TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY OBSERVES GAY PRIDE WEEK

By Gary Lee
Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- The rainbow-colored flag representing gay pride went up
at the Department of Transportation Tuesday and Secretary Federico
Pena took a place underneath it.

"We all know that gays and lesbians have served with dedication and
excellence ... for decades in this department," he told a crowd of
several hundred federal workers, many of them gay, gathered in the
DOT courtyard for an kick-off celebration of Gay Pride Week. Under
this administration, Pena continued, "we will ensure that the fears
we all share will diminish and tolerance will grow."

Flanked by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is openly gay, and
several gay DOT employees, Pena was the first Cabinet secretary in
any federal administration to partake in Pride Week, an annual
festival for Washington gays.

The department's branch of Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Employees (DOT GLOBE)
sponsored Tuesday's event. With about 50 members, it is a branch of Federal
GLOBE, a group of gay workers in all branches of the federal government that
was founded last year.

Founded in April 1993, DOT GLOBE is dedicated to making the workplace
more comfortable for homosexuals, according to chairman Tom Sachs.
"Above all," he said, "we're trying to eliminate the (anti-gay)
hostility that you sometimes see expressed."

Sachs, a DOT auditor, acknowledged that goal is far off. Some of the
gay pride week posters members hung in the DOT corridors were ripped
down this week, and an anti-gay poem was distributed in the
department's gym. When DOT attorney Sheila Skojec recently told
office workers she was a lesbian, one colleague replied, "I am
chagrined. I thought you were married."

Critics of DOT GLOBE have also thrown up bureaucratic roadblocks to
deter the group, according to Skojec, an organizer of DOT GLOBE.
When she tried to book a meeting room for the group, a DOT employee
at first declined outright, saying she needed to check with a
supervisor because of the "nature of the group."

Members of the organization nonetheless feel that they are gradually
sensitizing co-workers to gay issues. When budget office employee
Eric Stults joined DOT in January, co-workers regularly made jokes
about Clinton's plans to lift the ban on gays in the military.
Stults complained, telling his supervisor that he was offended. The
jokes stopped and Stults's openness encouraged other homosexuals in
the department to help him found DOT GLOBE.

On the whole, reaction has been mixed, Sachs said. "Some people have
been warm and supportive. Others have been hostile. When we started
this we knew it would not be easy."

Pena gave the group a boost last month when he issued policy
statements endorsing the hiring and promotion of gays and ending
discrimination against workers on the basis of sexual orientation,
race, disability, age, or cultural background.

Pena came to the department with a reputation of openness toward gays
and lesbians earned during his tenure as mayor of Denver from 1987 to
1991. He campaigned for the gay vote and in 1990 helped push through
a city-wide ordinance banning discrimination against gays.

"Toleration and diversity are not about special privileges for any
group," he said Tuesday. "They are about an end to discrimination
and an end to harassment."

Though greeted warmly, Pena's stance has been interpreted as pro-gay by some
who have criticized him. Last week the American Family Council, a
conservative lobby, issued a press release attacking Pena's plans to
participate in Pride Week.

"The Clinton administration should stop promoting homosexuality,"
said council spokesman Patrick Trueman, "and begin telling
homosexuals themselves the truth about the public health implications
of the homosexual lifestyle."