The names of the members of a new Cleveland group to organize Gay Games IX were announced this week and the Federation of Gay Games said it has signed a new license agreement with the organization, but the group that was originally signed to stage the event said it is continuing its court fight to be recognized as the legitimate entity.
"We believe we are the entity that should run these games," Cleveland Synergy Foundation's Andy Kabat told the Bay Area Reporter this week.
CSF filed a suit against the FGG, the city of Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Sports Foundation, and Valarie McCall of the mayor's office on September 2 to retain its right to stage the games after the FGG said it was dissolving the license agreement July 6 because of an alleged breach of contract. Kabat, who said the announcement of the new group had caught CSF by surprise, said the defendants had received an extension to October 30 to respond to the suit. The evidence discovery phase of the trial would then begin.
Kabat said there had been no talks to resolve the conflict out of court.
"Through public record requests, we got some evidence that was quite telling," Kabat said of the decision for the city and the FGG to break ranks with CSF. "It really seems like this was planned long in advance."
The FGG declined comment on the Synergy suit and said it signed a license agreement September 30 with Cleveland Special Events Corp., the newly formed nonprofit organization created to stage Gay Games IX. CSE has a 14-member board of directors representing the LGBT community and local business and political leaders: Mayor Frank Jackson, Councilmember Joe Cimperman, and chief of government affairs McCall representing the city of Cleveland; Jan Cline, LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland; Michelle Tomallo, vice president of Fit Technologies, an LGBT information technology firm, and the LGBT Plexus Chamber of Commerce; Susan Doerfer, executive director of Equality Ohio; Dirk Breiding, Akron/Summit Convention and Visitors Bureau; David E. Gilbert, Greater Cleveland Sports Commission; Michelle DeLozier, WH2, Girl Jam Cleveland and HERricane Cleveland; Scott Finerman, Second Generation; Hollie Ksiezyk and Nathan Tolliver, representatives from the LGBT community; Dennis J. Roche, from the convention and visitors bureau Positively Cleveland; and Joseph D. Roman, Greater Cleveland Partnership chamber of commerce.
"The Gay Games in 2014 will shine a national and international spotlight on the city of Cleveland," Jackson said. "Our representatives either lead or are a part of some of Cleveland's and the region's most dynamic institutions and will help show the world our greatness."
LGBT members of the new group are also excited.
"As an openly gay African American young man who also happens to be a native Clevelander, it is truly an honor and a privilege to be involved in the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, musicians, and artists," Tolliver said. "I am very excited about the impact this special event that brings together people from all over the world will have on the city of Cleveland and particularly our own LGBT community."
A four-member advisory group from CSE will interact with representatives from the FGG: Kevin Schmotzer from the city's Department of Economic Development; Meredith Scerba from the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission; Sharon Gronowski from Positively Cleveland; and Eric Lutzo, president and co-founder of Plexus.
The games are scheduled for August 9-16, 2014.
Yankee pride and prejudice
With Major League Baseball's postseason in full swing, attention is turned once again to the relative incivility often encountered in arenas and ballparks. Getting the biggest headlines this year have been the bleacher creatures at Yankee Stadium in New York. For years, when the grounds crew has worked on the field between innings, the public announcement system has filled the stadium with a recording of the Village People hit "YMCA." To which the beer-guzzling fans have devised their own homophobic lyrics to taunt fans of other teams.
The blog http://www.Gothamist.com reported that as New York City was dealing with the recent spate of highly publicized gay suicides and a high-profile anti-gay attack allegedly committed by gang members, a Minnesota Twins fan wrote them about being harassed by fans in the bleachers October 9 at Yankee Stadium during a playoff game between the Yankees and Twins.
"During the traditional singing of 'YMCA,'" the fan wrote, "when the grounds crew takes to the field, suddenly the crowd erupted into lyrics singing, 'Why are you gay, I saw you sucking some d-i-c-k.' Other lyrics called people who are gay sinners and disease-ridden. I couldn't believe my ears. Whatever people may say about Minnesota or the Midwest, such hurtful and disgusting things would never be shouted at a Twins game. What an embarrassment for Yankees fans and New York City."
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation contacted the Yankees about this and other such incidents.
"We reached out to the Yankees, and were extremely pleased with their reaction," the organization reported on its blog. "Yankees spokesperson Alice McGillion told us, 'The Yankees have zero tolerance for this and any kind of abuse.' She said that security in the bleacher sections of the stadium will warn fans, before 'YMCA' is played, that any type of homophobic abuse 'will not be tolerated' and she assured us that any fans who take part in this ugly bullying will be ejected from the game."
No explanation of how or why the behavior has been tolerated previously by the Yankees. There are several videos of Yankees fans heckling others with the song on YouTube dating back several years. Then again, although several teams have LGBT Pride nights (but not the Yankees), clearly pro teams send mixed messages about equality and acceptance.
For example, the Washington Blade reported that lesbian couple Mary Kate Morris and Nicole Marchetto were kicked out of a September 26 game at M&T Bank Stadium between the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens for kissing while in line at a concession stand.
Marchetto told the Blade they ignored three warnings from a security guard to stop kissing because "the kissing was heartfelt and decent in the real sense and was not any different from what numerous law-abiding straight couples were doing all around us."
And in St. Louis, the Cardinals declined to include same-sex couples in its "kiss cam" on ballpark screens during the "Out at the Ballpark" promotion staged at a September baseball game by St. Louis Pride.
"We look for lively areas, full areas where people are in their seats, watching the video board, somewhat paying attention," said Tony Simokaitis, director of scoreboard operations at Busch Stadium. "We try to get as many people in as we can in the minute and a half between innings. There's not a lot of time to allow us to make calculated judgments in terms of demographics."
Let's see: 200 gay and lesbian individuals in one section of the ballpark, and none of them lively, all so engrossed in the game between innings they cannot take their eyes off the field long enough to get friendly with each other? Damn: with a team that compelling, it's a wonder they didn't make the playoffs.
Batters – er publishers – up
With the San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Philies in the midst of their National League Championship series, the publishers of the Bay Area Reporter and the Philadelphia Gay News have made a friendly wager on the outcome, which will send one of the teams to the World Series.
B.A.R. publisher Thomas E. Horn and his counterpart at PGN, Mark Segal, have agreed that the publisher in the city of the losing team will wear the winning team's gear in a photo to be published in the winner's newspaper. The losing publisher will also give a personal contribution of $1,000 to the winner's gay charity of choice in the winner's city.
Game on.