[Letter: Dallas Gay Alliance to This Week Texas] - The Portal to Texas History

Contents:

• THE DALLAS GAY ALLIANCE (THE DALLAS WAY)
• THE ROURCE CENTER LGBT COLLECTN: DALLAS GAY AND LBIAN ALLIANCE
• THE OVER 30 CLUB: DALLAS GAY AND LBIAN ALLIANCE
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• [LETTER: DALLAS GAY ALLIANCE TO THIS WEEK TEXAS]
• [DALLAS GAY AND LBIAN ALLIANCE AIDS ROURCE CENTER TOUR]

THE DALLAS GAY ALLIANCE (THE DALLAS WAY)

This digal llectn ntas early urt s photographs, negativ, rrponnce, and newspaper articl related to the activi of the Dallas Gay Alliance om 1980-1988. After losg his posn at KERA — due to what he said was homophobia at the statn — Monroe was hired as associate director of membership at the newly-opened U. Armstrong is a nurse and addn to her day job, she served on several boards to provi AIDS re to gay men who, the 1980s and early 1990s, were ntractg the disease at an ever-creasg rate.

While the Gay and Lbian Communy Center provid space for everyone the muny, a group of women led by Christe Jarosz opened the Lbian Rource Center on Hall Street east Dallas as a safe space specifilly for women.

Found 1977, s missn was, om the start, to prent a formal face of the gay muny to media and before cy uncil, to addrs issu such as police harassment and to talk to ndidat nng for office. When talks wh Parkland Memorial Hospal and Dallas County officials about AIDS re at the hospal didn’t brg rults, DGA created GUTS (Gay Urban Tth Squad, which predated ACT UP) to beg street protts at cy hall and ont of the hospal.

THE ROURCE CENTER LGBT COLLECTN: DALLAS GAY AND LBIAN ALLIANCE

When the only theater pany Oak Lawn was Dallas Theater Center, and that anizatn had no ia there were gay people the neighborhood who might enjoy theater, DGLA created Theater Gemi, which performed the back of s office on Cedar Sprgs Road. The bsman and his wife, Melissa, first plaed to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor liveri 2019, not long after the nservative Christian uple moved their fancial firm right next door to the rtrant, which fli a gay Pri flag. (Front Porch Market and Grill)What’s more, the Washers say, the ad rat was jt one more sult that the uple, who once planted an “all liv matter” sign their ont yard, have endured sce movg next door to a rtrant owned by a gay uple.

They married 2020, five years after they opened the Front Porch, which quickly beme a statn The Front Porch has been flyg a Pri flag on s pat sce 2016, not long after a gunman killed 49 people a gay bar Orlando. “I had so many threats agast me that even the Dallas police statned squad rs outsi our home, ” Waybourn an activist, Waybourn says, his goals were clear: same-sex marriage, gays and lbians the ary, accs to lifavg medic.

To the activist, feels like a step backward after a lifetime of fightg for gay pack the seats at the Board of Zong Appeals hearg hosted at Grace Epispal Church. “I have que a few gay iends, clients and a fay member, and I have patronized a gay-owned rtrant for years, ” he whether the Washers are tryg to remake The Plas to their image of Ameri — Whe, nservative, Christian — Melissa said, “I n see where you’re g om. Passengers aboard a fourth plan, cludg gay man Mark Bgham, fight back agast the terrorists on their flight, forcg the plane to crash an empty field Pennsylvania rather than at s tend target, believed to have been eher the Pentagon or the Whe Hoe.

THE OVER 30 CLUB: DALLAS GAY AND LBIAN ALLIANCE

” Phil Johnson, whose rerd oral history rells early gay social life the cy, stated that the 1940s gay men Dallas equently met at the rner of Commerce and Akard streets, a spot referred to as “Maggie’s Corner, ” due to s lotn at the base of the Magnolia Petrolm Buildg. In the early 1950s several terr rator shops, many gay-owned, opened along Cedar Sprgs Road the Oak Lawn sectn of the the next two s, LGBT bars and gatherg plac remaed ncentrated primarily the central bs district, though a few began to open the Oak Lawn area. That same year, Alv Buchanan filed a feral su agast the Dallas Police Department and claimed the police harassed and targeted gay men and women for arrt.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

In 1975 the Dallas Gay Polil Cc (renamed the Dallas Gay & Lbian Alliance 1992), the first LGBT polil anizatn Dallas and the primary membership anizatn for the LGBT muny, was anized. In June 1978 Dallas hosted the Texas Gay Conference and ved San Francis Board of Supervisors member and natnally-known gay rights activist Harvey Milk to speak, an ditor of the lol muny’s stature 1977 Reverend Jam Harris beme the first openly gay person to n for Dallas Cy Council, although he lost his race and me fourth out of five ndidat. Other openly gay office holrs have clud DISD School Board member Jose Plata (1995), Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valz (2005), Dallas County District Clerk Gary Fzsimmons (2006), and Dallas County Judge Jim Foster (2006) advanc ma polilly and socially the 1970s were tempered by the onslght of the HIV/AIDS epimic begng the early 1980s, but, as other ci across the natn, the disease uned the lol muny many ways.

[LETTER: DALLAS GAY ALLIANCE TO THIS WEEK TEXAS]

The Dallas Gay Polil Cc rporated the Foundatn for Human Unrstandg June of that year, and two years later the foundatn tablished the AIDS Rource Center to provi tn on disease preventn, legal servic, a food pantry, and emergency fundg for those afflicted wh the disease. The Metropolan Communy Church, tablished California 1968 as a misterial outreach to gays and lbians, tablished s first church outsi of the Wt Coast Dallas 1970.

In 2006 the church was accepted to the Uned Church of Christ and beme the fourth largt church the nomatn; 2021 lled self the “world’s largt gay church. The Turtle Creek Chorale, anized 1980 and scribed as “primarily a gay men’s chos, ” is the most rerd men’s chos the world and has toured ternatnally, cludg performanc for Queen Elizabeth II. The Dallas LGBT muny celebrated the first legal same-sex marriage Dallas County between longtime partners and LGBT rights activists Jack Evans and Gee 2021 Dallas had one of the largt LGBT muni the untry, and gay men and lbians were woven to the fabric of civic life.

[DALLAS GAY AND LBIAN ALLIANCE AIDS ROURCE CENTER TOUR]

Their actn only accelerated Bill’s growth to a prcipal learship role the gay rights movement ’s first ncrete step this procs me later 1979, when he appeared before the executive mtee of the Dallas Gay Polil Cc to urge that anizatn to fully support the upg Natnal March on Washgton. In early 1980, a group of lears of the Dallas Gay Polil Cc (later to be reanized as the Dallas Gay Alliance on March 23, 1981) met Bill and Terry’s dg room to discs the feasibily of a novel polil unrtakg by the gay muny of Dallas, the ncept beg the "brachild" of Bill's iend and print of the Dallas Gay Polil Cc, Don Baker. Naturally, no one believed that such a move would lead to repeal, but the procs had acplished the over-archg goal of tg the public (and the news media) of the existence of the law, and s negative impact on the gay muny of Texas...

Patg all gay men and women as "crimals, " and thereby givg a pretext to open discrimatn agast members of the GLBT muny, whether beg prohibed om teachg public schools or beg employed by municipal fire partments and police partments.

In June of 1983, Bill and Terry, along wh other supporters, created a new umbrella anizatn for the gay muny named the Foundatn for Human Unrstandg (eventually to bee the Rource Center Dallas). In 1990, FHU purchased the MCC Church buildg at Reagan and Brown streets Dallas (where DGA had nducted s general membership meetgs sce the late 1970’s) print of the then Dallas Gay Alliance om 1984 to 1987, Bill helped open the first lbian and gay muny center storeont lotn (where Unn Jack is now loted on Cedar Sprgs), later to bee a clic for an HIV populatn left unrserved by unty and ernment stutns. Followg his term as print of the Dallas Gay Alliance, Bill was elected print of the Texas Human Rights Foundatn, and 1989 the Texas Senate honored Bill for his many acplishments as a muny lear.