Northeast Wisconsin Gets Serious About Pride
July 12 Festival Will Be Most Extensive In Area’s History
Interview by Mike Fitzpatrick
Green Bay -  Since their beginnings in the late 1970’s as an “appreciation beer bust” for local gay bar patrons at a rural county park, pride events in northeast Wisconsin - an area loosely defined as Green Bay, the Fox Cities and Sheboygan - have had their ups and downs. The “Alive With Pride” picnic in 1995 marked the first event that officially called itself a pride festival.
  In 1996 “Alive With Pride” beget Rainbow Over Wisconsin, which developed from a pride picnic and bar show fundraising committee into a community foundation over the next decade. ROW coordinated annual pride picnics held in Appleton, Hilbert and DePere over the next eight years.
  Following its 2003 event at the Brown County Fairgrounds that featured comedian Vicki Shaw ROW realized it had a difficult choice.  To respond to the increased financial development demands from northeast LGBT community organizations, it had to decide to either stay in the “pride business” or follow more closely its stated mission as a community foundation with more diversified fundraising programming. Since it also in the interim had been asked to take over the Guernsey Gala fundraising pageant that annually raised thousands of dollars for HIV/AIDS care, ROW chose the latter.
  Pride event planning over the next four years went to the Argonauts of Wisconsin, who put together  a loose knit coalition of community members to run the pride picnics. A licensing snafu canceled the 2006 picnic and the 2007 event drew fewer than 50 attendees.
  Now, in 2008, Rainbow Over Wisconsin is back in the pride business - sort of. ROW has agreed to provide a new generation of community leaders - the NEWPride Committee of the LGBT Green Bay Area Action Network - its fiscal agency umbrella plus $5000 in seed money and credit to develop and run what promises to be the most extensive and elaborate pride event in the history of northeast Wisconsin’s gay community. To top it off, the day-long July 12 festival will happen just a block away from the historical starting place of another city legend: the Green Bay Packers.
  Helmed by twentysomething co-chairs Andrew DeBaker and Andrea Schultz, NEWPride already has been working almost nine months on its phoenix-like revitalizing of gay pride in northeast Wisconsin. Quest’s Mike Fitzpatrick sat down recently with DeBaker and Schultz to hear about that journey and learn what the entire gay state of Wisconsin can expect to find happening in Green Bay just two and a half months from now.

Quest: Why did you decide to take on the reorganization and revitalization of the pride events in northeast Wisconsin?

DeBaker: The journey started about a year ago when a bunch of people who were involved in the Fair Wisconsin (“No on the Amendment”) campaign got together. It was a meeting that asked “where are we at now?” and “what direction do we want to go in?” Fair Wisconsin has several of those meetings in communities around the state of Wisconsin.
  In Green Bay we discussed that we wanted to keep fighting for our rights and to keep visible in the community. We wanted people to know that even though the marriage amendment passed that we’re sill here and part of the community.
  One of the things that came up was that Green Bay had a pride event that maybe wasn’t as large as it could be. Andrea and I and a couple of other people really got the ball rolling. Andrea and I as co-chairs have taken the lead on this.
  All along we wanted to make sure that its something that’s visible, something that’s positive for our community to show the larger community that we’re here, we’re part of your community, but that we have a community of our own.

Quest: You selected a very visible site in Green Bay to address that visibility issue and scheduled it on the weekend on which pride events in this area have been held. And I understand that you are actually having two days of events?

Schultz: Correct. On the Friday before - July 11 - Harmony Café (in Appleton), one of our partners, will be having two screenings of “For The Bible Tells Me So.” The pride festival itself will be from 11 AM to 9 PM on July 12 at Joannes Park on the East side of Green Bay.

Quest: Isn’t there a lot more to putting on an event in the middle of Green Bay than here has been in putting on an event in a rural area?

DeBaker: We’ve been working on this for a good eight months or more. Part of it is a learning curve, being part of this for the first time. Because we’re having this in Green Bay, it means working with the various city departments. And, of course, fundraising has been in full swing as well to make sure we have the funds to do everything the right way and have as big of a party as we possibly can.

Quest: What kind of funding have you secured?

Schultz: We’re working closely with Rainbow Over Wisconsin who has generously agreed to be our non-profit fiscal agency. That gives us non-profit status. As far as fundraising goes we really wanted to get businesses in northeast Wisconsin an opportunity to support the gay and lesbian community.

DeBaker: We’ve reached out to businesses that run the gamut. From Fortune 500 companies to local companies, we’ve had a very positive response thus far.

Quest: Can you give some specific examples?

DeBaker: In addition to ROW some of our major sponsors are Oneida Bingo & Casino, Kimberly-Clark, Aon - which is located in downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin Public Service, Best Buy, Starbucks. On a more local scale, there have been organizations such as Positive Voice to businesses like Four Seasons Floral, Avenue Jewelers in Appleton, and Sunshine Travel.

Quest: What was your fundraising goal?

DeBaker: We had a goal of around $15,000 for this first year and we’re just shy of that goal. And we’ve got quite a few more companies that have expressed interest, then we just need to firm up their support.

Quest: Why do you need so much money?

DeBaker: Because we’re holding this in Green Bay, there are certain permits and fees involved. There’s insurance costs - liability insurance for the day of the event. There are marketing costs, entertainment costs. And there are costs that are not as glamorous - Port-A-Potties, stage rentals, city-required security, technicians - that sort of thing.

Quest: What’s lined up so far? Can you give an overview of what’s already set for the day?

Schultz: We are working with a number of entertainment acts. We have signed the female acoustic act Martha Berner, we have signed Glamarama, a female cabaret show. We are working to sign other bands and a big headliner to end the night.
  In addition to the live entertainment acts we are going to have a number of panel discussions and group discussions in a separate area. So if people want to hear about programs that impact the gay and lesbian community, they can go over to that shelter area to learn about those topics and meet others (with similar interests) as well.

Quest: So what can people expect during the day. Can you go through the schedule as you know it?

DeBaker: Well the interfaith service begins at 11 AM. Noon will be a kick-off ceremony. Immediately after that the bands will start. Our headlining band will be coming on about 7 o’clock and will do about a ninety minute set. So that will end about 8:30 or 9 o’clock. And we’re working with all the bars in the area to have drink specials and activities so the night can continue. And it’s free for everyone. There’s no cover charge.
  We will encourage people to get involved in our state-licensed raffles. They will be able to buy raffle tickets for a merchandise and a 50/50 raffle.

DeBaker: In addition we’re going to have vendors - both profit and non-profit. There will be food vendors. There will be a beer tent and drink vendors as well. We’re going to have a kids’ area for people who want to bring their children or nieces and nephews. It will be a fun day and hopefully the weather will be nice. It will be a chance to join with others in our community to show the larger community that we’re here and to learn about resources in our area that people may not know of.

Quest: What is your goal for attendance?

DeBaker: We’ve thrown around a number of 1000 people as the goal we’re trying to get. We’re billing this as a northeast Wisconsin Pride, not just Green Bay. We have support already from the Appleton area, and our support extends north into Door County and all the way up to the border of Michigan.

Schultz: And it is our goal to make this an ongoing, annual event that is fun, that gives people a chance to connect, and have it grow from year to year.

DeBaker: We’re not on the same scale this year, being our first year, as say a Milwaukee PrideFest. But PrideFest is in its 21st year. 21 years from now we’d love (Pride Alive) to be bigger and better than it is now. But this year we wanted to make our event as manageable as possible, even it if means making it a bit smaller the first year. We want to do the first year very successfully. If people come to it, have a good time and walk away with a positive impression, we’ll be able to continue to grow.

Quest: How many people are actually working on this event right now?

DeBaker: We have set up seven committees to handle each aspect of the planning. Over those seven committees we probably have a good 25 people that are putting in their support. On our marketing committee for example, we have generous support from Jim Rivett and Arketype. Toni Loch, the former Executive Director of the United Way of Brown County has been very involved in our programming.

Schultz: The Angels of Hope MCC has been very involved as well. They will be holding an interfaith service to kick off the day.

Quest: How many people will you need to actually make this event come off? More than the 25 you’ve got signed up now?

DeBaker: Definitely. Its going to be a 9-10 hour day so we’re definitely going to need a lot more volunteers!

Schultz: If anyone is interested in volunteering, all they have to do is send an email to: info@newpride.org and we will get in touch with them. We will find out what they’re most interested in helping out. We will be doing more outreach to invite people to sign up, become involved and give support as volunteers.

DeBaker: We will need people to greet people as they come in, to help with giveaways as they enter Joannes Park, to bartenders to all sorts of set-up and clean-up.

Quest: How may groups have you reached out to in terms of having  a presence at the festival?

Schultz: We have vendor space available both for non-profits and for businesses who are supporting us. We hope to have in the area of 50 vendors at the event, focusing on those non-profits who might want to promote their services to the LGBT community.

DeBaker: We’re about halfway there already. Some of the ones that we know are going to be involved already are the local gay-straight alliances (GSAs) at the high schools; ARCW will have rapid HIV testing.

Schultz: Dykes on Bikes are going to be there too.

DeBaker: We’ve been in talks with some of the statewide gay sports teams including the Madison Minotaurs rugby team, the Milwaukee Gay Soccer League for example. We hope to have them there both to stimulate interest in possibly starting local teams and to help them recruit for their own teams.

Quest: And another sign of how serious this year’s pride event will be, there is a deadline for vendors to get involved, isn’t there?

Schultz: Definitely. There are forms that need to be turned back in by June 1. We have a vendor packet that’s available on the NEWPride website - www.newpride.org.

DeBaker: Because of various permits and needs - things like power demands for vendors- we have to be prepared and have things in place.

Quest: What has been the greatest challenge to getting things to the point where they are now?

DeBaker: One of them might be location. We finalized on Joannes Park, but it wasn’t our first choice. There were zoning issues. We worked closely with the Park and Recreation Committee in Green Bay. They’ve been great.
  Part of it was a learning curve: some parks may have alcohol, others not. For some parks , the city charges fees that it doesn’t at other parks.

Schultz: We also wanted to respect the traditions that have already been established in the area. We didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. We just wanted to create something that was newly invigorating and fun, and visible to the public. We did a lot of fact-finding before we began setting anything up.

DeBaker: We also had to educate companies about pride events. We had to reach out to companies and to individuals to explain to them what is pride, what are the goals of pride.

Quest: This is one of the more conservative areas of the state. Are you concerned or nervous about bringing pride so visibly to this area?

Schultz: Because of the fact that we’ve been going down the proper channels since the beginning of this event, everyone knows what this event is all about. The proper authorities have been working with us since the beginning. We’re not running into too many obstacles. People seem to be very supportive of this event, as long as we follow the appropriate protocols. We’ve been doing that so I’m not super concerned at this time.

DeBaker: Part of this is a testament to the fact that this is 2008. Hopefully as a community we become more progressive, more accepting. Pride is a way to showcase that progress, to allow people in the general community to show that they are accepting. That Green Bay and northeast Wisconsin can have an event like this. With the support from huge names of companies in this area, that helps as well.

Quest: The reason I brought this up is because pride events also tend to draw the attention of the professional provocateurs of the Religious Right. Almost every pride festival in this state has historically been picketed by fundamentalist organizations and individuals.

DeBaker: It’s something we’ve planned for in terms of security. We’re working with the city to prevent anything from happening. I think generally the majority of the population recognizes that (protesters) are a small minority of the people who think that way. So you smile, you wave and you move on. We’ll treat it the same way as they do in Chicago, Milwaukee or other cities.

Quest: With this being a political season, is there any interest in the event from political types either left or right?

Schultz: In an effort to remain nonpartisan, we’ll be extending an invitation to any politicians who would like to attend. We have confirmed that Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton will be in attendance at the event.

DeBaker: Actually she’s the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony at Noon. We’ve also have casual conversations with several of the local politicians including Senator Dave Hanson and Rep. Jim Soletski. We’ve also reached out to U. S. Senator Feingold, Governor Doyle and U. S. Representative Steve Kagen. We’re pretty sure, with Barbara Lawton being involved, that we’re going to get quite a few responses from politicians and candidates.

Quest: And just as this article comes out, I understand that you will be doing something with the Green Bay Press Gazette.

DeBaker: In line with pride, and to their credit as well, the paper has reached out to us to do a series of articles over the next couples of months to highlight the gay community in northeast Wisconsin to highlight the diverse spectrum within out community.

Quest: Do you have any other media sponsors as well?

Schultz: In addition to Quest,  Madison’s Our Lives is one of our media sponsors. We’re working with 95.9 KISS-FM.

DeBaker: And Jones Advertising will be donating some billboards.

Quest: That kind of advertising may be somewhat of a shock to the area’s gay community, who aren’t very used to having such public notice. Is there a concern that this pride might bring charges that somehow now Green Bay is sort of, as the right wing says, “slouching toward Sodom and Gommorah” on the Bay?

Schultz: I guess my perspective on that is the only way to effectively cause social change where that isn’t an issue any more is to live authentically and be true to your values. By having pride events like this, we showing that we’re normal people with families with children and grandchildren - that we’re your neighbors.

DeBaker: Pride is in the same vein as some of the other cultural events that happen in northeast Wisconsin. The Hispanic community gets together every year. So does the Hmong community. There are Belgian Days, Polish Polka Days too. Pride is designed to show our particular niche and our culture, and hopefully promote tolerance.

Quest: But how about the things that tend to get all the media coverage? The leather daddies and the drag queens. You know that the gay lawyers don’t get the kind of footage that the drag queens do.

Schultz: We welcome everyone’s participation in pride, as long as the participation is respectful of others. We want everyone’s presence and involvement.

DeBaker: We’ve had members of the N.E.W. Brotherhood and the Argonauts involved in the planning so far. We had participation on various levels from a wide variety of community members. We welcome it - it’s part of who we are. We’re not looking to whitewash our community - we’re looking to highlight it and showcase it.

DeBaker: We’re looking at having the Transgender Transformation group that works closely with Positive Voice to do a presentation in the shelter  (the festival’s cultural and educational programming area) at some point of time in the day if they’re willing. Having their presence there is important to us as well.

Quest: So there’s going to be some educational focus, but there’s going to be a party too.

DeBaker: Right. It’s gonna be a good time.

Quest: And how can people learn more, get involved or ask questions?

DeBaker: The website is www.newpride.org. The email address is info@newpride.org. For those without computers, you can call give the NEWPride number a call: It’s 920-471-3260.

Quest: Is there any event where people could come to learn more about NEWPride?

Schultz: That’s a good question! We recently participated in the women’s studies and LGBT studies conference at UW-GB, but that’s already passed. There’s also the Positive Voice Annual Business Meeting and Dinner on May 12 at Liberty Hall in Kimberly. We’ll be talking about pride there. Don’t forget to look at the articles coming in the Green Bay Press-Gazette as well.

DeBaker: And we’ll on the radio around the end of June. Of course, we’ll be sharing all the news with Quest for sure, so everyone can look right here too!

World & National News:

Schwarzenegger Flip Flops: Now Opposes Gay Marriage Ban
San Diego - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger now says that if an initiative to ban gay marriage qualifies for the November ballot, he’s prepared to fight it.
  California’s governor spoke April 11 in San Diego at the convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest gay Republican group.
  He has previously vetoed bills that would have legalized gay marriage. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman did not say what prompted the governor to shift his position.
  Schwarzenegger said he was confident a ban would never pass in California and called the effort “a waste of time.”
As he reflected on the LCR convention, Log Cabin President Patrick J. Sammon felt that it was
clear that his place in the GOP is more necessary than ever. “Our Party is at a crossroads and, thanks to the leadership of allies such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, we are going to win back the heart of the Republican Party for the next generation of Americans,” Sammon wrote in an April 16 email to supporters obtained by Quest.

GLSEN National Day of Silence To Honor Memory of Slain Gay Teen
Hundreds Of Thousands of Students Expected To  Participate
New York - This year’s 12th Annual National Day of Silence on April 25 will be held in memory of Lawrence King, the 15-year-old California student who was shot and killed at school last February by a 14-year-old classmate because of King’s sexual orientation and gender expression.
  The Day of Silence is held by students every year to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. According to organizers, the senseless tragedy at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, California brings even more meaning to a day that has brought hope to millions of students.
  Hundreds of thousands of students are expected to participate by taking some form of a vow of silence for the entire day or part of it. Their efforts will be supported by hundreds of community-based “Breaking the Silence” events at the end of the day. Together, concerned students will create a powerful call to action in order to prevent future tragedies.
  Students will hand out speaking cards during the Day of Silence that read: “Silent for Lawrence King: Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. This year’s DOS is held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15 year-old student who was killed in school because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.”
  The Day of Silence is sponsored annually by the Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The organization’s 2005 National School Climate Survey found that four out of five LGBT students report verbal, sexual or physical harassment at school and 29% report missing at least a day of school in the past month out of fear for their personal safety. The Day of Silence is one way students and their allies are making anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and name-calling unacceptable in America’s schools.
  For more information and a complete collection of organizing materials, visit www.dayofsilence.org.

Minnesota Gay Equality Rally Draws A Thousand
St. Paul - Over 1,000 people rallied outside the Minnesota state capitol building here April 17 to promote equality for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender population in the Gopher State. Representatives from over 110 cities from across the state attended the rally.
  OutFront Minnesota Just Fair Lobby Day participants met and talked with their lawmakers about GLBT equality during the day.
  “We’re here to keep moving Minnesota forward,” House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said to the crowd at the kickoff rally.
  OutFront delivered a petition to Governor Tim Pawlenty – asking him to pass the bill that would enable the state to offer domestic partner benefits to their employees. “This is really our chance to think and hope and dream of a better state. This is also our chance as GLBT people and allies to really think about what we want our movement to look like in the years to come,” OutFront Public Policy Director Monica Meyer said.
  The legislation has passed the Senate and awaits action in the House.

State News:

Florentine Director William Florescu On Bellini & Gay Love Of Opera
Interview by Mike Fitzpatrick
Milwaukee - Opera fans of all sexual stripes will be in their glory this weekend when the Florentine Opera Company presents the Bellini opera I Capuleti e I Montecchi to Milwaukee audiences on April 25-27 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Quest’s Mike Fitzpatrick spoke with the Florentine’s General Director William Florescu about the upcoming production, the gay love of opera and much more. The interview will appear in two parts in this and Quest’s May 8 issue.

Quest: Let’s start off the the question that I think almost every gay man asks himself sometimes in his life: what is it with gays and opera? What makes opera so attractive to the gay male persona?

Florescu: (chuckles) I don’t know. Since I’m not a gay man I don’t know the answer to that. I only know that as an opera producer that its one of these things that you might say “that’s a myth or a stereotype,” but there seems to be some reality to it.
  I certainly know it’s there. I’ve been doing music now for over thirty years and I certainly know that it does exist. As a producer I’m glad its there because it generates interest in our product which is what I’m all about.

Quest: Well, to be real honest, it’s the costumes and in general - though it varies with the composer - the oversized drama and almost melodramatic elements of some of the greatest pieces. And obviously the music helps - and it’s a chance to dress up.

Florescu: I think it’s not by coincidence that some of the entertainment icons not in the world of opera that have become sort of identified with male gay worship are referred to as divas, which is an appropriation from the world of opera. So I think some of the elements - even if it doesn’t involve operatic pieces like you say - the larger than life aspect of it, the glamour, etc. sometimes transcends the genre itself but of course is always present in opera.

Quest: Look at the production that you’re going to be kicking off the 75th season with. There’s the message of racism and second-class citizenship that permeates Madame Butterfly, for example. And it is true that there was a stereotype that gays bumped themselves off in the last act of almost every play that they were in up until recently. But the whole concept of this wonderful relationship that was betrayed because of societal pressures.

Florescu: In my studies for my Master’s thesis it’s really interesting that all the operas of Benjamin Britten, who himself was homosexual at a time in (Great) Britain when that wasn’t necessarily a safe thing (to be) - If you look at the subjects of his operas, whether they’re serious or comic, they’re about the outsider and how they deal with a sometimes hostile world, whether its represented by Peter Grimes or society in general in Albert Herring. I think you make a good point. Madame Butterfly is probably another good analogy to that.

Quest: Let’s talk a little about the outreach the Florentine Opera is doing to the gay community.

Florescu: It struck me odd, after I had been here a couple of years, they we hadn’t done something like that. Why hadn’t we made any kind of contact in a structural way with a community that’s very supportive. So I spoke with Scott Stewart our concert master and said “Let’s try something! Let’s do something to show we are aware of this support.”
   Any time you are not a part of the community (you wish to reach out to), you’re always in danger of stepping your foot into it, in terms of making what might be viewed as a stereotyped assumption. One of the tough things is that if you’re making an outreach to the Latino community or the African-American community, that’s self evident in who that group is. Whereas with the gay community it’s something where the people involved have to let you know that they want to be identified as part of it. I’ve tried to be very sensitive to that.
 So Scott came up with what I thought is a really nice idea: contacting the folks at the Room and setting up an opportunity to meet a cast member and talk a bit about the opera. The first time we did it, it was the coldest night of the year but we had a nice turnout.
  It was successful enough that we knew we wanted to try it again. Sort of just take baby steps to show that we really have interest in doing this outreach.
  Part of the reason I’ve done this is when I lived in Columbus (Ohio) for 15 years, the gay men’s chorus and the opera did some joint fundraisers together. It was really successful.
  So I thought, “you know what, the Florentine should be doing something like this.”  It’s part of a larger, philosophical view of mine. The Florentine has always been traditionally very successful. But in my view of it, we’ve been somewhat inward-looking and not outward-looking to the community in the larger sense. To me this is a very practical and pragmatic part of that. To me, this was a logical step that was long overdue.

Quest: As for the upcoming opera I think most people would be familiar with the story source of Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi.

Florescu: It’s interesting that the Bellini story is not based on Shakespeare. It’s based on older Italian legends that Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet) was based on. It has some key differences. One of them - not in terms of how the story is told - but one thing that people who haven’t been to an opera before need to be aware of is that the role of Romeo is a travesty role. In other words its a “pants role” -  a male role sung by a woman.
  Its something that continues to be an operatic convention.  You’ll occasionally see the role sung by a tenor, but there’s another tenor in the opera so that doesn’t work. It’s all about how the voices fit. With a tenor it doesn’t work as well.
  But the basic story is the same: they fall in love and they die. But there are slight differences from the Shakespeare.

Quest: Are tickets still on sale for I Capuleti e I Montecchi? Are limited seats available?

Florescu: Friday (April 25) is a good night. Saturday and Sunday tend to sell even bigger, so opening night is a good night to get tickets.

  Friday and Saturday performances of the Florentine Opera’s production of I Capuleti e i Montecchi will be at 7:30 PM. Curtain for the Sunday matinee performance is 2:30 PM. Single tickets start at just $25. For more information on ordering your tickets, visit the opera company’s website at: www.florentineopera.org or call 414-291-5700 Ext. 224. Limited seating may also be available the night of each performance by inquiring in person at the Marcus Center box office.
  Editor’s Note: In Quest’s May 8 issue, our interview with William Florescu will continue. Be sure to read about opera’s user-friendly innovations, the link between opera and NASCAR, how opera is truly the last “real deal,” and the Florentine’s magnificent, upcoming Diamond Jubilee season.