Voices behind the battle for gay-rights protections in South Bend

Participants describe why they believe gay-rights amendments necessary.

JAMIE LOO, Tribune Staff Writer
7/03/06

Three of the following stories were included in South Bend Equality's study on discrimination.

SOUTH BEND -- Robert Seifert says he knew what discrimination looked like.

Seifert saw many things after he graduated from Central High School and left for college. In the 1970s, he found himself in San Francisco. An advocate for the Bay Area Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression, he aided those who faced discrimination.

Years later, when he returned, he says he became the target of "overt homophobia" for the first time.

"And it was very sad, because this was happening in my hometown," Seifert said. "Where I grew up, where I chose to work and live."

Seifert had been installing art in the evenings for a local nonprofit group since 1984. In 1995, a new security guard was hired who Seifert said had a habit of making homophobic remarks. The remarks were directed at both Seifert and other employees the security guard perceived to be gay or lesbian.

"There were several occasions where I would say things like, 'We're all here to do our jobs regardless of what we are. I don't see why this is an issue. You need to just back off,'" he said. "And the security guard would sort of giggle about it as though he thought it was fun."

After about eight months of trying to stop the harassment himself, Seifert reported it to the executive director and assistant director.The security guard stopped making derogatory statements for a short time but then started again later. According to Seifert, the executive director and assistant kept saying they would take care of it. Although reprimanded a few times, the security guard continued, and Seifert said the man seemed to relish the fact that he could get away with it.

Seifert said he didn't want the security guard to lose his job or to go to court.

"All I wanted was for an understanding to take place. That we are a diverse community working in a diverse work situation and that everybody has the right to be respected equally," Seifert said.

Three years passed, and the harassment continued. He called the Human Rights Commission but said he was under the impression that there wasn't much the commission could do for him.

Seifert talked to a friend who is a federal civil rights administrator. Since his workplace receives some federal money, Seifert's friend said he could file a "complaint as a hostile work environment." While Seifert considered that option the security guard was diagnosed with a terminal illness. In a few months, the security guard died.

If the amendments to the Human Rights Ordinance passed, Seifert said the HRC would have the proper training to investigate such situations."I really think those involved at the foundation were very earnest in trying to solve the problem," Seifert said. "The situation was such that they didn't really have the time or the proper know-how to deal with this."

'You don't have any protection'

As parishioners worked around the Southside Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), minister Martha Carroll said, a pickup truck with a few men drove fast through the parking lot, honking their horns and yelling derogatory terms out the window.

A few months later, another truck came through, this time while Carroll was preaching a Sunday sermon.

"Being harassed like that on our property, while we're working and worshipping, is unsettling," Carroll said.

The church became "open and affirming" of gays in 1993. Carroll, who has been the minister there for 10 years, said she has heard stories of discrimination from gay members of her congregation who have been rejected by their families and other churches. Carroll knows strategies some parishioners use to cover up their sexual identity such as avoiding conversations about family or putting up pictures at work.

Carroll understands that all too well.

After her first month at seminary, Carroll went to her psychology professor for guidance on how to change herself from being lesbian. As a lesbian, she couldn't become a minister in the United Methodist Church. Her professor suggested she go through reparative therapy, a process meant to reverse homosexuality.

Carroll went through therapy, married and had a daughter. She also switched denominations to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). After 10 years of marriage, her husband asked for a divorce in 1985. The therapy had failed.

"The result was anger, depression, emotionally absent from my marriage, and so much grief for our family and for our child," Carroll said. "I spent much longer time in therapy to undo the damage that had been done (by reparative therapy)."

Living in Arkansas as a minister who was openly lesbian, she couldn't find a job. She took a job for a child protective services agency, investigating cases of child abuse and neglect. Carroll moved up quickly in the agency and became a liaison for a few counties to the state office.

Then one day, one of the boards that oversaw the office found out Carroll is a lesbian. At a meeting with the board and representatives from the state office, Carroll said she was "called a name" for the first time.

During the proceedings, she talked to an attorney.

"And that's when I found out you don't have any protection. I was a white middle-class female. I had heard all my life that my rights were protected," Carroll said.

Although she won her case, Carroll said the work environment was no longer good for her. Carroll had no legal recourse at the time. If the proposed ordinance passed, all it would do is provide that option, she said.

"It's not going to solve all the problems that GLBT people face, but it protects the most basic rights," Carroll said. "I mean, when did housing become a special right? Does everyone discriminate against GLBT people when it comes to housing? No. But for those cases where that does happen, the person will have someone they can go to."

'They can color your perception of everything'

While Robin MacRorie was having a bad asthma attack in 2001, her partner of seven years, Amber Pardue, rushed her to a local hospital.

When a nurse asked MacRorie questions about her medical history, Pardue attempted to answer for her. Although MacRorie couldn't breathe, the nurse refused to take any information from Pardue.

"The nurse would turn, look me straight in the face and ask the question again. She wouldn't take any of the information until I gasped it out," MacRorie said.

Pardue said the head nurse overheard what was happening, removed the other nurse and took over MacRorie's care. MacRorie and Pardue both said they can't imagine what would've happened if that second nurse didn't show up.

"The frustrating thing to me is that it was simple. All they had to do was give me an inhaler treatment, a nebulizer treatment and that was it," MacRorie said.

There are some restaurants the two won't go to, they said.

"We have problems where once we get seated the waiter or waitress will ignore us and concentrate on everyone else and make us wait twice as long to take the order," Pardue said.

They stopped frequenting a local grocery store because of one clerk.

"She always made nasty comments, not very under her breath, every time we went through the line," Pardue said.Once while at a stoplight, a car full of teenage boys yelled out the window at MacRorie and Pardue's vehicle.For the most part, separately or together, Pardue said these incidents of discrimination don't happen every day.

"But when the events happen, they're intense enough that they can color your perception of everything," Pardue said.

As a student at Indiana University South Bend, Pardue said the student nondiscrimination code protects sexual orientation. That same freedom doesn't apply to most other places in the city.

"We're not talking about whether anyone approves of my behavior," Pardue said. "We're talking about basic civil rights that I've been denied just because someone makes assumptions about my sex life."