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2 - THE BARB, February 1976 ' The B&rb is published monthly by WESJR Enterprises, editorial offices ; in Atlanta, Georgia. Mailing address Post Office Box 7922, Atlanta, GA 30308. Subscriptions (USA) are $5.00 a year third class postage; $8.00 a year first class postage. Volunteer coii- tributions of niaterials are welcome Return postage should accompany all manuscripts, photos and graphics to insure return. Publication of the name, photograph or likeness of any. person or group is not to be con trued as an indication of the sexual orien tation of the person or group. Articles express the viewpoint of the individual writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Barb’s management or advertisers. Distribution can be arranged by contacting the editorial office. EDITOR W.E. (Bill) Smith, Jr. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Richard Evans 1st ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Christopher Yeung TELEPHONE: (404)874-3232 Office hours: Noon -11 p.m. EST ADVERTISING REPRESEN TATIVES; ATLANTA BUly Jones Post Office Box 7922 Atlanta, GA 30309 (404) 872-8068 DALLAS Roy HaU P06t Office Box 5915 Dallas, TX 75222 (214) 233-4362 PORT LAUDERDALE Peter Thomas 3801N Ocean Blvd. Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308 (3051566-4376 JACKSONVILLE Tom Massey 10417 Anders Blvd. Jacksonville, FL 32216 (904) 641-2392 NEW ORLEANS Bob Castle 217 NMiro New Orleans, LA 70119 (504) 821-8693 NORTH CAROLINA Glenn Piott 1003 W. Lenoir Raliegh, NC 27603 (919) 833-0570 TENNESSEE Larry Foster 1411 Moddy Avenue, No. 22 Knoxville, TN 37902 (615) 573-1524 Contributing Editors: Louie Crew, Gibson W. Higgins, Dr. Jeffrey Lant, JoelM. Starkey Entertainment Editors: Larry Foster, Kathy, Phyllis Killer, B. B. Larnont, Tiffany Lane, Patrick Shannon, Steve Warren Advice & Products: Frank Dale, Rod Falter Production: Gib Heary, Dan Lewis, Gil Shannon Graphics: _ Richard W, Pletcher, Liz Throop DEADLINES FOR MARCH ISSUE: WRITTEN COPY: 2-3 AD RESERVATION: 2-6 AD COPY DUE: 2-10 PUBLICATION: 2-16 Editor’s Notebook (ED’S NOTE: Each month I’ve reserved a little space to give you my personal views on a wide range of subjects. Ibis month the Associate Ettitor has been asked to give yon his thoughts after one year with The Barb. 1 Ms name does not often appear in The -Barb yet his dedication and infinite patience has been a key ingredient in the tremendous growth and im provement during 1975.) by Richard Evans Lee This is my twelfth issue with The Barb. The association began with me typing address tables. Within sixty days, due to a series of events extrinsic to this narrative, I found myself living - quite literally- with the paper and totally absorbed in its operations. The Barb has developed encouragingly during the past' twelve months. But as that will be Bill’s topic next month and this sketch is to be largely personal (though, somewhat polemic) it would be beside the point to recount that here. My affiliation with the paper has been interesting in an odd sort of way.. A person of tran scendent apathy, 1 have found myself thrust, willy-nilly, into the center of ‘community ac tivity,’ often feeling like an in nocent bystander. Yet on many occasions, I’ve become, in a minor sort of way, a participant, and:found it invigorating. More so than the average sexual encounter at least. Like many fine young persons of my generation (I’m twenty-one) I despised com mercial endeavor. Wishing to be involved in business I thought a goal worthy of only the retardea Yet when adolesence, that stage when you’re little more than a batch -of large, hazy passions, began to fade, I dung to the predjudice. Two years working for consumer research agencies changed that I lear ned, gradually, that marketing a product requires actual talent and resourcesfulness, and that, it can really be quite satisfying to make a business run smoothly. While working with The Barb is sometimes toilsome and II My Husband and I frustrating, I am on the whole *happy with the arrangement. People are so often trapped, earning their living by a means that crushes their personality. Which is, if you will excuse the cliche, a. great contemporary dillema. The error of most - and this is the moral „theme towards which I have been heading • is to refuse to do the insipid, glamorless drudge work necessary for the attainment of their heart’s desire. (The other grave error is to lust after the impossible.) Many of the tasks necessary for the continuance, of The Barb aren’t ones that Bill and I enjoy. Yet we have to either, blandly accept their necessity and do them or stop publishing. 1 have * been lucky and dearheaded enough to find a niche in the world that allows me to be in a roundabout way creative and to help people. (Social involvement is the great subtitute for personal in volvement.) Which is why I hope to remain for many years die Associate Editor of The Barb. II Happy Holidays? By Louie Crew A colleague in English glared at me harshly from the back of the seminar room where I had been speaking of the aggressive stereotypes by which English teachers oppress us Gays: “But you people want more than we even give ourselves,” die said, her finger pointed right at me, and her brow lowered. “ Lik e wh at? 1 countered. “Like the privilege of talking about your lovers in public without embarrassment! Why we don’t even let heterosexuals do that!” "Fair enough,” I said, “how about ‘my husband’?” Admittedly the phrase has been an electric one in a variety of contexts, but it does continue, as it did on that occasion, to un derscore that my husband and I do not have a view of our relationship that is paralleled by that of couples trying each other out by voluntary shacking. We’re not saying that marriage is necessarily superior to shacking, just that it’s different, and that it is the alternative we have opted for ourselves. No sooner had I used the phrase in a Gay academic context than a Gay sister wrote fiercely complaining, saying that I op pressed her merely by using the phrase, suggesting that, ac cording to her view of my in tentions, she and her lover should be also wife and wife, an in stitution against which both of them are in concerted rebellion. When I used the phrase “my husband and I” in merely a factual context, namely a press release announcing the first national convention of IN- TERGRITY (for Gay Episcopalians and our triends), the host bishop, who was on record for allowing us to use his cathedral for the meeting raised fierce protest to the convention planners, saying in all of the Chicago papers that he felt that the announcement was a ATLANTA LOBBY FUND NIGHT FEBRUARY 18th The British Sterling Memorial Fund “The Time Has Com e To Stop Questioning Whether Gays Are Deserving Of The Rights Of Other Citizens.” -Daryl Biliu, Houston GPC Houston Commissioner’s Court * Legalize Private Consensual Sex * Insure Basic Civil Rights For Gay Citizens. Withput your support gay rights will never be an issue. Support Federal Anti-discrimination Legislation Join the British Sterling Memorial Foundation, Enclosed is my contribution for: ( j $12 Basic Membership j ) $25 Contributing Member ( j $25 Sustaining Member ( ) $100 Supporting Member ( j $500 Lifetime Member ( ) $5 Limited Income. Name Address City . State Zip You will receive a one year subscription of The Barb “The News Monthly For Southern Gays” with your membership. The British Sterling Memorial Fund 20 Fourth St., N.W., Atlanta, Ga. 30308. malicious attempt to make it seem that the Church condoned Gay marriages. Surely no one would think that the Church is ready to be th at responsible! What the good man (and he did give access to the cathedral) forgot is that words belong to people, not people to words. Husband, Wife, Spouse, and the like are not the exclusive property of heterosexuals, but belong to anyone who appropriates them. Obviously one would make a mistake to prescribe for other Gay people what alternatives any cm e should take. Our battle all along- has been to establish our own right to make our individual choice at the same time we are working to protect sisters and brothers in efforts to take other alternatives. What our particular choice clearly brings to issue is the moral ambiyalence of nonGays con fronted with Gay reality. A couple proudly and publicly affirming their mutual commitment to each other does not fit the stereotype of Gays as predators laciviously coupling mainly with strangers. The posture bids for respect, not for pity. When they further discover that the marriage is not really molded on hetero models of use and ownership but on a private model of joint sharing, clearly it’s time, in the words of on6 bishop who attacked us in the papers, to “rise up and stamp it - out.” We did write our bishop, The Rt. Rev. Bennett Sims in Atlanta, urging him to solemnize the marriage. We are always careful to note that the Church does not ever marry anyone, but only solemnizes the marriage, i.e., celebrates the marriage with pomp and pagentry. The couple must always marry themselves; even the State takes this view. Whereas we had already married, the pomp and ceremony seemed* more important to the health of . the community than to our own. We were not suprised when Bishop Sims reported that his view of cannon law found no place that gave him the right to solemnize marriages between persons of the same sex. Of course not. Solemnizing Gay Commitment would take Gay Gibson W. Higgins Another Christmas is now history. As the city winds to its fever pitch of commercial persuasion* we are swept along the same as oth ers. Since most of us have no young ones to favor, we are able to give more td ourselves and each other. We decorate elaborately, dress fashionably, entertain lavishly, and put*on the dog in general. The Christmas season is a religious holiday- superimposed on a generally pagan -celebration thought to have evolved as an ancient antidote to the winter solstice; short, dreary, cold days leading into the heart of winter. As the second millenium draws to a close, interestingly, many of the pagan aspects of the celebration enjoy increased emphasis. Fdr most of us, however, it is a time in which family ties are ' prominent, however tenuous they may have become. With a moment nowfor reflection, the awareness of separatism lingers much as the buzz from .too many v^hiffs of the tube. Normal families emphasize heterosexuality, including children. A holiday family reunionv is a guaranteed remin der that major an dent social reinforcements are closed to us. The homosexual wljose family is unaware of his or her orientation directly encounters an internal conflict between one’s nature and the family’s perception of that nature. It is a aonfiict that cannot be masked,, regardless of shopping at Phipps, dining at pissy restaurants, or dancing at the newest disco. There is absolutely no fault in these thmgs, but we must aware of our environment. . Much in gay life’ screams liberation: we who are alive, healthy, homosexual, and even moderately out in 1976 should adopt Thanksgiving as our of ficial holiday, and should daily shout hosannas for the goodness in our lives. While our siblings (straight brothers and sisters) -are changing diapers and making mortgage payments, the world is ours if we choose. Those people seriously, would recognize us, and recognition is precisely what the Church wants to deny. Only by not recognizing. Gay people and Gay relationships can Churchpersons feel justified in behaving towards Gay people in less than charitable ways. Non-recognition has always seemed to me one of the most foolish and childish games that grownups play. The U.S. refused to recognize China for decades, yet China went right on being China, becoming more powerfully so' a- if in reaction to the pressure of ostracization. My husband and I enjoy the casualness 'pf^wur marriage, the more mundane domesticity that counters the drama of the disbelieving public. He and I can sit quietly darning socks or working the crosswords, or listening to the TV while our neighbors ride by nightly imagining with no small amount of jealousy impossible orgies taking place behind the curtams. I sometimes have nightmares about washing dishes only to have the sheriff arrive with a warrant* to take us away for our “crimes not mentionalbe among Christian gentlemen.’ If the sheriff ever comes this way, I know my husband will keep the eggs and jtoast warm until I get back. who call tiiis a cop-out from responsibly are missing the . point Straights and gays in today’s world are driven by different sets of forces. One group lives on social rein forcements provided for child bearers, the other substitutes a more universal fellowship for Mood ties to a small group of people. Each group lives with unique biases and misin formation about the other, 'except that the gay is forced to adapt to the larger community in order to survive within it Also, curiously, each group needs the other. “You’re kidding! Aren’t vou? Why do I need those aggots?” Simply to help you understand the workmgs of your society, and what its hostility can do to the lives, of those who deviate within it And we need you economically, not to mention precreatively, for the one thing we are unable to do is make more of ourselves, in spite of your fears that to khow us is to become one of us. Legitimate sex researchers say that this is simply untrue. Listen to C.L Tripp, author of “The HomosexualuMatrix,” who says that sex researchers have discovered that the one tiling which correlates with the incidence of homosexuality is the birth rate. That simple statement is dynamite for ail people, because it says-that there ain’t notiiing that can be done about those queers. The harder people reproduce (presumably many of them ‘proving’ their normalcy) the more of us there will be. By the same token, if any influences cause fewer babies to be bom, there will be fewer of us, which is incredible in light of the declining birth rate. More and more gays seem to be appearing daily. Have you seen all those hunks around town??? The momentary ‘permissiveness’ of our society is creating publicity which encourages many of us to emerge from our closets. How many of you would have come out in 1955? - Our fragile “world” that is a substitute for the lives others enjoy can vanish quickly, and then where do we go for sup port? There is no reason that gays should not enjoy all legal and social rights, including the right to rear children. As a group we engage in a min life with society, trying to put our steps to its music. So my brother looks at me now ; and totally fails to un* derstand why I am me, for his world is so different. It is astonishing to realize that such different people can come from identifical beginnings. I see in him the stereotypical straight who doesn’t even, want to know those different from him. How will we celebrate 'future Christmases? Christians will have services, but there will also be services attended by celebrants in white towels, and two thousand will gather in one place to do exactly as they please, enjoying the company of one another. Pagan? When we homosexual get our acts together enough to fully be ourselves, that will be the fulfilled promise of the ages. Financial pqpfligacy will yield to the realization of our humanity. Pleasure? Physical needs, as others, are met,' one way or another. As gays, we have light years head start on the others. That is good and positive, and why^ not build on ourbest? WANT TOPLACE AN AD IN “PERSONALS & THINGS”? Bat not sure what to say or how to say it? Let a member of The Barb handle It. Confidential, courteous service) always. Call (404) 874-3232.