Activists Travel to Pennsylvania

More than 25 Lesbian Avengers made the three-hour trip by bus and car to the Casa Nova Bar in the Jenner Township, located 10 miles south of Johnstown and about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The bar has been the target of repeated anti-Gay protests, heckling, and attacks since it opened on Jan. 24, 1997, after the new owners, heterosexual couple Patricia and Merritt Cramer, converted a 60-year-old roadside tavern and restaurant into a Gay bar.

According to Patricia Cramer, the group protesting the Avengers was largely comprised of members of a local Anabaptist church. They were led by Bishop Ron McRae and gather regularly in the parking lot on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, yelling anti-Gay slurs at patrons.

The bar was the target of shotgun blasts on March 9, 1997, when shots fired into the club injured two customers. In May 1997, it also was the scene of Ku Klux Klan rallies and bomb threats.

McRae and his followers were on hand when the Lesbian Avengers pulled into the parking lot on Saturday evening at about 8 p.m., surrounding their cars and vans and shouting anti-Gay slurs, according to Beth Armitage, a member of the Lesbian Avengers.

"It was pitch black and we were surrounded by men with long beards and wide-brimmed hats," said Armitage, who noted that the Lesbian Avengers had a policy of non-engagement toward the protesters. "They were yelling at us that God hates us."

There were approximately 40 protesters, including several young children, according to Armitage.

Once inside the establishment, Armitage said that Lesbian Avengers members doubled the population of the bar, which consisted of mostly Gay men as well as a few heterosexual couples. The Avengers staged a "dating game" and a "win a date with an Avenger" contest.

"I thought that the girls were just wonderful," said Cramer, "very organized, very entertaining, and we just loved them."

"Even some heterosexuals offered them to stay in their homes in the future," she added.

"The people were really happy we came and I think it meant a lot to them," said Cindy Larison, a member of the Lesbian Avengers. "It's been more than a year of this harassment and it's really worn them down."

When the Lesbian Avengers left the bar at approximately 1 a.m., the protesters reportedly surrounded them and screamed threats such as "you never know, this night might be your last." According to Armitage, the Lesbian Avengers responded by performing their classic "fire-eating ceremony," in which they dip a hanger with cloth in white gas, put it out in their mouths, and chant "Their fire will not consume us; we take it and make it our own."

"The real story here is not the Lesbian Avengers," said Armitage. "It's the people who are living it here every day. I can't believe their bravery."

Cramer said she is seeking pro-bono legal aid to help her contend with what she describes as a difficult district attorney's office and the lack of laws and ordinances to protect her establishment from the protests. Corporal Craig Bowman of the Pennsylvania State Police station in Somerset has ordered the protesters to stay off the Cramers' property, but that order does not prevent them from gathering in the parking lot.

"Absent of any unforeseen legal action, I don't think the situation is going to get any better," said Bowman.

In the meantime, Patricia Cramer says that she and her husband are not going anywhere.

"This is my building and I have the right to run it," she said. "If they don't like Jews, blacks, or homosexuals, that's their problem. I don't believe in hate."

See related article, KKK Rally, Bomb Threat Target Bar

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