Spokane gays push for own district

. . . Opponents argue from ignorance, stupidity, poor reading comprehension. Fear "culture based upon sex"; missing basic genetic truism that all cultures are based on sex.

The Inland Northwest Business Alliance is working to grow a dedicated gay district somewhere in Spokane and citizens are worried there will be a proliferation of lewd and wanton sex acts all over the place. I just found out about this yesterday. I might have known about it sooner if the Spokesman-Review let people read their paper online without also subscribing to the print edition.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more outcry. Maybe Spokane is more progressive than I thought, or maybe the people here just don't feel the imminence of the threat. Maybe now that the Times has brought word to that trans-mountain Sodom in the west, people here will start worrying. Seattle is, after all, where all Spokane's crime and minorities come from. Seattle and California.

The push from the usually quiet gay community--which is in the messy thought-diagram on a large sheet of butcher paper stage--has its share of detractors among Spokane's much larger and more vocal bigot and moron communities. Many people (as perhaps litmus for the Midwest in general) still adhere with shock and horror to the idea that homosexuals are promiscuous Petri dishes for communicable disease. They are, I guess, but no more so than heterosexuals. People who think queers bring something vile and seedy to any community they inhabit don't know any queers, or at least don't know that they know any queers. That's why this is going to be perfect.

As long as the gay community remains silent, "closeted," as is says it has in Spokane, witch-hunting heteros are able to foster any kind of image they want. Until queers stand up and dispel the myths woven by an ignorant and excitable conservative majority, the myths will persist. We've seen this kind of thing twice before in minority communities. Both Blacks and Chinese have been victims of the sex-crazed savage image. Both images, of African Americans driven feral by their massive copulatory organs and the smokey, dragon-shaped monkey on the back of every Chinaman in Chinatown, weren't dispelled until the communities themselves spoke up. The same thing has happened in larger gay communities nation wide and now finally, hopefully, it's happening here.

One man is worried that his "pro-family conventions" are going to go away, presumably leaving only the troublesome anti-family conventions. Another is worried about Spokane no longer being thought of as a good place to raise a family. But the funny thing is, it doesn't matter. The new gay district, if it happens, isn't going to be open to caucusing or public discourse, it's going to be created in exactly the way conservatives want the nation run, with market forces and private money. It's not going to be some morally bereft braintrust of liberals deeding public land to an oppressed group. It's going to be a bunch of queers applying for small-business loans and purchasing real estate and growing businesses and turning a small corner of Spokane into a safe place where they can raise families. How creating communities without fear makes for a less family-friendly city, I don't know.

Now, allow me to prognosticate: Once the district is up and chugging along, slowly at first I'm sure, there might be an influx of homosexual men and women. After that, when violent and sexual crime rates do not go up, people will gradually lose some of their ignorant fear, left with only more general ignorance. Then, after a sufficient amount of time has passed and the memory of the fear is gone, they'll start coming to Queer Street because the Trading Post has cheap organic food, Gayspresso has fair-trade coffee and/or because the fag bakery makes a mean ciabatta. And, once there, on the street, they might bump into Bob, from church, or Chandra, from accounts payable. Nice people who, strangely, don't act the way fundamentalist pastors and legislators say gay people act. They're nice, law-abiding, god-fearing human beings, more or less just like you, trying to make a buck and live their lives. You might still be uncomfortable with who and how they love, what they do behind closed doors, but the thing is, they're doing it behind closed doors, where it can't bother you.

Then, when you hear from your racketball buddy that he read in the local conservative newspaper that queers, on average, make more money than straight people, you decide it might be a good idea to market to them.

And pretty soon, Queer Street's not so much a gay enclave as it is a nice, upscale neighborhood with good food and culture and lots of nice new potential clients and customers. Then, before you know it, Spokane is for real a better place to live, for a lot more people.

Bigotry will never go away, but this is a good first step toward dispelling and reversing ignorance.