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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 6, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Bombing of Atlanta lesbian club spurs call to

Fight back against right-wing terror

By Tom Doran in Atlanta

People in Atlanta and around the country reacted angrily to the Feb. 22 bombing of a lesbian bar here. It was the latest in a series of right-wing terrorist attacks. Others include a string of arson attacks on Black churches and a similar two-bomb attack on a women's clinic here Jan. 16.

This time, two bombs exploded outside a popular lesbian bar, the Otherside Lounge, on a busy weekend night. Police and rescue workers discovered the second bomb in the club's parking lot, and detonated it by remote control.

At least five people were treated for injuries at a nearby hospital.

Others who were hurt didn't go to the hospital for treatment because reporters and photographers had gathered there. These women were afraid their pictures would show up in news coverage of the bombing, identifying them as lesbians.

Larry Pellegrini of the Georgia Equality Project said that could "cause people to lose their families, their homes and their jobs. There are no legal protections for gays."

Discrimination based on sexual orientation remains legal in Georgia, as it is in 41 other states. Georgia, like 23 other states, also has a "sodomy" law making homosexuality itself a crime. The United States Supreme Court upheld Georgia's law in the infamous Hardwick decision of 1986.

Civil-rights leaders, women's groups and others joined activists from the lesbian/gay/bi/transgender community at a Feb. 23 news conference at the State Capitol here. They declared their determination to resist the intensifying right-wing climate that gives rise to racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and anti-gay violence.

They demanded that the state legislature pass a gay-rights law. They also announced plans for a March 1 demonstration at the Martin Luther King Memorial to protest the bombing.

At the news conference, Candace Gingrich, whose brother is House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said: "Where are the voices of condemnation? Where is our president's voice? Where is my brother's voice?"

In Washington, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Kerry Lobel called on President Bill Clinton "to speak out loudly against this crime." Talking with reporters on Feb. 24, Clinton did briefly mention the anti-lesbian bombing, calling it "wrong."

He did not instruct Attorney General Janet Reno to open an investigation based on the Hate Crimes Act, which NGLTF's Lobel had requested. The law does not recognize crimes against gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgendered people.

By Feb. 24 at least two racist, fascist groups had each claimed responsibility for bombing the lesbian club. One is an outfit calling itself the "Army of God," which has been implicated in bombings of abortion clinics. The other is the "Sons of the Confederate Klan."

As of Feb. 25, the FBI had not named any suspects in the Otherside bombing. But the agency reportedly had concluded that this attack and the Jan. 16 clinic bombing are connected.

Liz Toledo of Workers World Party in Atlanta told WW:

"There's no reason for our community to trust the FBI, the police or any government agency to investigate this crime against our rights. They are part of the oppressive forces as much as these right-wing terror groups.

"As for President Clinton, he gave the nod to the bashers and bombers when he signed the `Defense of Marriage' Act in October. By signing a law that denies equal rights to same-sex couples, he showed which side he's on.

"Our allies are in the labor movement, the civil-rights movement, and among progressives fighting the whole wave of political reaction. We should look to them, not to the government, in the struggle to defend and demand our rights."

Plan protest action

Before the Feb. 23 news conference, some 50 people had gathered at 8 a.m. to discuss how to respond to this latest outrage.

They denounced the second direct assault on women in little over a month. Many noted that these bombings are the latest in a series of terrorist acts over the last year, including the attacks on Black churches.

During all these attacks the only arrests were of three members of a right-wing militia. In early February they were sentenced to prison terms after arrests for stockpiling pipe bombs intended for courthouses.

At the news conference, Cindy Abel of the Georgia Equality Project laid responsibility for the violence on right- wing hate-mongers. "They must take responsibility for the results of their words," she said. "They must recognize the impact of their divisive rhetoric and stop promoting our exclusion from the protections granted by law to every other group in the country."

Afterward, demonstrators gathered at the bomb site to say, "We will not be intimidated, we won't go away."

Christa Polley, representing the Lesbian Avengers, who organized the picket, called for working-class resistance to the terrorists. She said: "We need a class-based struggle for jobs, housing and equal rights."

"Here in Georgia and in the Deep South in general, there is an atmosphere of hate cultivated for decades by right-wing politicians who cynically court an extremist minority to maintain their political power.

"These well-funded efforts are designed to create an impression that their views represent the majority. This atmosphere of hate permits them to marginalize and do violence against us.

"This type of attack with two bombs, with nails, on a crowded dance floor shows it was obviously designed to strike fear in the lesbian, gay, and transgendered community and force us back into our homes," she continued.

"It is important that we do many things, not just one demonstration, to show strength and a willingness to fight back and not hide. On Saturday, March 1, we will provide an opportunity for the entire community to denounce violence."

Polley vowed the Avengers will go all out to make the protest a success. Other protesters represented The Human Rights Coalition, Queer Nation, ACT UP, Workers World Party, the Georgia Equality Project, ADAPT, and the All-Peoples Congress.

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