Jack Valinski used calm approach in push for gay rights

By DAVID ELLISON Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

March 28, 2007, 9:31PM

When a local group proposed a program to honor Jack Valinski for his longtime service to the gay community, he suggested calling the event "25 years of Pissing People Off."

"They didn't like that title," Valinski, 53, said with a smile last week.

He said his suggestion was just a reflection of what comes with the territory — that any community activist has enemies.

Even though his stance on gay rights has ruffled those with opposing views, Valinski's supporters say his personality is far from the in-your-face approach more common in the earlier days of the community's civil rights struggle.

"Jack is the next generation and that requires him to be more diplomatic, more cautious," said Ray Hill, a self-proclaimed first-generation gay activist, host of The Prison Show on KPFT-FM and Valinski's mentor. "And Jack understood that without ever articulating that. That certainly is the way he behaves."

Hill will be among those who today will honor Valinski — whose accomplishments include changing the Pride Parade from an afternoon event to a nighttime festival that now attracts from 150,000 to 200,000 people — at a fundraiser benefiting the Houston Equal Rights Alliance, where Valinski is director of operations.

"Jack is definitely passionate about our community and passionate about changing the local political landscape," said Tammi Wallace, president of the HERA board. "He's just a huge asset, not only as a person, but the talents that he brings. He could use his talents in the corporate world and make far more money."

Getting his start

Valinski moved to Houston in 1981. At the time he was a Republican and wasn't "out."

After listening to Hill's KPFT radio show Wilde N Stein — one of the first regularly scheduled gay and lesbian shows in the country and the only one in the South in the 1970's — Valinski went to the station to volunteer.

In 1993, a year after Hill's show was canceled, Valinski started Lesbian and Gay Voices on KPFT. The name was changed about five years ago to Queer Voices to become more inclusive, he said. Valinski is still producer and co-host, which enables him to recruit people to get them involved with activities.

Valinski is also on the board of the Houston Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Political Caucus. He also is past executive director of Pride Houston Inc., which organizes the Pride Parade and Festival.

He started volunteering with Pride Houston in 1982. He said he was the organization's executive director for two years until he "sort of severed his ties" with the group late last year.

Nick Brines, a member of Pride Houston's board, said Valinski, who still volunteers with Pride Houston, moved on to pursue political endeavors in the GLBT community.

And although he has been active for years, Valinski prefers a behind-the-scenes role.

Politically, he has managed a 35,000-person database for the GLBT Political Caucus, where information is used to get people registered and out to vote, he said.

Larry Bagneris, another one of Valinski's early mentors in Houston who now is executive director of the New Orleans Human Relations Commission, said Valinski is "just unbelievable both in terms of leadership and in terms of vision.

"And 25 years ago, when no one comprehended the idea that there were much more than white, gay men involved in the movement for equality, Jack was one of those individuals that thought about others — minority groups, women, transsexuals."

Valinski said the 25-year journey has been a roller-coaster ride. "In some ways we have come a long way," he said, "and in some ways we are still back to where we were."

Year the bubble burst

In 1984, City Council, under then-Mayor Kathy Whitmire, approved an ordinance banning discrimination against gay city workers. A year later, city voters overturned that ordinance.

"In '85, the bubble burst," Valinski said. "We were also dealing with AIDS in the city. And we also were dealing with a really bad economy. So, some of us were a little more mobile than the general population and they left the city."

He pointed to some gains, such as Annise Parker being the first openly gay person elected to City Council in 1997. Last year, Sue Lovell, a lesbian, was elected as an at-large councilwoman.

Parker, who is now city controller, pushed domestic partner benefits for people of the same sex when she was on City Council. But a 2001 referendum rejected that issue.

Also, Texas voters in 2005 handed the gay community another setback by approving a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions.

Valinski says there's a lot of work to be done. He's not ready to step aside, but still wonders who will take up the battle in the next generation.

"We are always trying to get the next generation involved," Valinski said. "It's a difficult thing because a lot of them don't see what we saw."

david.ellison@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4670132.html