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INFORMER
SPREADING THE WORD
Their newsletter on purple paper failed
to perturb a group of visiting newspaper
editors. But the authors, members of the
Gay Urban Truth Squad, were likewise
unperturbed. Dallas visitors with clout
will continue to see what GUTS has to
say about the Dallas City Council, the
Dallas Police Department and other pub-
licly accountable
groups.
GUTS member
William Way-
bourn says the
group is airing its
gripes to out-of-
towners because
"we know that the
WAYBOURN only time anything
happens in Dallas
is when the national focus is on what's
going on in Dallas. That makes (city offi-
cials) angry, and when they're embar-
rassed, they do something about it."
In the first GUTS newsletter, given to
130 people attending the American As-
sociation of Sunday Feature Editors' con-
vention in October, the group touted 12
tidbits with the teaser: "Here are some
Dallas 'feature stories' the Chamber of
Commerce will want you to overlook."
Listed were paragraphs on various topics
ranging from the homeless to alleged ra-
cial inequities in the Dallas Police De-
partment. GUTS members say they
garnered the data from newspaper sto-
ries and other sources.
GUTS' 70 members raised money for
the newsletters by selling GUTS T-shirts
($10 each) and GUTS buttons ($2)
through the Oak Lawn offices of the Dal-
las Gay Alliance. Dan Perry, 38, one of
GUTS' founding members, says the
newsletters are meant to call attention
to the issues "the City Council is
ashamed of."
"People think that we're only inter-
ested in gay issues, and that's not true,"
says Mr. Waybourn. "That is our focus,
but we certainly share a common agenda
with other groups. Some of those who
are homeless are gay, too. And racial is-
sues affect us."
During a protest last month when
President Bush was in town, GUTS mem-
bers distributed the newsletter again.
There was, however, one small change.
The last line in the first printing says,
"Dallas wants to be an 'international'
city, but the only thing international
about Dallas is the mayor's wardrobe."
For its second printing, that line was
eliminated. "We took that one off be-
cause some people thought it was an at-
tack on the mayor,"Mr. Perry says. "But
it did put a bit of humor into it."
Even when you're playing hardball,
it seems, not everyone can agree on
who's fair game. - Kathy Jackson
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Jackson, Kathy. [Clipping: Spreading the word], clipping, December 17, 1989; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1584366/m1/1/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.