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2 - THE BARB, March 1976
' The BarB is published luouuuy ur
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E ditor’s Notebook
More mental energy has been
exhausted musing over this
particular month’s column than a
majority of its predecessors.
What tq say to you to reach you
as you read these words that will
convey the concern, affection
and ambition that is the essense
of what we are striving for each
month.
I wanted you to grasp the
tremendous energy throughout
the Southeast that gay people
are expressing. Jack Campbell
in Miami, Joel Starkey in Boca
Raton, Hugh Crell and Gary Van
Ottingham in Houston, the
Freese brothers in Charlotte.
This is an anniversary issue.
Appropriately I choose to look
backwards and recount our
change, our progress and look
forward with our hopes and
dreams:
Perhaps you will read the
above-mentioned piece. I will
not toss it out. Much of it can be
used in our third anniversary
odlumn. Perhaps by then I can
get some pf the puffery and
hyperbole of my Horatio Alger
tone out of it. I think we will
both enjoy its sharing at that
time.
My chauvinistic, provincial
attitude as an Atlantan will.show
through in what follows. If you
do not live in Atlanta I hope you
will read on anyway. What is
happening in Atlanta is hap
pening on differing scales in
every major city in America and
in the southeast the major and
minor cities are feeling the
effect.
Racism is the ugliest word in
America’s lexicon today. Queer,
fag and fairy offend me. This
newspaper and the majority of
the public efforts in my life have
been on gay issues. The
prejudices, the laws, the
inequities in public and in
private accorded homosexual
citizens in our society.
Racism is an issue, which I
along with many pther con
servative gay activist view as an
issue separate from gay issues.
Organizations by the hundred,
both private and public, exist to
fight racism. I have in the past
and undoubtedly will in the
future counsel against using our
meager resources in non-gay
centered issues.
Such a position has been rather
easy for me living and working in
a city whose population is split
evenly among white and black.
Today all our resources are
needed to'deal with racism. The
Atlanta Community Relations
Commission (CRC) was among
the first such agencies in a major
southern city. The “City too
Busy to Hate’’ is known
nationally in part because of
CRC. One of its former chair
persons is now Atlanta’s
congressional representative,
Andy Young.
The Atlanta CRC has twenty-
two members and a staff of
seven. A more divergent and
incongruent collection of people
involved in their community
would be hard to find. CRC is
twenty-two people, an ar
chbishop, a rabbi, an assortment
of protestant ministers, a high
school student, a few lawyers, a
labor leader, a low-income
housing project community
leader, a college student, a"
garden club president and a gay
activist.
The CRC’s efforts in the 60’s
kept communication flowing and
tensions lowered. On a
miniscule budget the CRC has
walked the tight rope of com
munity tensions,-^ black-white,
straight-gay, hip-straight,
English-speaking and * non-
English-speaking. The 70’s has
seen major CRC projects em
bodied in Atlanta's City Charter.
Town Hall meetings with city
department heads talking with
citizens on problems and
planning. An officeof consumer
affairs to tackle the myriad
problems of people buying and
selling. An ombudsman’s office
to aid citizens in their walk down
the yellow bride road of the Oz-
like bureacracy of government.
If the total city does not concern
you, let’s move to gay things.
Do you remember the paddy
wagon raids on Winn Park and
die old ChWk’s Rathskeller in
the late 60’s or the massive
idling and loitering crackdown of
last summer?
CRC was the mediator. Paddy
Wagon police raids do not occur
in Atlanta. Vice squad officers
do not sit in gay bars luring
would-be felony assaults. CRC
alone did not end these tactics
but noth in g else had a larger
voice.
Police in Atlanta now receive
training in dealing with gay
dtizens. CRC spent many
months working closely with the,
gay community and the police to
get the program instituted.
Continued on page 14.
Laconic Commands
LACONIC COMMANDS
[The imperative is the only real
form of communication.]
All in the Family
By Dr. Louie Crew
“Where do you queers come
from?” It must be the most
frequently asked question Gays
face when we have dialougc with
the non-Gays of our community.
“Is it (and how easily we are
reduced into its) inherited or
learned?’’ “Were you bom
fonny, or made funny by some
older Gays?” Or as an otherwise
responsible sociologist at my
college said to me recently,
” Louie, come on now, you know
little boys are turned into punks
because their punk undes or
punk fathers or punk cousins
sneak and fondle their genitals
when they are very small! Why I
have seen it happen!”
ATLANTA
LOBBY FUND NIGHT
MARCH 19TH
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:
( ) $12 Basic Membership
( ) $25 Contributing Member
( | $25 Sustaining Member
( ) $100 Supporting Member
( ) $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.
In all of this muddle of non
sense and sincerity the one most
obvious fact about Gay etiology
is always ignored: Gay people
come out of heterosexual unions.
If it were otherwise, Gay sex in
the last year along would have
had the world literally bulging at
the seams. My lover and I have
tried every conceivable solid
geometrical arrangement of
bodies and we neither show the
slightest sign of being pregnant.
Gay sex is the only birth control
surer than Ortho. Gays are
already members of the family,
members of all families, in fact,
if family is inclusive of first
cousins. Any statement that
maligns 20 million Gay
Americans also maligns our '40
million parents in their
heterosexual union. Now that’s
a big load of bad-mouthing!
Those lucky enough to have
been out of the closet early were
spared much of the open ex
pression of homophobia, par
ticularly in the forms of queer
jokes and the like. We who
passed indefinitely as nonGays,
so often had to pretend to be'
distracted or otherwise inat
tentive wh en our people were the
object of scorn. And when we
passed successfully, we got an
ear foil.
But what we got far more than I
realized when I was busy passing
was a false sense of our measure
as human beings-in the eyes of
our nonGay friends. 1 remember
the years in which nonGay
oouples were intrigued by my
Continued on page 14.
Getting It
By Gibson W. Higgins
People at large would be
amazed if they realized how
sexually free many gays are
these days. A mixture of moral
wrath and jealousy would ensue
if the truth came out, so to
speak. The ‘freedom’ is the
thing that retains many of us in
the lifestyle. A continuing ego
trip of someone new becomes a
way of life, and promiscuity
replace&permanence.
Even so, many have not yet
achieved this nirvana, and to
these this is Rightly directed.
There are lots of ways of getting
it on with another person. •‘Even
TEN COMMANDMENTS:
1. “CURE” YOURSELF!
2. GET INVOLVED!
3. GET OUT OF THE STREET!
4. COME IN! [To Gay
Businesses]
5. READ GAY WRITING!
6. TALK GAY RIGHTS!
7. COME OUT!
8. GIVE MONEY!
9. WRITE YOUR
REPRESENTATIVE!
10. REGISTER AND VOTE!
“CURE” YOURSELF!
Do something to change things
for yourself it’s the only therapy
that works. Just because the
psychiatrists and psychologists
say gays aren’t sick anymore,
doesn’t mean. that everyone is
automatically well. The damage
of guilt and oppression from
being gay can be overcome for
each one of us personally only as
we each act to cure ourselves, by
fighting to change society’s
attitudes and laws toward us.
We have to fight for our own
freedom, to claim that freedom!
and each be healed from his own
gay prejudice and guilt.
GET INVOLVED!
Go to as many gay
organizations as you can and
then join in where you feel most
comfortable. Everybody’s
different. If you don’t feel right
in any existing organization,
START YOUR OWN rather than
bitch about what others are
doing, (when you are doing
nothing.) We all need each
other, so don’t put down other
gay groups just because you
don’t like their style. They may
be working more for your rights
than you are yourself.
GET OUT OF THE STREET!
Don’t waste your time street
cruising. There’s double danger
from the vice-cops and the killer <
hustlers and it’s a very inef
ficient way to find sex, measured
in tricks per hour. There are too
many good gay business
establishments here now that
you can go to: the street scene
should be over for good. Once it
was the only place we could find
each other but we are no longer
outcastes. We can finally come
In and join the rest of society.
COME IN!
[To Gay Businesses]
Patronize gay businesses. Let
them know what you want and
they’ll try to give it to you; their
only business is your pleasure.
Call and come by those
businesses advertised in THE
BARB and find out what they can
do for you. Read what gay
literature they have at these gay
businesses (which is probably
what you are doing right now,
eh?)
READ GAY WRITING!
Subscribe to THE BARB and
any other gay periodical you like.
Educate yourself about the gay
movement. Read everything you
can get your hands on about gay
issues. Search the straight press
for gay articles; they can be
found with increasing frequency.
Read tearoom graffitti;
sometimes it is the-most tersely
poetic expression of what gay is.
But don’t just read gay rights.
TALK GAY RIGHTS!
Tell your friends what you have
read and learned about Gay
Rights. Try to get them involved
somewhere, wherever they feel
most comfortable. Talk to
straights (or hets, heterosexuals)
as well as gays if you feel you can
handle it. Finally,
COME OUT!
Come out as far as you can and
then try to come out even more.
First you must fully come out
yourself and deal honestly with
your own feelings about being
gay. Then come out to other
gays by letting them know you
have fully accepted yourself.
Coming out to straight friends
and family is the final and
hardest transition, do it at yout*
own risk, after carefully
weighing the advantages and
disadvantages of your own
personal situation. If you feel
you cannot come out completely,
GIVE MONEY!
Contribute to a“ gay
organization or fond. Often
those who can least afford to
come out publicly can best afford
to give money privately. Donate
to your own cause, out of
selfishness, not charity. It’s like
giving a gift to yourself, as
Phyllis Killer says. If every gay
person in America gave one
dollar for gay rights, we would
soon have our rights fully
guaranteed. But if you can’t
give much, you can always,
WRITE YOUR REPRESEN
TATIVE!
Write whatever representative
needs the pressure at the time.
Right now write your
Congresspersons and demand
they support the Gay Rights Bill.
Write Mayor Jackson and
Commissioner Eaves and praise
their recent support of gay rights
and gay police officers. If
enough citizens write and
demand action on an issue,
elected officials respond or they
are not re-elected. If you do
write and they don’t respond,
REGISTER AND VOTE!
Vote them out and vote in
those supportive of gay rights.
Seize power with the ballot. We
are America’s largest minority;
we are concentrated in the
largest cities and like the Blacks
ten years ago, our political power
is huge and unrealized. Boston
has elected an openly gay
person, Elaine Noble, to the
state legislature. Atlanta may
have the chance to do the same
this November. Voting only
takes a few hours at most, once a
year and it’s FREE; if every gay
person voted for candidates
supporting gay rights, we would
soon win.
Do any or all of these things.
They work. Try them and see for
yourself. You will be the one
who benefits, so act for your own
rights and your own freedom.
if you deviate into
heterosexuality, there are ways:
Lots of places and ways,
although most of them require a
fair amount of manuevering in
order to score. Dates, dinners,
bills, telephone calls, emotional
confrontations, frustrations,
inhibitions, all time-consuming
and tedious. Besides, what else
is thereto life besides sex?
Very few of those things ob
struct the practiced homosexual.
All of those commercial
establishments catering to gays
have only two purposes: the
owners expect to make money,
the patrons expect to make
contact. The rules of the game
depend on the type of business,
and experience soon teaches
which to choose for a given 1
purpose. Although not en
compassing the entire range of
human activity, the usual choices
are the four B!s: bars, baths,
bookstores, and bushes.
Although recurring patterns of
behavior are found in all of these
places, here is what to expect in
each. If you make eye contact
elsewhere, you’re strictly on
your own.
4 Excepting the bushes, all other
reliable places require at least a
modicum (a what??) of money.
The important • thing to
remember is that, as in other,
more legitimate competitive
Continued on page 14.