By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Every year brings new challenges for any community.

Those challenges bring with them opportunities for heroes to stand up and lead, and 2007 produced its share of challenges, opportunities and heroes for our community.

As we begin the new year, here’s a look back at some of our heroes.

Robbin Burr

Just weeks into 2007, Robbin Burr announced that she was stepping down as executive director of the Center on Halsted. An American Airlines executive who helped build that company’s much-praised outreach to GLBTs, Burr left that job to lead the Center in June 2004 and guided it from a paper dream to a $20-million anchor for Chicago’s GLBT community.

Burr had lots of help in getting the Center built, of course, and has always been gracious enough to acknowledge the considerable efforts of others in that task, but during its most critical period, she was the face of the Center. As board member Roger Hickey said when she announced she was stepping down last January, “She’s been an outstanding executive director.”

That she was, and one of our community’s true heroes.

Modesto “Tico” Valle

The Center found a worthy successor to Burr in April, when it was announced that Modesto “Tico” Valle would become executive director.

Valle, who served as deputy executive director at the Center for three years, has deep roots as an activist in Chicago’s GLBT community, going back more than two decades. He was founder of the Chicago chapter of the NAMES Project and was elected to the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1998.

Shortly after he was tapped to lead the Center, he eloquently expressed the inclusive vision he has for the facility.

“It’s a true community center for everyone,” Valle said. “It’s not just Waveland and Halsted.”

Valle’s service to our community was recognized not only within the community—in December Chicago magazine honored him as one of seven Chicagoans of the Year for 2007. CFP seconds that assessment.

Rep. Greg Harris

It’s tough to find any positive notes in what was a dismal year in the halls of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, not just for our community but for all Illinoisans.

Still, despite the failure of state government to accomplish much of anything in 2007, a glimmer of hope was provided for GLBTs by Rep. Greg Harris’ introduction of a civil unions bill for gay and lesbian couples. Because the Legislature got locked in a seemingly endless clash of egos between the governor and other Democratic leaders, Harris’ bill, like most legislation, never made it to a floor vote but it did pass a House committee test in March, and hopes remain high for its passage in the future.

“I had no idea that people all over Illinois are so supportive of this,” he said.

While marriage equality remains our community’s eventual goal, Harris said civil unions would provide much-needed protections for families in our community.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Equality Illinois Lobby Day participants

The day our community sees civil unions, perhaps even marriage equality, in the Land of Lincoln, could be hastened if more people followed the heroic example of the almost 200 people who trekked to Springfield April 18 for Equality Illinois’ annual Lobby Day.

“I couldn’t have stayed away if I tried,” said Maryka Bhattacharyya, of Naperville.

After meeting on Lobby Day with her Republican legislator, Rep. James Meyer, Bhattacharyya said the effort to travel to the Capitol was well worth it.

“His mind and his heart are beginning to change,” she said.

The visits with legislators “did not go unnoticed,” said Equality Political Director Rick Garcia, who said he was very happy with the results. We’re sure he’d be even happier to rent buses for even more Lobby Day participants this coming spring.

Immigrants’ rights marchers

Members of Chicago’s GLBT community also stood up for the rights of others when they joined marches and rallies for immigrants’ rights in March and May.

Of course, it’s a movement that affects many GLBT immigrants and families in Chicago.

“The unity I’m feeling right now as an immigrant and a Latino, and especially as a gay, is wonderful,” said Carlos Castillon, executive director of the Association of Gay Men for Action, as he participated in the March rally downtown.

In a larger demonstration in May, when some 150,000 people marched in Chicago, gays were proud to stand up and be counted.

“If we want solidarity for our struggles, we’ve got to be out there,” said activist Andy Thayer, of the Gay Liberation Network.

Back in the day

Eight members of Chicago’s GLBT community reminded us that some have been standing up—and standing out—proudly for more than five decades.

Joyce Chow, Ron Helizon, Ted Marrow, Mel Pitstick, Joey Sorman, Al Treb, Ed Urgitis and Eugene Wright touched hearts and brought back a lot of memories for a lot of people when they talked about Chicago’s GLBT community history in the June 6 issue of CFP.

They talked about long-gone gay and lesbian bars—Dugan’s, Sam’s, the Checkmate, Carol’s Coming Out Pub and others—and remembered both the good times and the bad.

“I went to a private party in 1964,” Helizon said. “It got raided. I went to jail and I was thrown out of high school. My name was put in the newspaper. Imagine coming home to my Polish mother after that. The next day two of my friends committed suicide—jumped out of the window.”

They’ve seen a lot and are proud of what they and the GLBT community have accomplished in their time.

“We’ve come a long way to where the boys and girls can walk down the street holding hands,” Wright said.

Patricia Todd

As far as we’ve come, especially in big cities such as Chicago, it’s still hard to be out in many places, and in those places our community’s struggle for equality depends on pioneers.

One of those pioneers is Rep. Patricia Todd, Alabama’s first openly lesbian or gay state legislator.

“I like to say I’m a representative who happens to be gay. I’m not the gay representative,” Todd said in an interview back in April.

Serving her first year in the Alabama Legislature, Todd drew praise for representing her constituents—many of them poor and black—with quiet and determined dedication.

And in that process, Todd was no doubt changing more than a few stereotype-influenced beliefs among her peers.

“Hopefully she will dispel all the myths and stereotypes,” said Howard Bayless, of Equality Alabama.

Davis Mac-Iyalla

Another out gay person in an even more homophobic environment, Nigeria’s Davis Mac-Iyalla, told his story to a rapt audience in Lakeview in June.

Mac-Iyalla has been threatened with death for standing up for gay rights in Nigeria, where homophobic officials, led by Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, have tried to outlaw gay gatherings and advocacy for the rights of GLBTs.

“Those who would threaten me continue to threaten me but I will not stop,” Mac-Iyalla said in his Chicago appearance, which was sponsored by the Gay Liberation Network.

Mac-Iyalla was clear that much of Akinola’s anti-gay activism is funded by wealthy anti-gay groups in the U.S.

“What is going on in Nigeria should be a concern to you in America,” he said.

He also thanked GLN and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Chicago), who helped secure his visa for the June trip to the U.S., for an opportunity most of us take for granted.

“I have never attended a Pride event and now I have the chance,” Mac-Iyalla said. “So thank you.”

Nikolai Alexeyev

For another gay activist in yet another country where it’s difficult to be out, claiming the right to celebrate Pride has been a years-long struggle.

Russian gay leader Nikolai Alexeyev traveled to Chicago in October—in another appearance sponsored by the Gay Liberation Network—to lead the annual Matthew Shepard March in Lakeview and discuss the movement for GLBT rights in his country.

“We were 50 people at the first (Moscow) Pride Parade and 150 at the last one,” Alexeyev said. “It may seem a very small number, but, believe me, to find 150 people who will come out on the streets when they know they will be assaulted by the fascists and the police is quite an accomplishment.”

As the new year begins, Alexeyev is still waging his struggle while enduring harassment from Russian authorities in a Moscow court trial that began last week.

Dennis Kucinich

He may not have a chance of winning, but many in our community, like musician Melissa Etheridge, fell in love with Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich in the first-ever televised presidential forum devoted exclusively to GLBT issues.

Six candidates—Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson—participated in the Aug. 9 forum on LOGO TV but it was Kucinich who wowed the audience with his unwavering support for full equality for GLBTs.

“I’m saying that I stand for real equality and that I believe this is really part of an American tradition,” Kucinich said. “To me, this is a foundational principle of who we are as a country.”

His responses to panelists’ questions led Etheridge to gush, “They told me not to fawn over you, and I’m trying not to. But it’s kind of hard not to. I hope you always run for president until you are elected. I do.”