By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Like any community, the GLBT community faced its share of difficulties, challenges and struggles in 2007. Some were resolved, while others continue to lack resolution. Here are some of those stories.

Woodlawn shootings

In a burst of violence that actually took place in the waning hours of 2006, gunmen opened fire at a predominately gay house party in the 7900 block of South Woodlawn.

Miraculously, no one was killed, although six people were wounded. Police sought two masked gunmen in the incident but the case remains unsolved more than a year later.

People at the house said they’d heard anti-gay insults from others in the neighborhood before that night but the gunmen said nothing during their assault, leaving police unable to label the shootings a hate crime.

Still, the crime stirred members of the black GLBT community to seek ways to address homophobia in the community, in two forums on the shootings and in a march last January on West 79th Street.

“We live in our communities where we grew up, from little boys and little girls, and we want to stay in our communities,” said Charles Nelson, of Windy City Black Pride.

HIV rates

While many people seem to think HIV/AIDS isn’t a “gay” problem anymore, the actual statistics in Chicago, Illinois and the nation say otherwise.

Half of all new HIV infections in Illinois involve gay and bisexual men, a rate that’s comparable to rates in the rest of the country. More than 20,000 gay men are infected with the virus that causes AIDS every year in the U.S.

“We’re looking at ongoing rates of catastrophic infection for generation after generation of gay men,” HIV researcher Gregorio Millet said at a conference sponsored by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago in October.

Those statistics are magnified in Chicago, where HIV rates are triple those in the rest of Illinois.

Despite this, the Bush administration and Illinois health officials continued in 2007 to send HIV prevention almost everywhere except to efforts targeting gay men.

Sofo attacked

More violence struck the gay community in June, this time when alleged gangbangers attacked Sofo, a predominately gay bar in Andersonville.

The gangbangers broke out windows at the bar and threatened bartenders and customers. The incidents led to increased security steps by the bar’s owner and ramped-up police patrols in the area, with Ald. Helen Shiller stepping in and promising “to get to the bottom of it.”

The situation indeed improved in the weeks following the incidents, with no further attacks or threats reported.

Hate music protested

Black GLBTs failed in efforts to prevent an anti-gay performer’s appearance at a festival in Washington Park July 4 but succeeded in raising community awareness and convinced sponsors of the festival to withdraw their support.

Reggae artist Buju Banton, whose songs have encouraged violence against gays, performed at the African/Caribbean Festival of Life but NBC 5, the University of Chicago and the Chicago Park District, all of which had been listed as sponsoring the festival by organizers, withdrew support for the event after protests by Sankofa Way, a predominately GLBT group.

“As a minister, I sit with people living with the fallout of hate language. I minister to the hurt,” said the Rev. Deborah Lake, of Sankofa.

Good Shepherd closes

An era ended in Chicago July 8, when Good Shepherd Metropolitan Community Church closed its doors after 37 years of service to the city’s GLBT community.

Dwindling membership and an aging congregation led to the decision to close the church, officials said. When it was founded, it was a rare welcoming congregation for GLBTs; in many ways the church’s demise was the result of progress in other Christian denominations that now welcome GLBT congregants and ordain GLBT clergy.

“GSP touched the lives of thousands of people,” said the Rev. Wayne Bradley. “We healed them.”

Some of the church’s members found a new home at A Church 4 Me, a new MCC congregation that began meeting last summer at the Center on Halsted.

GLBT youths on Halsted

It may be one of the largest concentrations of GLBT nightclubs and businesses in the world, with a gleaming new $20-million GLBT community center, but many GLBT youths say Lakeview’s North Halsted Street isn’t a welcoming place for them.

At a forum at the Center Aug. 30, some of the issues connected with GLBT youths on Halsted, particularly youths of color, were addressed.

“Kids come out much earlier today,” said the Rev. Stuart Smith, who’s worked with GLBT youths. “There aren’t a lot of places for them to go and socialize with other kids. It’s not safe in some neighborhoods to be openly gay. It is here. And so the kids are going to come here.”

But when they come to Halsted, the youths say, there’s no place for them to congregate, leaving them with the lone option of walking up and down the street at night. That, in turn, police say, leaves them vulnerable to pimps, drug dealers and others who would prey on them.

Despite pledges of support from Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) and other City officials, as the summer ended no GLBT group had stepped forward to offer a solution to the issue, making it likely that the problem will surface again as soon as the weather warms up.

Matthew Shepard Act fails

House Democratic leaders gave GLBTs a bitter disappointment in December when they dropped the Matthew Shepard Act from a Defense Department bill that had passed the Senate.

The bill, which would have expanded federal hate crimes law to include crimes based on anti-gay hate, had passed the House as a stand-alone measure earlier in the year. But in the Senate, sponsors attached it to an important Defense Department funding measure in the hope that doing so would dissuade President Bush from vetoing it.

When it came up in conference to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate, House leaders said the Shepard Act would have to be dropped from the legislation.

Advocates, including the bill’s Senate sponsors, expressed their disappointment, but to no avail.

“Make no mistake; this is a small triumph of process over principle,” Dennis and Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s parents, said in a statement.

State government falls apart

Amazingly, Illinois enters 2008 with state government leaders still unable to complete their 2007 tasks and agree on much of anything.

That means many programs, including CTA funding and HIV/AIDS efforts, remain underfunded. In particular, some HIV programs with major impacts in the gay community took huge hits when Gov. Rod Blagojevich slashed more than $470 million from the budget passed by the Illinois Legislature in August.

The governor, angered by legislators’ rejection of his tax and healthcare plans, mostly vetoed initiatives sponsored by House Democrats, including a $100,000 grant for Howard Brown Health Center and grants for Chicago House and other agencies.

“Some of these vetoes were devastating to social service agencies,” said Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago).

Blagojevich shows no signs of being willing to compromise with legislators as the new year dawns, a stance that only promises more turmoil in the coming months.

Cheetah Gym drama

Cheetah Gyms patrons experienced a wild week early in September when the gyms’ owner, David Wilshire, suddenly closed them Sept. 5, then saw his control of the company usurped Sept. 9 when Cheetah’s loan holder, MB Financial, took over the gyms and reopened them.

Wilshire claimed he was closing the gyms because of employee theft and misconduct, singling out general manager Angie Frank and saying she “should have been the first to be fired.”

MB Financial apparently disagreed—when it reopened the gyms Sept. 5, Frank was in charge. Patrons were just relieved to see an end to the drama.

“This is such a huge part of the community, and for the bank and staff it was just important to get things back up and running,” Frank said.

ENDA flap

A move by Democratic leaders in the U.S. House, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), to remove protections for transgenders from the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act led to one of the biggest controversies in the history of the GLBT community in the U.S.

With support from the Human Rights Campaign, Frank and Pelosi said the move was necessary in order to pass the bill. But most GLBT activists condemned the move. More than 300 GLBT groups banded together to oppose the weakened version of ENDA but Pelosi and Frank pushed it through the House anyway, winning approval in November.

The action left many in the GLBT community embittered about what they viewed as treasonous behavior on the part of House Democrats and HRC officials. As the year closed, the bill seemed far from becoming law.