teachers includes a clause mat protects gay and lesbian teachers from discrimination or firing because of their sexual orientation. Meanwhile, Anchorage is adjusting to a more visible homosexual population, and the internal chemistry of the gay community in Alaska is changing.

A band of young lesbians and gay men fueled by radical gay activism in the Lower 48, has conducted a fight to include lesbians and gay men in the Anchorage anti-discrimination law. "I came to the point where I could be open about it," said Herman Coen, a private care nurse. "I think people of higher stature must come out because of the visibility." Coen has tracked every move of the Equal Rights Commission related to gay rights and is a leader of the latest movement. If successful gay people are afraid to be open about their lives, Coen argues, they undermine the work of those fighting for gay rights. But being gay and forcing the public to accept it is exactly what troubles Anchorage Baptist Temple leader Rev.

Jerry Prevo. Opposed to homosexuality because he believes it is immoral and against the teachings of Jesus, Prevo argues that gay men and lesbians flaunt their sexuality as a way to force others to accept it. Prevo argues he isn't interested in policing people's bedrooms, but he opposes public acceptance of gays. Prevo was a visible part of the city's first public debate about homosexual rights in 1976. A liberal Anchorage Assembly voted to include sexual orientation in the city's new anti-discrimination law.

George Sullivan, mayor at the time, vetoed it during a loud outpouring of sentiment from all sides. Not much has changed this time around, the minister believes. "It's basically the same militant group that quite honestly don't represent themselves well. They look like the typical wrong side of the homosexual movement," Prevo said. Many opponents of homosexuality say it violates the model of the traditional family.

But that model is not as clearly defined as it once was. The number of women in Anchorage who work outside the home jumped from 50 percent in 1970 to almost 70 percent in 1990. And only 54 percent of Anchorage households are comprised of married couples, according to 1990 U.S. Census figures. he strength and conviction of people who oppose homosexual rights' is exactly why new leaders must emerge, gay rights activists argue.

And those leaders should include the successful and the conservative, as well as the radical elements of the gay community. But coaxing people from the closet is not easy, political activists say. Out North Theatre Company director Jay Brause has been in the trenches of the Anchorage gay rights battle for almost two decades. He was the gay community's most visible leader during the 1980s, when he help write "Identity Reports," a study of sexual orientation bias in Alaska. The study showed more than half of the 734 gay men and lesbians surveyed thought it was unsafe to be open about their sexual orientation.

If a new anti-discrimination drive is to be successful, Brause agrees, it will take new leaders. But good luck finding them, he said. "What is lacking is those people who will take the risk and come out," Brause said. "What you have is a community of very savvy people who assess the personal exposure versus success, and they choose success." Explained sociologist Schwartz: "The first reaction to social change is often to circle wagons and keep what they've had. It takes a long time for arguments to be made and minds to be changed." Anchorage Daily News reporter Sheila Toomey contributed to this report Bison Hunt Permits Bring in Over $1,000 in Open Market FAIRBANKS (AP) Two south- central Alaska residents are about SI, 000 richer for parting with permits to hunt Delta bison in a state supply- and-demand study intended to put a dollar value on the permits.

The 80 people selected for either- scx Delta bison permits were asked at what price they would be willing to sell their permits. Half said no price was high enough, while the other half's going rate from $500 to more than $100,000, said Dan Reed, a research biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game. For the demand side, 300 people randomly selected from among unsuccessful permit applicants were asked what they would be willing to pay for a permit. Cash bids were re- A "market value" of $1,08040 determined by comparing bids and finding the value at which the same number of people were willing to buy as were willing to sell Reed said. For Glenn and Sharolyn Hermann of Homer, giving up a chance wasn't so much of a sacrifice, since they defied great odds in both being selected in the permit lottery.

"You mean I get to keep one of my bison hunts, plus I get That's called 'Praise the Glenn Hermann said. Hermann added that had the couple only received one permit, he wouldn't have sold it for less than $15,000. "But we didn't need two bison," he said. George Uhles of Anchorage was the other permit seller. The bison permits arc highly prized and many people have tried for years to get their names drawn.

The state Department of Fish and Game received more than 11,000 applications this year for a chance at winning one of the 100 total permits, Reed said. The market value and the two permit sales are as important for the study as the sale prices offered, according to Reed. TREAD WORK Fred Moe checks log cribbing and gravel fill being put place on the Indian River Trail. Southeast Alaska Guidance Association (SAGA) crews this summer completed maintenance work on some 2 000 feet of trail, using grave! and other on4he mate- frSm ea vvi ers SteveuGrater led the crew with assistance from David White. Crew members are Gary Moy, Norman Paul, Dennis and Moe, all of Sitka.

Other jobs completed by SAGA this summer include trail maintenance on the Beaver Lake, Harbor Mountain Sea Lion Cove, Salmon Lake and Sitkoh Lake trails. (Photo provided to the Sentinel) Discover the Pacific and Earn College Credit by Taking this Television Course at Home. THE PACIFIC CENTURY The Pacific Century looks behind current GNPfigures, trade tensions and political conflicts to understand the Pacific Basin region's historical and cultural origins. For information or registration contact UAS Sitkzi, 747-6653. Educational ExL-ellenceThrough Telecommunications The Pacific Century is a co- production of The Pacific Basin Institute and Seattle.

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