Prime Timers President Mike Davis
President’s message – March 1999
The Board is working to determine if Prime Timers of Phoenix will participate in this year’s Phoenix Pride event on April 17. The cost for participation as a non-profit organization is reasonable and we are trying to see if we can use the IRS non-profit determination of the Prime Timers Worldwide organization for this purpose. The cost to participate as other than non-profit is considerably more. If this all works out, we will have a booth at the festival with information and membership applications, looking to grow our club. Marching as a group in the parade is also a possibility and for that we will ask for an expression of interest in marching together at the March 9 meeting.
I attended a February 27 reception put on by the national Human Rights Campaign (HRC). This was well attended by politically active members of our community, including Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-2) of Tucson and Ken Cheuvront (D-25) and Steve May (R-26), our two Gay representatives in the State Legislature. Because of the illuminating fact that Arizona, noted as being religious and conservative, has such a nationally significant elected Gay representation (including Mayor Neil Guiliano of Tempe), HRC intends to make a major campaign here in support of the national Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Additionally, our representatives will continue their fight to eliminate the sections of the AZ criminal code that makes us criminals by outlawing what we do in the privacy of our own bedrooms. In my opinion, this last fight is at least as important as any other, local or national) because our foes cite these statutes to justify their use of discrimination against us. You have undoubtedly seen the recent press reports about the flare-up between Steve May and Rep. Karen Johnson of Mesa (R-30) where Rep. Johnson stated among many other outrageous things that “…the life expectancy of a homosexual male…without AIDS is 42.” Our very organization of Prime Timers gives the lie to that! I think that as individuals and as an organization, we should all do as much as we can to support the local and national battles for our rights and those of our lesbian, bi- and transsexual colleagues.
