Ruth Sheehan, The News & Observer, Raleigh, June 11, 1999
Starting this evening, thousands of gay men and women will gather in Greensboro for seminars and speeches, a big campy parade - and lots of parties. They call it PRIDE weekend. And this year, gay activists say they have much to celebrate. Much to be proud of.
"This was a good year," says my friend Joe Herzenberg, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member and the state's first openly gay elected official. "A very good year."
A key reason, according to Herzenberg, is that in April, for the first time ever, not one but two bills aimed at protecting gay citizens received a hearing on the floor of the state House.
One of the bills would have allowed Orange County commissioners to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations. The second - named for Matthew Shepard, the former Triangle resident who was pistol-whipped, tied to a fence and left to die in Wyoming because he was gay - would have expanded the definition of hate crimes to include victims targeted because of their sexual orientation, sex, disability or age.
Both bills were killed on the House floor. But to Herzenberg, in some ways, that's a small detail.
"Gay rights were discussed by the full House," Herzenberg tells me. "That is a big step. There are people who want to make radical change in a hurry. That's not always the best approach."
Herzenberg knows all too well that gay rights in a Bible Belt state such as North Carolina, where anti-gay sentiment remains so entrenched, is a two-steps-forward, one-step-back proposition at best: Superior Court Judge Ray Warren comes out of the closet, only to be run out of the Republican Party. The Rev. Jimmy Creech officiates at a gay union, only to face the possibility of expulsion from the pulpit. Chapel Hill and Carrboro offer benefits to the domestic partners of town employees, including two gay workers, only to find the policies challenged in court by disapproving conservatives.
The progress is incremental. Painstakingly so, it seems to me.
Because in the end, you can still be fired, or evicted, or denied a job because you're gay.
You can be beaten simply because of whom you love - and it won't be considered a hate crime.
You can actually be arrested for the way you and your partner engage in fully consensual sex, even though many straight people routinely engage in similarly illegal activity.
It all amounts to legal discrimination against one final unprotected group of people. So to me, the fact that the state House heard, and promptly quashed, two mostly symbolic bills to protect gay civil rights is more an outrage than a cause for optimism.
But Herzenberg is far more patient. He points out that the landscape has changed dramatically since 1987, when he was first elected. Gay couples are out-virtually everywhere, without so much as an eyebrow raised, Herzenberg notes.
Getting the laws to acknowledge this social reality is the next step. And getting gay-rights legislation heard on the House floor is obviously a crucial part of that process.
Perhaps, as Herzenberg says, it has been a "good" year. But I believe we could have done better.
Friday, June 11, 1999
Sunday, May 16, 1999
Tradition could wilt with retirement of `flower ladies'
Chapel Hill Herald, May 16, 1999
By Ray Gronberg
CHAPEL HILL -- Franklin Street regulars are starting to wonder where all the flower ladies have gone. And the answer, unfortunately, seems to be that age is catching up with them.
Some worry another Chapel Hill tradition is about to fade away, a gnawing fear that has grown in inverse proportion to the number of active flower ladies. For now, only one still plies her wares on a regular basis.
"It looks like it's a dying breed," sighed Manning Outen, manager of NationsBank Plaza. "We need somebody to pick up the tradition."
Outen's building -- soon to be renamed the Bank of America Center -- served as the daytime base of operations for two of the last flower ladies, Mary Farrington and Betty Jones.
Neither is active.
Outen and hotdog vendor Ed "Squeaky" Morgan believe Jones is out of the flower business entirely after an early evening auto accident about a month ago.
Until then, Jones "was here any day it wasn't raining," said Morgan, also a Franklin Street fixture. "She didn't get hurt, but she was shaken up. Her son came and took her back to Texas. I don't think she'll be coming back."
Farrington seemingly hasn't set up shop in the lobby of NationsBank Plaza even once this year. Health is believed an issue, though she has told patrons she'll "be coming back now and then," Morgan said.
One other woman, Moselle Pratt, is holding up the flower lady tradition by night. She prefers working outdoors, and Police Department Sgt. Steve Riddle said people can find her near the Sephora perfume store most any time the weather is nice.
Morgan and Outen are not alone in suspecting that the curtain is about to close on Chapel Hill's flower ladies.
"It is probably not a profession that anybody's looking to go into," said Robert Humphreys, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Commission. "Once our existing flower ladies are gone, it may be something that falls by the wayside."
If that's the case, time will have done something the town bureaucracy couldn't.
The flower ladies -- and Morgan -- are the last vestiges of a sidewalk vending trade that Chapel Hill essentially outlawed during the 1970s.
The ban targeted a small group of peddlers "whom one might call hippies," said Joe Herzenberg, a local historian and former town councilman.
"It wasn't exactly an effort to get rid of the flower ladies, quite the contrary," he said. "It was an effort to get rid of other people, and the flower ladies were gotten rid of in the process."
The hippies sparked complaints, he said, from people offended by their views and their appearance. Town officials tried briefly to exempt the flower ladies from the ban, but they soon fretted that the attempt would draw a court challenge.
In any case, the exemption gave the town's real targets a way to evade the ban.
"Vendors would sell you a daisy for $30 and give you a pair of sandals for free," Planning Director Roger Waldon said.
Several of the flower ladies eventually found a home in the NationsBank Plaza lobby -- safe on private property -- as did Morgan, who briefly defied the vending ban in 1993.
The final flower lady may fall victim to simple economics. "I don't think business is great, to tell you the truth," Herzenberg said. "She doesn't sell that many, but she likes coming and talking to people."
By Ray Gronberg
CHAPEL HILL -- Franklin Street regulars are starting to wonder where all the flower ladies have gone. And the answer, unfortunately, seems to be that age is catching up with them.
Some worry another Chapel Hill tradition is about to fade away, a gnawing fear that has grown in inverse proportion to the number of active flower ladies. For now, only one still plies her wares on a regular basis.
"It looks like it's a dying breed," sighed Manning Outen, manager of NationsBank Plaza. "We need somebody to pick up the tradition."
Outen's building -- soon to be renamed the Bank of America Center -- served as the daytime base of operations for two of the last flower ladies, Mary Farrington and Betty Jones.
Neither is active.
Outen and hotdog vendor Ed "Squeaky" Morgan believe Jones is out of the flower business entirely after an early evening auto accident about a month ago.
Until then, Jones "was here any day it wasn't raining," said Morgan, also a Franklin Street fixture. "She didn't get hurt, but she was shaken up. Her son came and took her back to Texas. I don't think she'll be coming back."
Farrington seemingly hasn't set up shop in the lobby of NationsBank Plaza even once this year. Health is believed an issue, though she has told patrons she'll "be coming back now and then," Morgan said.
One other woman, Moselle Pratt, is holding up the flower lady tradition by night. She prefers working outdoors, and Police Department Sgt. Steve Riddle said people can find her near the Sephora perfume store most any time the weather is nice.
Morgan and Outen are not alone in suspecting that the curtain is about to close on Chapel Hill's flower ladies.
"It is probably not a profession that anybody's looking to go into," said Robert Humphreys, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Commission. "Once our existing flower ladies are gone, it may be something that falls by the wayside."
If that's the case, time will have done something the town bureaucracy couldn't.
The flower ladies -- and Morgan -- are the last vestiges of a sidewalk vending trade that Chapel Hill essentially outlawed during the 1970s.
The ban targeted a small group of peddlers "whom one might call hippies," said Joe Herzenberg, a local historian and former town councilman.
"It wasn't exactly an effort to get rid of the flower ladies, quite the contrary," he said. "It was an effort to get rid of other people, and the flower ladies were gotten rid of in the process."
The hippies sparked complaints, he said, from people offended by their views and their appearance. Town officials tried briefly to exempt the flower ladies from the ban, but they soon fretted that the attempt would draw a court challenge.
In any case, the exemption gave the town's real targets a way to evade the ban.
"Vendors would sell you a daisy for $30 and give you a pair of sandals for free," Planning Director Roger Waldon said.
Several of the flower ladies eventually found a home in the NationsBank Plaza lobby -- safe on private property -- as did Morgan, who briefly defied the vending ban in 1993.
The final flower lady may fall victim to simple economics. "I don't think business is great, to tell you the truth," Herzenberg said. "She doesn't sell that many, but she likes coming and talking to people."
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