Newspaper Page Text
by Steve Warren
Washington, D.C. An
Affirmation ’76 rally which
brought nearly a thousand
gays and gay rights sup
porters to Lafayette Park, in
front of the White House, on
Aug. 15, was one of two
public demonstrations
during the Seventh Annual
General Conference of the
Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community
Churches, held in
Washington, D.C.
On the evening of Aug.
13, about 500 attended a
memorial service by the
reflecting pool in front of the
Lincoln Memorial. This was
followed by a candlelight
procession up the steps and
the laying of a wreath in
memory of “all persons who
have died in the struggle for
human liberation.’’
Two themes were evident
in the conference. The one
that was declared, “Proclaim
Liberation in the Land” (Lev.
25:10), was the basis for
sermons at a dozen worship
services. They approached
the topic from several
directions—historical, biblical
(Old and New Testament)
and contemporary; and in
styles that ranged from
evangelical to intellectual to
humorous.
An undeclared theme of
sensitivity to minorities
within the church provided
an interesting variety of
worship experiences, but had
an almost-crippling effect
during the business
meetings. Represented in
words and music were MCC
congregations in Australia,
New Zealand, Nigeria,
Canada, and the United
Kingdom, as well as
Spanish-speaking churches
in the U.S. A black liturgical
service was also conducted.
Rev. Troy D. Perry (R) with members of the Board of
Elders (L-R) Rev. Freda Smith, Carol S. Cure ton, John
H. Hose, Charles A rehart,James E. Sandmire
Women’s concerns were
much-discussed, including
work toward the de-sexing of
hymns and liturgies. Other
groups mentioned were
heterosexuals (a minority
group in most MCCs),
parents of gays, gay parents,
French-speaking Canadians,
Native Americans, tran
svestites, transsexuals,
alcoholics, prisoners, young
people and the handicapped.
All services and business
meetings were
simultaneously signed for
deaf persons in attendance.
Patricia Nell Warren,
author of The Front Runner
and The Fancy Dancer,
appeared at one service to
give “testimony’’-actually a
prepared sermonette in
which she discussed the
“God is dead” concept and
how MCC is leading the way
in refuting it.
She spoke of man’s lack
of dependence on God in
modern times: “God said,
‘Let there be light,’ and
there was the light of a
thousand suns—the atomic
bomb...Today, ‘miracles’ are
accomplished by detergents
and anti-bodies on
television.”
She referred to gays as
the “one group of people in
the history of Western
religion (that) has been
permanently disen
franchised,” but said that
God is working through MCC
to correct that.
Later, privately, Warren
expressed surprise to THE
BARB that, despite her gay-
themed novels, “People are
surprised to learn that I’m
not straight...I guess it’s
because I work for Reader’s
Digest!”
Asked about the film
version of The Front Runner,
she said the hold-up has
Continued on page 6.
Lt. Gov. Dymolly
Pledges Support
ACLU NEWS RELEASE
LOS ANGELES
Representatives of the Gay
Rights Chapter (GRC) of
Southern California’s
American Civil Liberties
Union met with Lt. Gov.
Mervyn Dymally on August
4th in the State Senate
Chamber; Dymally pledged
that he would cast the
deciding vote if legislation
outlawing police-initiated
sexual solicitation arrests
were deadlocked in the State
Senate. Last year the Lt.
Governor flew back to
California to cast the tie
breaking vote which enacted
California's Consenting
Adults Law.
Dymally, spoke to the
question during a day long
ACLU work session in which
approximately 75 in
dividuals, representing
chapters from all over
Southern California, lobbied
in Sacramento for ACLU
supported legislation. The
GRC participated in the
lobbying session at the
specific invitation of the
Southern California affiliate.
The affiliate extended the
invitation even though the
chapter is in the formative
stages as an
acknowledgement of ACLU’s
commitment to gay rights
and as a demonstration of
ACLU’s hope that this first
Gay Rights Chapter would
establish a precedent among
other affiliates across the
nation. Of the nearly 80
participants in the day-long
session, seven represented
the GRC directly, and a
number of others affiliated
with other chapters iden
tified themselves to GRC as
gay ACLU members.
“Gay men and women
have long been in the
forefront of ACLU ac
tivities,” said Dick Caudillo,
a member of the GRC
contingent, “but this new
chapter represents the first
time we are able to function 1
as a cohesive special interest
unit within ACLU. The
formation of this chapter can
do nothing but strengthen
the GAY COMMITMENT to
American civil liberties. ’ ’
Other highlights of the day
long convocation included:
Continued on page 14.
Atlanta
Gay Pride Week Spawns
New Group
by GH Robison
ATLANTA - A new voice is
being heard in Atlanta,
^Crying out for the rights of
gay people, a voice own of
thousands of years of op
pression from the state and
established religion, in
imprisonment and con
demnation, a voice that will
not be silenced until gay
people are free from the
mindless bonds of hatred
that have kept them from
enjoying all tne rights and
freedoms of citizenship and
the opportunity to develope
and grow as human beings.
Ibis voice is Gay Pride
Alliance.
Gay Pride Alliance was
formed from the Gay Pride
Week Planning Committee.
When confronted with
considerable opposition to
Mayor Jackson's proclaiming
Gay Pride Day from several
Atlanta area Baptist
ministers, and an anonymous
O of wealthy and in-
ial individuals calling
itself Citizens for a Decent
Atlanta, Gay Pride Week
Planning Committee felt a
very urgent need not to let
the news monthly
for southern gays SEPTEMBER 1976
NATIONAL NOTES
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Gay
parents should have less
trouble keeping custody of
their children in D.C. as a
result of the Nation’s first
law affecting gay custody
claims. The ordinance,
passed unanimously by the
District of Columbia city
council June 28, eliminates
sex discriminatory language
from sections of the district
legal code and states that
sexual orientation as well as
other factors “shall not be a
conclusive consideration” in
matters of custody and
visitation.
NEW YORK - The United
Federation of Teachers went
on record in Mid-July as
being opposed to
discriminating against gay
people in the teaching
profession. The National
Education Association and
the American Federation of
Teachers have also gone on
record in favor of an end to
discrimination Against Gay
Teachers.
NEW YORK - The American
Association of University
Professors (AAUP) adopted a
resolution June 26, adding
the words “sexual
preference” to its anti-
discrimination policy.
Colleges and Universities
that discriminate against gay
people are now liable for
censure by the AAUP, its
most stringent sanction. The
AAUP has 75,000 members
in 2,000 Colleges and
Universities.
MINN. - A new group calling
itself the Gay Air Line Pilots
Association filed a complaint
of discrimination on the basis
of affectional preference with
Minneapolis department of
Civil Rights against Nor
thwest Orient on March 26
and claims that the airline
“has an un-written policy,
rigidly enforced of not hiring
single males over age 26
because they have declared
such pilots either queer or
mentally unstable or both”.
NEW YORK - Republican
Presidential hopeful, Ronald
Reagan made his views on
gay rights abundantly dear
in an interview published in
the Julv 2. 1976 issue of
CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
Said Reagan about
California’s new consensual
sex law: “1 would have
vetoed it. I know that there
is quarrel here with many
tine people who have a
libertarian approach...but I
have always believed that the
body of man-made law must
be founded upon the highest
natural law. You can make
immorality legal, but you
cannot make it moral.”
BALTIMORE - The General
Assembly of the United
Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
refused to sanction the or
dination of homosexuals to
the ministry. The delegates
voted that the ministerial
oridnation of an avowed
practicing homosexual would
be “injudicious, if not im
proper.”
NEW YORK - A coalition of
Gay activists whose goal is to
help elect Jimmy Carter
president has been formed in
New York. Anyone in
terested in Gays for Carter
should contact the group at
347 Fifth Avenue, Suite 510,
New York 10001. The phone
contact is Robert Rygor at
(212)932-7312.
PORTLAND ME. - A
superior court judge here has
ruled that a lesbian can be
just as fit a mother as a
heterosexual woman. The
judge awarded Carol
Whitehead of North Berwick
unconditional custody of her
two children. His 13 page
decision said his main
consideration was “the best
interests and welfare of the
children.”
NEW YORK The
Democratic Party’s Women’s
Caucus and Youth Caucus
went on record in support of
gay rights at the Democratic
Party’s convention. The
women’s group unanimously
passed a resolution stating
mat “the attainment of civil
rights for lesbians and gay
men continues to be a
priority of the Democratic
Women’s Agenda”. The
Youth Caucus passed a
similar resolution. An at
tempt to get the Black
Caucus to issue a similar
statement was unsuccessful.
WASHINGTON D.C. -
Leonard P. Matlovich lost his
initial court effort to win
reinstatement in the Air
Force July 16, but convinced
U.S. District Court Judge
Gerhard Gesell that it is time
for the military to
"reassess” its ban on
homosexuals in the armed
forces. “The time has
arrived,” Gesell stated, for
the armed forces to
“reappraise the question
that homosexuality presents.
There has come to be
greater understanding ol
homosexuality in many parts
of society,” he said. “Public
attitudes are clearly
changing and state
legislatures have reflected
this change.”
TALLAHASSEE - A 25 year
old plainclothes vice squad
detective arrested G. Harold
Carswell, Richard Nixon’s
1970 nominee to the
Supreme Court, late in June
on charges of battery and an
attempt to commit an
“unnatural and lascivious
act.”
DALLAS - Retired Army
Major General Edwin A.
Walker, a one time right
wing voice was arrested on a
charge of public lewdness in
a Dallas park restroom. The
arresting officer charged that
the 68 year old Walker
fondled his genitals.
WASHINGTON D.C. - The
U.S. Department of Defense
is continuing its recent policy
of ruling favorably in cases
where upfront gay people
seek to retain their top-secret
security clearance. Allan
Rock, a San Francisco area
engineer, has permanently
been given full security
status in a ruling by D.D.
examiner Richard Farr.
these homophobic attacks go
unanswered.
Citizens for a Decent
Atlanta went to court four
times attempting to get an
injunction against the
mayor’s Gay Pride Day
Proclamation, and took out
3/4 page ads in the Atlanta
Journal/Constitution inviting
signatures on petitions
calling on the mayor to
“repent and rescind the
proclamation or to resign”.
The members of CD A
have never publicly
identified themselves.
According to their lawyer,
Edmund Burke, they feared
pressure from their friends
who were supporters of
Mayor Jackson, and feared
reprisals from the gay
community. Burke was
quoted as saying that the
businessmen in CDA were
afraid that rocks might be
thrown through the windows
of their businesses.(see box)
A recently incorporated
organization called Christian
Financial Concepts, Inc.
received and disbursed the
thousands of dollars raised in
CDA's behalf, since CDA
was not incorporated.
Christian Financial Concepts
was incorporated on May 1,
1976 in DeKalb County, “to
teach Biblical principles of
finance and money
management,” including,one
supposes, courses in driving
money changers from
temples and seminars on the
benefits of sinful usury.
Five individuals were
said by Attorney Burke to be
working with Citizens for a
Decent Atlanta, although not
members of it. Among them
are Jerry Nims, an optical
scientist from Dunwoody,
who has done much of the co
ordinating of CDA’s ac
tivities, and the Rev. John
Sharp, who is said to be a
black Presbyterian minister,
and if so, is the only black
person known to be actively
involved in CDA’s activities.
The Rev. William Self,
astor of Wieuca Road
aptist Church, is by far the
most vocal and vitriolic of
CDA’s cohorts. He is
president of the Southern
Baptist Convention's
Executive Committee, which
tore down the building that
formerly housed its
bookstore and put a money
losing parking lot in its place.
Dr. Selrs Executive
Committee was afraid that
tile building, which is oh
Peachtree Street in the Ivy-
Baker triangle, would be
used for pornographic
purposes if it were sold. Self
attacked the mayoral
S reclamation on “Today in
>eorgia”, a morning TV
show on which he is a weekly
guest, and urged his
congregation from nis pulpit
to sign the CDA petition
calling for the repeal of the
proclamation.
Continued on page 4.
ON THE COVER
Out of the closets and into the
hotels) The glitter and 1 glamour of the
Miss Gay Georgia Pageantfrom the stage
of the Sheraton Biltfn ore Hotel.
