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| An American Red Cross volunteer comforts a New Orleans resident. Many gays are trying to decide which charitable organizations should receive their donations. (AP photo/Tom Hood) |
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Rainbow World Fund
www.rainbowworldfund.org
By Ed Walsh
C.W. Stambaugh thought he dodged a bullet.
The owner of the popular Starlight by the Park, a gay bar on North Rampart Street on the outskirts of the French Quarter in New Orleans, decided to defy Hurricane Katrina on Sunday. He held an impromptu hurricane party and kept the bar open throughout the night as the fierce storm approached. The Starlight became a makeshift shelter for about two-dozen tourists and locals alike who had nowhere else to go.
“We used the bar as a shelter and the quality of the gay population, local and tourist, was fantastic. We all pulled together and fed and took care of each other,” Stambaugh said in an e-mail interview.
Stambaugh said the Starlight and the Moulin Rouge, about a mile away in the Marigny, were the only gay bars open during the storm.
In Katrina’s wake, Stambaugh said he joined others in walking through the area and found that nearby gay businesses weren’t damaged and that the French Quarter was spared the extensive flooding seen in other areas of the city.
But by Tuesday night, that changed. Stambaugh had to close the bar as the city was ordered evacuated. He was sheltering people in his home as the area started to flood.
“There's a strong community still here but we’re trying to get people out,” Stambaugh wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon.
Douglas Haller, the gay owner of the Creole Inn in the Marigny, evacuated his five-unit bed and breakfast on Sunday, a day before Katrina arrived. Haller said later that he was reassured by TV news footage of looters at a nearby grocery store, figuring that was an indication that the flooding wasn’t severe.
“I don’t think anyone knows the extent of physical damage unless they remained there,” Haller said. “And if they remained there, they should get the hell out.”
The impact of the hurricane will hurt businesses expecting a boost from Southern Decadence over Labor Day Weekend, according to Jess Beaty, the gay owner of Five Continents Bed & Breakfast, which he opened two years ago.
“The economic impact on me is devastating,” Beaty said in an e-mail. “I will probably go under as a result. I was booked solid for Decadence. … At this point I have to assume that what ever the storm didn't destroy, the floodwaters did or that the looters will have cleaned me out.”
Beaty said he fled the storm to stay with family in Florida.
“Keep us in your prayers,” he said.
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: ANDREW KEEGAN
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With winds topping 140 miles per hour as it roared ashore Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina devastated portions of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.
Subsequent levee breaks along Lake Pontchartrain flooded the city that traditionally would be gearing up to host thousands of mostly gay men celebrating Labor Day weekend.
In addition to flooded streets, a lack of fresh water and no electricity, New Orleans Councilmember Jackie Clarkson told the Associated Press on the Wednesday after the hurricane struck that the French Quarter had been “attacked” and “looting is out of control.”
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that it will be at least three months before any citizen will be allowed to return to the city. On Tuesday, Sept. 6, he issued orders authorizing the forced removal of people refusing to leave the city.
Yet even the destruction left behind by Katrina didn’t keep about two-dozen people from celebrating Southern Decadence, the annual Labor Day Weekend gay festival in New Orleans shut down by the storm. On Sunday, the handful of participants, which each year often number in the thousands, marched through the French Quarter as military helicopters buzzed above.
The city’s 34th annual Southern Decadence festival was cancelled Aug. 31, according to one of the event’s organizers, Johnny Chisholm.
The celebration, which began as a Labor Day party among friends 34 years ago, was expected to draw more than 100,000 participants from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5.
“I regret to inform you that due to Hurricane Katrina, Southern Decadence in New Orleans has been officially cancelled,” Chisholm wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 31.
Chisholm noted that festival-goers that were charged for weekend passes will receive refunds.
Chisholm owns Oz, New Orleans’ largest gay dance bar, which is located on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. He stated in the e-mail that the bar suffered damage, and the club hopes to reopen by Halloween. However, based upon recent news reports and the forced evacatuation of the city, Chisolm's plan for reeopening by Halloween seems overly optimistic.
In addition to the thousands expected for Southern Decadence, more than 600 people had pre-registered for Convergence 2005, an event during Southern Decadence for plus-sized gay men and their admirers.
In a posting on its Web site, convergence2005.com, the group cancelled its “Big & Easy” celebration. The organization notes that it may take time to issue refunds, due to venue cancellation policies. The group suggests donating any refunds to the Red Cross/New Orleans Disaster Relief Fund.
Steve Kay planned on having a great time at the largest gay Labor Day celebration in the South. Now, having a good time is far from his mind. Kay suggested that people who purchased passes to many of the parties donate their refunds to building a “better Southern Decadence” next year.
Customers who booked hotels at locally owned properties should “have sympathy first,” said Tom Nibbio, North American sales manager for the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association.
“We need to be considerate of their immediate situation,” he said. “If you’re not in immediate need of a refund, put it on the back burner.”
But Nibbio noted that direct bookings through airlines should be dealt with immediately.
While gay Internet sites have been inundated with postings exhibiting concern for the city, one anti-gay organization seized upon the calamity to promote its agenda.
Philadelphia-based Repent America issued a statement calling Hurricane Katrina an “Act of God” that destroyed a “wicked city” just days before Southern Decadence.
The group blames the city’s previous three mayors, and every citizen in New Orleans, for tolerating and welcoming such “wickedness” as Southern Decadence and Mardi Gras.
As the magnitude of destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina continues to unfold, offers of assistance from gay men and lesbians are flooding Internet message boards.
On the Web, from Yahoo message boards to postings on Craigslist, many of the items indicate a desire to help that overshadows political concerns and criticism from some gay men usually aimed at the Food & Drug Administration and the American Red Cross for a ban on blood donations.
In 1985, the Food & Drug Administration banned gay men from donating blood for fear of HIV entering the nation’s blood supply. The ban, which the American Red Cross adheres to, prohibits "males who had sex even once with another male since 1977."All blood donations are still screened for HIV, as well as syphilis and hepatitis.
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