PORNGATE About 20 men and women hovered around the front of the Clinton Street Theater at midnight on Friday, and they weren't in line for tickets. Protesters carrying signs, handing out pamphlets and shouting "Your money is blood money" were trying to dissuade movie patrons from entering the theater to see a midnight showing of the porn film Deep Throat, with Linda Lovelace. The 1972 movie is considered to be the first X-rated film to go mainstream, drawing suburban couples to downtown X-rated theaters. The film so infused popular culture that Bob Woodward named his inside Watergate source "Deep Throat." Lovelace turned against porn in the '80s and in her book Out of Bondage contends she was beaten, raped and tortured during the making of the movie. The Portland protesters, an unorganized contingent drawn to the theater by fliers distributed around the city, contend that Deep Throat should not be supported as entertainment. Protester Sarah Radcliffe considers herself anti-violence, not anti-porn. "We need to educate consumers," she says. "Rather than impose censorship, we need to inform." Clinton Street Theater owner Anne Marie DiStefano didn't expect all the controversy when she booked the film twice as part of a month-long series titled Pornovember. "I feel kind of weird about it," she says. "I had no idea there was any issue. I like to think that I'm on the same side as people who are against violence against women." DiStefano considered canceling the screening, but she felt she didn't have enough information about the issue to come out on either side. "All I know about it is from these trippy fliers," she says. "And besides, it's been an interesting, kind of exciting night, and I didn't want to stop it." The protest irked some filmgoers. Elizabeth Dantes, who came with a group of friends, says a protester told her not to let her boyfriend "drag" her into the theater, insinuating that she wasn't there by choice. "That cut their credibility with me instantly," Dantes says. --Caryn Brooks It Could Be You Although medical advances have allowed many AIDS victims longer and better lives, people are still contracting HIV at a frightening rate. The problem is particularly acute among young people: Every hour, two Americans between the ages of 13 and 21 contract HIV. Two of those people, Portlanders Rebecca Guberman and Jennifer Jako, decided to do something about it--they made a film about being young and HIV-positive. After four years of work, their documentary will make its national première on World AIDS Day. MTV will air a shortened version of the movie titled It Could Be You on Dec. 1. The documentary features interviews with young people around the world talking about how they got HIV, how they found out they had it and how they've managed to live with it. The film is as much a catharsis as a warning. On camera, Guberman and Jako describe how conducting these interviews with HIV-positive young people has helped them make sense of their own diagnoses. The long-awaited Portland première of the complete movie, called Blood Lines, will take place 6 pm Dec. 4 at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (1241 NW Johnson St., $20). The event is a benefit for local youth- and AIDS-service organizations. Another World AIDS Day event scheduled in Portland takes place Dec. 1 at the Scottish Rite Temple. The Portland Gay Men's Chorus, the Metropolitan Community Church Portland Sanctuary Choir and Outside In's Gorilla Theater group will perform, and new panels will be added to the Names Project Quilt. For more information about World AIDS Day observances, call Metropolitan Community Church at 281-8868. --Patty Wentz   The Usual Suspects Last week's Central City Summit was called the "toughest ticket in town" by former governor Neil Goldschmidt. But when the daylong gab fest was over, some attendees wished they had scalped their tickets. Although more than 400 influential Portlanders gathered at the Governor Hotel to shape a new downtown, the results were underwhelming. After all the backslapping, hand wringing and electronic polling was over, the elite group concluded that public education was really important to the city's future. So was the Willamette River. Jobs, housing and social services were almost equally urgent. And what did Bridgetown's best and brightest decide to do about these pressing matters? Nothing yet. "After all is said and done, a lot will be said and not much will be done," complained City Commissioner Charlie Hales at the summit's lunch break. "We didn't even get into any strategies," groused Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury on the day after the summit. "We love to talk and answer questions like 'Do you agree or disagree that the Willamette should be cleaned up?' We're very short on doing the action." Perhaps some of the problem stemmed from the summit's lineup. It was dominated by gray-haired, gray-suited business executives (37 percent of the crowd) and local government employees (24 percent of the crowd). "I was troubled there weren't more new faces and young faces," says Kafoury. The incestuous mix of downtown insiders creates some real problems, according to Gov. John Kitzhaber. In his speech to the group, Kitzhaber said the real challenge for downtown was not a lack of vision but a "disengaged public." Kitzhaber told the summiteers they needed to stop talking to one another. "The challenge is outside this community, with Oregonians who are skeptical about growth and public investment," the governor said. Kafoury agrees. "If everyone in that room had spent one hour campaigning for light rail, it would have passed," she said the next day in a speech to the City Club. Unfortunately, summit organizers didn't use the event to start reaching out. Summiteer Maria Elena Hawkins, who's the executive director of the Oregon Council for Hispanic Advancement, noted that the state's leading Latino newspaper didn't know about the event and didn't even get a press release. Don Bain, a neighborhood activist in Southwest Portland, complained that he couldn't attend the summit. By the time he learned about it, Bain says, the summit was booked and closed to the public. Mayor Vera Katz acknowledged the need to reach a broader audience but defended the fact that almost 20 percent of the summit chairs were occupied by city employees. "It's very important for them to be here," Katz said. "Eventually [the vision] will be handed to them to carry out." --Bob Young Words Hurt Local abortion providers have filed a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit claiming anti-abortion groups are making what amounts to terroristic threats against them. The defendants, including Portlanders Andrew Burnett, Dawn Stover and Catherine Ramey, counter that they're simply exercising their right to free speech. At issue are printed documents and Internet postings by the defendants, including a so-called "Deadly Dozen" poster. It labels abortion a "war crime" and lists the names, addresses and telephone numbers of 12 doctors accused of being "Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity." The poster includes several Portland abortion providers, including Elizabeth and James Newhall. Whatever the outcome of the trial, scheduled to begin Dec. 7 in front of U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Jones, it will have far-reaching implications. Not only will it help shape the abortion-rights battlefield, but it also may help establish the limits of the First Amendment in a new area. "I think this case is every bit as important as the Tom Metzger case was," says ACLU Oregon Executive Director David Fidanque, referring to the landmark suit against the white-supremacy group leader for the 1988 death of Mulugeta Seraw in Southeast Portland. ACLU Oregon has filed amicus curiae briefs in this lawsuit, as it did in the Seraw case, seeking to carve a legal path that protects free speech but prevents wrongdoers from using it as a shield. "In both cases the defendants are being sued for doing nothing other than speaking and speech," explains ACLU lawyer Michael Simon, "and yet that speech is alleged to have caused very serious problems and injury." While the two lawsuits are based on similar premises, they were filed under two different legal theories. In some ways, civil-rights lawyer Morris Dees had an easier road. He successfully argued that Metzger, through an agent named Dave Mazella, directly incited his followers to violence. The plaintiffs in the current case, however, won't point to specific instances of incitement or even to direct threats. The alleged threats in this case are indirect and arguably more subtle. It's unclear to what extent this type of speech is protected by the First Amendment, which is why the ACLU is keeping such a close eye on the case. Although the "Dirty Dozen" poster didn't directly call for violence, the plaintiffs say they felt threatened nonetheless because abortion doctors have been victims of a nationwide campaign of harassment, terror and in some cases murder. This lawsuit marks the first time the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act will be used to go after anti-abortion activists who make threats, as opposed to those who blockade clinics. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages and an injunction to prevent the anti-abortion activists from making similar threats in the future.--Maureen O'Hagan   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published December 9, 1998