Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Archbishop Opens Church fioiGays Atlanta - Catholic Arch bishop Donellon has agreed to allow Dignity/Atlanta to use ch urch facilities. Dignity’s short lived banishment from use of church facilities ended amicably. The Archbishop dso formally appropriated Father Joe Cavdlo and Henry Gracz as chaplains to Dignity/Atlanta. Dignity President Frank Scheuren toid members that “this permission to meet cannot be taken as kind of official backing for the group but is a giant step in the right direction.” Scheuren also an nounced that Dignity/Atlanta would host the next Eastern Regional meeting of Dignity and would co-host a seminar by Father John McNeill S.J. with MCC/Atlanta. •Metropolitan Community Church and Dignity of Atlanta co-sponsored the three-day seminar on homosexuality and Christian ethics on September 17-19.. The seminar was conducted by Fr. John McNeill, S.J., the renowned Roman Chtholic moral theologian and author of the newly- teleased book, The Church and the Homosexual. Told by the Superior General of the Jesuits in 1974 to stop writing and lecturing on the subject until his teachings could be hvestigated, McNeill was finally allowed to publish Ws' book, which he hopes will help overcome “the myths, stereotypes and prejudices” that exist among Christians toward homosexuality. Since Father McNeill’s first articles on tomosexuality appeared in 1970, his work has been the center of intense and not only the questions raised by that controversy, but provides the results of years, of research on the position and role of the homosexual in the structure and ethics of the Christian community. Buttressed by the latest psychological research and an encompassing grasp of ethics, this work creates a new, compassionate view of the homosexual and his relationship to God, Church aid fellow humans. Father McNeill's is a compelling |iea for the acceptance of the news monthly for southern gays OCTOBER 1976 NATIONAL NOTES Hither John McNeill, S.J. at Dignity/Atlanta spon sored reception for Atlanta Media Reporters. widespread controversy. The publication of THE CHURCH AND THE HOMOSEXUAL answers TV’s Family Hour Excludes Atlanta - Despite gay characters in two proposed fall TV shows, Television’s controversial ‘‘Family Mewing” hour still excludes any mention of gay people or lesbians. Ginny Vida, NGTF(National Gay Task Fbrce) Media Director told the U. S. House of Representatives Sub committee on Com munications, that “American families;...and American children; have the right to know that we (gay) people exist.” In a NGTF news release Ms. Vida noted that the equaling of homosexuality with sex and violence on TV stems in part from BEueboy Forum Makes Debut what is not an aberration of human behavior, but merely one portion in the spectrum of humanness. Gay people are the only group in America which emerged from total media invisibility into total media abuse. Until recently, on television, there definitely were no lesbians. And then the big breakthrough came. There were lesbians and it wasn’t a joke. We were permitted to make our television debuts as the brutal rapists of pitiable young girls, as the hear tless killers of dear, sweet ladies in an old-folks home. No wonder, that parents think we’re violent, con- adering the stuff they’ve been served up in“adult” we wing hours. The truth is that pic tures of two homosexuals - two women or two men - Continued on Page 7 NEW YORK - In response to repeated attacks on homosexual men in New York City by gangs of local jouths, a group of gay men has formed the Society to Mike America Safe for Homosexuals - SMASH. The head of the group said that the police and other gay groups have failed to take action against the gangs and the group was formed “solely as self protection.” SAN FRANCISCO - Fr. Malcolm Boyd, Episcopal priest and best-selling author of Are You Running With Me, Jesus and other books, identified himself as a gay person as he gave the keynote address at Integrity’s second national convention. Integrity is the gay Episcopalian organization. COLUMBIA, MO. - A federal judge has ruled that the University of ^Missouri at Columbia has the right to withhold official recognition from the campus gay group* The judge ruled that the Ihiversity of Missouri Gay Liberation organization would bring about “association that is likely to incite, promote and result in acts contrart and in \iolation to the sodomy statute of the state of Mssouri.” NEW YORK - A Jesuit priest, who says he waited two years before obtaining permission from his superiors, has published a book critical of traditional Catholic teachings on homosexuality. j Tne new book is “The Church and the Homosexual”, by the Rev. John J. McNeill, S.J. Father McNeill who admits to being a celibate homosexual disputes church teaching that homosexuality is a deviation from God’s Ginny Vida, Director NGTF Media creative plan and therefore sinful. NEW JERSEY - The Judiciary Committee of the State Assembly released a revised state penal code which would decriminalize private sexual acts between consenting-persons over the age of sixteen. The bill must pass both the Assembly and the Senate, be signed by the Governor and wait a year before becoming effective. Meanwhile, a New Jersey judge has ruled in the state’s supreme court that a private consensual act of fellatio committed in a parked vehicle at a highway rest area does not violate the public lewdness statute as the persons involved aren’t likely to be seen. CALIFORNIA - S. I, Hay aka wa, the Republican hying to unseat incumbent U.S. Senator John Tunney (D-CA) made his position clear on gay rights. A woman at a meeting of Republican women asked Hayakawa asked how he felt about laws dealing with public morality. “I am deeply, deeply prejudiced against homosexuality,” Hayakawa said. Sen. TUnney has said that he supports gay rights. NORFOLK, VA. - The Navy’s chief of naval personnel says it recently tried to give an “objective” bok at having gay sailors, but only reaffirmed its lance that the seas are for heterosexuals. The Navy’s personnel chief said here that the service could not be effective with gay personnel. “We feel very strongly about it,” he said. MICHIGAN - Rape, ex tortion, personal abuse and homicides resulting from romantic triangles are pastimes that are rarely attributed to the Mtropolitan Community Church, but the Michigan Corrections Commission said that such fates would befall inmates of Southern Michigan Prison if the NCC were allowed to hold services there. The MCC may take the corrections commission to court if they continue to refuse the church a right to worship there. UIS ANGELES - A UCLA study, published in HUMAN BEHAVIOR magazine has concluded that young children of lesbian mothers do not develop the “deviant traits” that judges have been warned about in recent court battles that have often been settled by depriving lesbian mothers cf custody. The study is the first of its kind and one that could give defenders of lesbian mothers some solid psychological evidence in court battles. The researchers based their findings on interviews and tests conducted on twenty Los Angeles area children, iged five to twelve, all of whom have lesbian mothers. NEW YORK - Psychology Today has concluded that homosexual men and women are no more happy or unhappy than straight men and women. A poll of over 50,000 readers of the magazine resulted in that conclusion according to the editors of the leading magazine on psychology. HEAVENWORTH, KS. - 20 to 25 members of the National Coalition of Gay Activists demonstrated at the US Federal Penitentiary here to protest the refusal cf prison officials to allow inmates to receive gay publications, despite the removal of restrictions on such mailings by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. violent portrayals of gays in “adult” viewing hours. SOUTHERN SHORTS Miami: The first regularly scnectuied, commercially sponsored television show in the United States, prepared by and for members of the gay (Dmmunity, makes its debut October 25 on WKID-TV, Channel 51 (UHF) in Miami. It will be entitled “Blueboy Forum” and its host will be Don Embinder, publisher of the nationally distributed gay magazine, Bheboy. Brian Weidikind is the producer. Although Blueboy magazine is directed sexclusively to gay men, Blueboy Forum will also be drected to, and involve participation by, the lesbian community in Miami. It is intended as well to inform members of the heterosexual community about gay concerns and lifestyles. The show will feature invited guests from around foe country, and Embinder has already begun efforts to syndicate the show nationally. There are presently 29 weekly gay radio shows in 14 states, but none on television., Tentatively, the first four Blueboy Forum shows will involve local political figures in the Miami area discussing Florida gay rights efforts; represen tatives of .the major presidential candidates outlining their stands on gay issues; an interview with three female im personators at the Fon tainebleau in Miami; and a talk with a gay graphologist. Each half- n>ur program wall also have Continued on Page 7 WASHINGTON, D.C. - The District of Columbia Office cf Human Rights has ruled that American University foiled to hire Dr, Louis Crew, gay activist and founder of Integrity, because of “his sex and sexual orientation.” Dr. Crew who lives in Fort Valley, Ga. had applied for the position of Com munications Professor at the school. American Ihiversity had claimed it hired a woman instead of Qew “to be in compliance with its affirmative action obligations.” However the director of the Human Rghts Office rejected that line of argument and stated that “the affirmative action plan seems to have been conveniently brought into play when the University was faced with accepting or not accepting Crew as the top choice of the faculty committees.” CREENVILLE, S.C. * Dr Bob Jones IH, president of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University, says Democratic presidential candidate Jimmv Carter is an imposter who j represents himself as a true Christian. “We have a presidential candidate who seieks to ride the gospel train into the white house be deceiving gullible Christians with his talk about being born again,” Jones said. “All the while he speaks with a forked tongue,! receives large sums of money from the dope ridden rock culture and replaces the Bftde’s teaching against homosexuality and women’s Lib with his own contrary opinions.” Carter has ©me out for civil rights for homosexuals and for passage of the ERA. TALLAHASSEE, FLA. - A grand jury in Tallahassee has recommended that restrooms like file one at which former i Supreme Court nominee G. Harold Carswell was entrapped recently be dosed down. After Carswell wits arrested as a result of meeting an Undercover vic£ squad officer at the Northwood Mall, the comfort station received a large amount of publicity. The list straw came when the Leon Gbunty grand jury made an on-site inspection of the restroom and concluded that such incidents of bathroom cruising “indicate potential harm to the public health, sanitation, safety, and morals of the dtizens cf Leon County.”, ATLANTA GA. j- A minor eruption has taken {dace at the Jimmy j Carter headquarters in Atlanta and in tne New York gay political movement. The eruption is over Robert Rygor’s group, Gays for Chrter. The Chairman of the New York Citizens Gbmmittee for Jimmy Carter believes file group, as a fund raising entity to be illegal, because of the new federal election law which prohibits any private ©ntributions to a presidential campaigner. Gays for Carter will con tinue its efforts to elect Garter a spokesman has said. JACKSONVILLE, FLA. - The city’s police chief, bemoaning the fact that this city of 500,000 has only 950 police officers, has called upon dtizens to help cut police trying to stem the tide of homosexual activity “spilling out into the streets and public {laces of our city to create a festering sore of corruption and crime.” Sheriff Carson didn’t suggest what citizens should do to help out. ON Tiff COVER Lady Baronessa, Miss Gay America 1974 gives the lithe and crown ef Mr. Gay America to Richard Conway. SEE PAGE 4 AND 10 for a fall report on this exciting event.