Liberal Unfriendly Place: Cincinnati, OH

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Cincinatti is one of the most conservative, bigoted, cities in America, from as he mentioned the Mapplethorpe exposition which was deemed "immoral, and against all decencey" to its tapping of citizens phone lines in from the 70's to the late 80's; in order to monitor "communist activities." This city has constantly voted down the civil rights of gays and lesbians, such as the domestic partership act, which most civilized cities have supported. Cininatti is generally made up of people from Rural Kentucky, who come from the hills in order for the "big city" life (which is not in Cincinatti!) and they carry their racist, bigoted, and ultra right values which infringe on all of our constitutional rights.

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I live here teaching art in a University. After having lived around the country, this is the most closed and conservative by far. It's like living in the 1950's. There is a lack of curiosity and incentive in the people and they also seem to beleive what their elected officials tell them is true. A belief in authority. Very German, very Catholic. Very affordable and a good place to invest in Real estate, especially Northen Kentucky.

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Having grown up in South Eastern Kentucky, I must say that the fellow's observation about the population in Cincinnatti is less than accurate. The conservative culture of Cincinnatti is a product of the development of social institutions in the community. It is not imported hate from the mountains. In fact, the census statistics indicate that a vast majority of those from the Appalachian regions of Kentucky live their lives near where they grew up. Blaming an entire group of people for attitudes in another city is both scapegoating _and_, worse, an example of the bigotry that the fellow decried those in Kentucky as having.

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I noticed that cincinnati was on the un-liberal list....as someone who lived there for 15 years and am not swimming in the mainstream, i did meet some of the dearest people i know, there..also, you might just be facinated to know that cincinnati does have a gay, female mayor...and yes, it is the national hdqtrs for the national right to life committe...go figure...thanks for the chance to speak..i am not into defending cincinnati or anything else for that matter, just thought you might find that interesting....

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Unfortunately, it is not just liberal vs conservative politics that characterizes the real malaise in Cincinnati. I served as a professional employee in county government for eight years and have lived here for more than 20 years. The level of imcompetence and the jealousy and malice of people in positions of high authority is very frightening. There is no accountability in a system that values loyalty to the pack above all other ethical considerations. Perhaps generalization is unfair. But a cultural attribute of docility and worship of authority has produced a system where power operates virtually unchecked by any legal or moral bounderies supported by a media that acts as spin doctors promoting a booster's image of the community.

I have seen for example, every independent advocacy organization for children essentially gutted so that only "approved" organizations (preferably those controlled by local politicos) provide services within narrowly circumscribed bounderies. And the "old boy network" extends to every facet of the community making people of the fringes subject to campaigns of character assassination and worse.

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I found the comment attributing Cincinnati's right wing attitudes and values to Appalachian migrants very bigoted and untrue. Until World War II when migration from Appalachia and the migration of Blacks from the South began to change the ethnographic picture, Cincinnati was a German city, like St. Louis and Milwaukee, with very little immigration from other ethnic groups. There was a large German Jewish minority, but otherwise the city had an almost unified, fixed, closed and ultra-conservative worldview. And, the Jewish community was and is very politically conservative. Many of the other comments I read support that fact that people in Cincinnati do not like new ideas, are politically ultra-conservative and have a history of urban hysteria. The communist scare of the 1950s and 1960s went hand in hand with the belief that fluoridated water would turn their children into socialists. In the early part of this century, fear that the city would fall into the subway tunnels was one of the factors that led the City Council to abandon the partially completed subway system. Private phone lines were tapped not only during the "Commie Scare", but more recently the city allowed a large local corporation to examine the private long distance records of *all* the residents to try to find the individuals responsible for leaking alleged "Satanist" information about its logo. The company modified its logo, but only after prosecuting the individuals who spread the rumors. Most recently anti-homosexual hysteria has made Cincinnati's long history of rabid and rampant homophobia even worse. In the recent past, Cincinnati police frequently arrested males for homosexual behavior if they found them just sitting in a parked car! Gays going into and leaving gay bars are often harassed by the police. Plainclothes policeman cruise the parks trying to lure homosexuals. The police refuse to investigate attacks on homosexuals, and if forced to investigate, they let the investigations drag on for years with no arrests. There may have been a lesbian mayor, but she only got her job through the city's unusual system of allowing Council Members to be mayor--and not through a city wide election for mayor. The voters did not know she was a lesbian when she was elected to Council. It was a fluke, and it's sad that *anyone* would cite this as an example of tolerance toward homosexuals. And the right-wingers are doing everything they can to be sure that there will never ever be a homosexual mayor again. And, of course, citizens of Cincinnati went to the U. S. Supreme Court and got their wish that no homosexual within the city limits would have "special rights"! I lived in Cincinnati for six years while doing graduate work at a local university and I've live near Cincinnati almost all my life. It is definitely *not* a good place to be a liberal or a non-white. There are many gay-friendly cities in the US. Cincinnati has to be one of the most gay-intolerant. If you're looking for a place to live and your liberal and/or gay, I strongly suggest you *not* chose Cincinnati.