Bonnie Jeanne Tinker (May 26, 1948 – July 2, 2009) was an American activist, founder of Love Makes a Family, which advocated for LGBTQ families. She was also chair of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and founding director of Bradley Angle, an emergency shelter program in Portland, Oregon.
Tinker was born in Boone, Iowa, one of the seven children of Leonard Edward Tinker and Lorena Jeanne McGregor Tinker. [1] [2] Her parents were active in the civil rights and peace movements. The Tinker family were the plaintiffs in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District , a United States Supreme Court case about high school students' right to protest. In 1963, she won an essay contest sponsored by the NAACP. [3] She attended Grinnell College [4] as a theatre major in the class of 1969, [5] but refused to take the examinations required to graduate. [6] She also studied in Mexico. She later studied photography and journalism at Portland Community College. [7]
During college, Tinker worked for Michigan Migrant Opportunity, a federal anti-poverty program. [8] After college, she was a member of the Red Emma Collective in Portland, Oregon, [5] and helped establish a women's clinic and a Quaker women's shelter. [9] From 1975 to 1979, she served as founding director of Bradley-Angle House, another women's shelter. [10] [11] She was an early leader of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. [12] She lived at WHO Farm in Estacada, a women's land project. She was the Portland contact for the McKenzie River Gathering, and worked for Volunteers of America in the mid-1980s. From 1987 to 1992, she was a freelance photographer. [7] In 1998 she joined her mother in El Salvador and Nicaragua, to do post-hurricane relief work. [13]
Tinker made a documentary about LGBTQ families, Love Makes a Family (1992). [14] She hosted the "Love Makes a Family" radio show, [15] and was founder and director the organization of the same name. [16] [17] In 1995 she attended the World Conference on Women in Beijing. [18] She taught Quaker workshops on nonviolent change, under the title "Opening Hearts and Minds". "If you don't want to be attacking and defending all the time," she explained in a 1995 interview, "you have to start by not attacking." [15] In 1996, she and Pamela Pegg made an exhibit for the Oregon State Fair from their collection of pins, clippings, photographs, and posters from LGBTQ activism; the exhibit was moved after its content raised concerns. [19] She protested the Iraq War with Seriously Pissed-Off Grannies, and was arrested several times over the years for her non-violent political activities. "If there was a demonstration and something she could get arrested about, she was there," recalled a fellow activist. "Bonnie never knew a sideline to sit on." [20]
Tinker and her partner Sharon Keeler adopted a daughter, Connie. Tinker married her longtime partner Sara Graham in 2004, during a brief window of legalized same-sex marriage that year in Oregon. [16] [21] Tinker and Graham raised their sons Josh and Alex together. Their family was featured on a 2001 segment of ABC's 20/20 about gay and lesbian parents. Tinker died in a traffic accident in 2009, at the age of 61, while riding her bicycle in Blacksburg, Virginia. [22] [23] The Love Makes a Family organization also ended in 2009. There is a large collection of her papers, recordings, and photographs in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library. [24] The Bonnie Tinker Emergency Shelter in Portland is named in her memory. [25] In 2013, she was posthumously awarded a Doctor of Laws degree by Grinnell College. [6]
Samuel Francis Adams is an American politician in Portland, Oregon. Adams was mayor of Portland from 2009 to 2012 and previously served on the Portland City Council and as chief of staff to former Mayor Vera Katz. Adams was the first openly gay mayor of a large U.S. city.
Gretchen Hoyt Corbett is an American actress and theater director. She is primarily known for her roles in television, particularly as attorney Beth Davenport on the NBC series The Rockford Files, but has also had a prolific career as a stage actress on Broadway as well as in regional theater.
Love Makes a Family was a non-profit advocacy and assistance organization of families headed by LGBTQ people, and their friends, working for equal marriage and family rights in the United States. It was also the name of a former organization in Connecticut that disbanded in 2009 after achieving its aims.
ChristineKotek is an American politician serving as the 39th governor of Oregon since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, Kotek served eight terms as the state representative from the 44th district of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2007 to 2022, as majority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013, and as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives from 2013 to 2022. She won the 2022 Oregon gubernatorial election, defeating Republican nominee Christine Drazan and independent candidate Betsy Johnson.
Shelter is a 2007 American romantic drama film produced by JD Disalvatore and directed and written by Jonah Markowitz. It stars Trevor Wright, Brad Rowe, and Tina Holmes. It was the winner of "Outstanding Film–Limited Release" at the 2009 GLAAD Media Awards, Best New Director and Favorite Narrative Feature at the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, and the People's Choice Award for Best Feature at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Shelter represents the feature directorial debut of Markowitz.
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LGBT culture in Portland, Oregon is an important part of Pacific Northwest culture.
Three Sisters Tavern, sometimes abridged as Three Sisters and nicknamed "Six Tits", was a gay bar and strip club in Portland, Oregon, United States. The bar was founded in 1964 and began catering to Portland's gay community in 1997 following the deaths of the original owners. The business evolved into a strip club featuring an all-male revue. Also frequented by women, sometimes for bachelorette parties, Three Sisters was considered a hub of Portland's nightlife before closing in 2004.
The 1930 Drake Bulldogs football team was an American football team that represented Drake University in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) during the 1930 college football season. In its tenth season under head coach Ossie Solem, the team compiled a 5–4 record, tied for the MVC championship, and outscored all opponents by a total of 166 to 120.
Lois Galgay Reckitt was an American feminist and activist. Called "one of the most prominent advocates in Maine for abused women", she served as executive director of Family Crisis Services in Portland, Maine, for more than three decades.
Annie Nowlin Savery was an American suffragist and philanthropist based in Des Moines, Iowa. She is known as a pioneer feminist and activist for woman suffrage. She began taking part in the woman suffrage movement in the 1860s, and became a leader in the county and state, speaking widely and helping establish organizations to support it.
Crush Bar is a gay bar and restaurant in Portland, Oregon's Buckman neighborhood, in the United States. Established in 2001, the bar was scheduled to permanently close at the end of 2023, until an employee's investment kept Crush open into 2024.
Belinda Carroll is an American standup comedian, writer, activist, actress, and singer. She is the founder of the Portland Queer Comedy Festival, organizer of the Portland Dyke March, and is a co-organizer as well as date auction host and fundraiser emcee of the Butch Voices Portland Regional Conference.
Flawless Shade is the stage name of Tajh Jordan, an American drag performer and make-up artist based in Portland, Oregon. A former Miss Gay Oregon, Flawless Shade has been featured in campaigns by Adidas, GLAAD, and Top Level Design.
The 1946 Midwest Conference football season was the season of college football played by the nine member schools of the Midwest Conference (MWC), formally known as the "Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference", as part of the 1946 college football season.
Robin Helene Holmes-Sullivan is an American academic and psychologist serving as the president of Lewis & Clark College. She is the first woman, first person of color, and first openly LGBTQ person to become the president of the college. Holmes-Sullivan previously served as the vice president for student affairs of the 10-campus University of California system.
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