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Instead, they spent the evening at a candlelight vigil marking a difficult week for gay people nationally, and gay Cincinnatians in particular.

Separated by age, experience and gender, the librarian and the campus activist both stood in the dark, clutching candles, feeling a mix of discouragement and fear. Like many in Cincinnati's gay community, they were struggling to make sense of the week's two big news events.

At different points in their lives -- and for different reasons -- Ms. Beiser and Mr. White were beginning to think they would be better off leaving Cincinnati.

First came the brutal beating death of a gay student in the state of Wyoming. Then the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that let stand Issue 3, the Cincinnati law banning legal protection for homosexuals. Different stories with the same wrenching effect.

"I usually feel like a lesbian about a third or a quarter of the time," said Ms. Beiser. "This week, it's up to a half. It's growing in reaction to everything that's happening."

Working the desk in the history and genealogy department at the downtown branch Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ms. Beiser experienced this week's news with sadness and resignation.

Up at the UC campus, Mr. White was frustrated, even before the Issue 3 decision was announced. As a member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Alliance, he was helping plan events every day last week to commemorate Coming Out Week. But several were canceled because no one showed up. Others attracted just a handful of people.

The alliance itself counts 40 members on a campus of 36,000. On Thursday night, the rally drew hundreds of people, most from outside the university. The afternoon before the vigil, Mr. White, dressed in khakis and a blue cotton sweater, sat in the alliance office in Tangeman University Center. He blamed the poor Coming Out Week showings on fear, ignorance and apathy. "I was to the point yesterday where I couldn't take it anymore. I said, I want to go home."

Mr. White said the beating death and the persistence of Issue 3 "make people on this campus think, "Great, it's OK. I can do anything I want to these people and they can't sue me because there's no laws to protect them.' "

Fear of harassment

With the vivid details of Matthew Shepard's murder already in her mind, the Issue 3 action produced a "double-whammy" for Ms. Beiser, an overriding sense of vulnerability just because she is a lesbian.

"I was aghast but not surprised by the beating," Ms. Beiser said. "This is more blatant, but it's not a new thing to harass gay people. But in 1998, to think that this is still happening, it's atrocious. Why would any one have to suffer this much? You feel attacked emotionally by it."

Mr. White is also afraid. He has never been attacked. But sometimes when he's putting up posters people walk behind him and tear them down.

Mr. White said members of his group are tired of the scornful stares, tired of the verbal abuse. He told a story of a friend, walking down a hallway. He passed by another man who said below his breath, "Look at that fag." Mr. White's friend turned and yelled, "Yes, I am a fag!"

We're getting to the point where we're so angry. And a lot of it stems from what's happening right now."

But Mr. White said that even before this week's events, he and his friends thought "this is the first year that it's ever been this evident that people are so homophobic."

Difficult times, choices

" She thinks Cincinnati today is more tolerant of gays, lesbians and bisexuals than it was a generation ago, but change, she says, happens slowly.

"The city is uptight about sexuality, homosexual or heterosexual," she said. "And people here are generally afraid of differences."

"I don't have to worry about losing my job because of where I work," said Ms. Beiser. "Librarians tend to be more open-minded and more aware. I own my own house, so I don't have to worry about being evicted because I'm a lesbian."

For Ms. Beiser, Issue 3 is more a symbol than a serious threat. But, she said, even as a gesture "it's important to say, intolerance is wrong."

Mr. White views the lack of protection under Issue 3 as a very real threat. He shares an apartment with another gay man and a lesbian at the foot of a Clifton hill, a typical college apartment strewn with empty soda cans, phone bills and a cat named Whitman. Mr. White worries about being thrown out.

"Our landlord could evict us right now and we couldn't do anything about it," he said.

Ms. Beiser keeps a photograph of her girlfriend, an artist named Linda, on her desk at the library. She wouldn't have dared do that 20 years ago.

She said Cincinnati is more accepting now because more gay people are coming out and there is more media coverage of issues that affect gay people.

"People realize they have a family member who is gay, or a neighbor or co-worker," Ms. Beiser said. "They know someone personally, know them first as a person, and that makes it harder to stereotype them as part of a minority group."

But progress, she said, seems to increase the vehemence of those who oppose gay rights.

"There has been a real polarizing here," she said. "People feel forced to take one side or the other."

Ms. Beiser received several e-mail messages from friends around the country this week asking, "What are you doing in Cincinnati?"

Issue 3 has begun to make her wonder. She has roots and many ties here. Still, "at times, I fantasize about living in the (San Francisco) Bay Area," Ms. Beiser said. "I say to myself, maybe I do want to get out of Cincinnati. Issue 3 makes me reconsider a move to a more progressive place."

Mr. White was born and reared in Columbus and went to an all-boys Catholic high school. Hiding his sexual orientation, he said, drove him to attempt suicide at 17. He is now out to his parents and "old-fashioned" enough to wait for a long-term relationship before becoming sexually active.

When he told his parents, "My father was like, "You're still pro-life, right?' And I said, "Uh-huh.' And he was like, "OK.' "My mother was just afraid that people were going to yell at her baby."

He thinks Cincinnati may be too difficult a place for gay people.

"If I could get a scholarship to (Ohio State University) like the one I have down here, I'd go in a second. There's a lot better support there," he said.

But in the next breath he reconsiders all the work he wants to do here. He will likely become president of the alliance next year, and there are programs to plan and another Coming Out Week to celebrate.