Badpuppy Gay Today

Monday, 09 June 1997

America's highways are cleaner because of savvy groups like Lesbians for Change, an Albuquerque, Mexico organization which has a mission: empowering lesbians through community action. A billboard on the stretch of highway the group adopted suggests they have community spirit.

The Christian Coalition's state chair suggested that "Prostitutes for Change"might make a comparable companion to the lesbians' sign.

But The Christian Coalition, sensing an opportunity, had no wish to be outdone. America's highways are now also cleaner because of this fact. The CC had to join as soon as it found out that lesbians were working hard on moral grounds--highways-- with their focus on a one-mile stretch of New Mexico's 1-40, a public thoroughfare where billboards show drivers New Mexico's lesbian willingness to take a recognizable part in a cooperative community venture.

The Christian Coalition wanted some of that good press too but it didn't expect when it signed onto the highway program that the one-mile stretch it had adopted was directly west of Lesbians for Change.

New Mexico's Lesbians for Change billboard has been the subject of a multitude of complaints to the state's highway department, but nobody bothers about the concerns of the complainants. As a state agency, says Larry Nuanez, the highway department can't discriminate against any civic organization. Besides, he added, lesbians "have been one of the better groups in doing cleanups."

At first the members of Lesbians for Change wondered whether their community-spirited-deed's billboard would get vandalized or burnt. But the women's group itself has received no complaints, and, instead, has received inquiries about the organization's goals. At this stage of the saga, the billboard still stands.

Women in other states are responding with curiosity about the adopt-a-highway plan. Lesbians for Change also works with Habitat for Humanity, collecting food for shelters, staging social activities, and presenting two $500 scholarships a year.

"We did this in New Mexico, and it may be a good idea," says Sonia Bettez, a spokesperson for the organization. Participation in the highway clean-up program is limited to civic-minded organizations, those which promise to keep it litter-free.

Such groups must also promise to do a cleanup at least twice annually. Tony Olmi, of the Christian Coalition, said that his group had long considered adopting a stretch of highway. It just happened that this adopting came on the very heels of a visible lesbian presence in the highway program. Neither group was responsible for their working so near to one another.