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*.,«l Page 4 — The Barb! November, 1977 f Navy Recants, Gives Board Games From Gaymes Designed especially for gay nights at home with old friends or new tricks GREAT FOR GIFT GI VING WOODSHED a tough game for tough men and the players are the prize CRUISIN’ trickin’ on the town before losing every stitch PERSONAL ADS You’ve read ’em-Now act ’em out ORDER ANY OR ALL FOR YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ONLY $9.95 EAC H add $ 1.50 U. S. Postage outside U.S. add $3.00 SLNDCHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO Box 93562 Atlanta, GA 30318 Name Address City State -Zip WOODSHED ( Rl ISIS. PERSONAL ADS . ■ Delivery 4 io o wvvrs , Washington — A major, highly-publicized effort to challenge the U.S. Navy’s gay discharge policy ended in victory October 6 when former Radioman Third Class Robert A. Martin, Jr, received his fully Honorable Discharge certifi cate, five years after the service ousted ■ him with a General Discharge under anti-gay regulations. In 1971 and ’72 Martin, then stationed in Naples, Italy, "was defended by American Civ 1 Liberties Union staff attorney Thomas Culver in a nine-mon h in-service battle Which . drew national television cover; ge and . involved such polit cal notables as Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina and Representatives Bella Abzug and Edward Koch. Despile the heavy firepower, the defense team was unable to prevent the Navy from issuing a less-than- fully honorable discharge to Martin, who had founded the nation’s first gay student organization at Columbia University in 1966. According to Mart n, who is currently unemployed and living ia New Yo k City, he , applied for an Honorable. Discharge under President Carter’s special Vietnam-era discharge review program in April. On Septeir >.»er 22, a five- officer Navy Department review board oted unani mously to upgrade the discharge. Although the President’s m jll «i xl r - 5 prografti cX r ireci wciooer PROFESSIONAL VERSATILE FRIENDLY DISCREET Exceptional florida OC0 411 -nn allanla (404) S91-679S RESERVATIONS ENCOURAGED MAJOR CREDIT CARDS CHECKS- ACCEPTED ■■■■■■■■■I hJIl SSHOp' discharges may still be upgraded through regular channels. The Navy review board stated that “the discharge action was proper and equitable” but that, since the acts alleged were “off base, off duty” and with -consenting adults’’ an upgrading was- warranted “in compliance with the desire of the President that other than fully Honorable Discharges of the Vietnam Era be reviewed in the spirit of mercy and Compassion,” “If my service to the Navy and the country can now be characterized as Honorable,” Martin said, “then there is no rationale for the services to deny Honorably Discharges to men and women being discharged today for ‘homo sexual involvement.’ Ultimately of course, the whole discharge policy will have to be revoked. I hope that the Carter people in the White House will see to it that this is done soon, but I suspect Anita is on their minds.” Martin, who grew up in a Navy; family, said he was proud of his time; in the service. “What an Honorable Discharge means to me;” he said,“is that it is the nation’s way of saying that it is proud of me, a gay veteran, and by extension that it is proud of BOOKS — the millions, of gay vets and current servicemen. We’ve come a long way. And as we gear up for the chill winds blowing in from Miami, we can all take heart from one more demonstration that, sooner or later, we can and shall overcome.” Of the people who were involved in the Martin .case, one of the first major challenges to armed forces’ policy on homosexuality, several of his active supporters are now in positions of high influence. Koch, who intervened in the case although Martin was not one of his constituents, is expected to be New York’s next mayor-. And- Rufus Edmisten, then staff counsel to Ervin’s Con s t i tutio n a 1 Righ ts , Subcommittee, - is now Attorney-General of North Carolina. Martin, a native of Norfolk/ Virginia, went on to found and head the country’s first bisexual religious caucus," the Committee of Friends (Quakers) on Bisexuality, and is a nationally-recognized resource person on the question of prison rape, having been the victim of gang-rape while in pre-trial detention after a Quaker pray-in in Washington, DC in 1973. Last winter he fought and won, as defendant, a ■ major criminal case in North Carolina, in which homosex uality was an issue, again with the help of the ACLU. After his discharge he spent a year covering the Pentagon as a reporter, then returned to school. For three years ending this spring he- was a graduate student of Indian Buddhism at Columbia University in New York, holding ah appointment as a teaching assistant for the third year. “This was the first time I really took on the government,” Martin said as he looked back on the case. “It’s five years late, but we got what we wanted, and it sure feels good.” Chickenhawks—Do They 'Save Our Children?’ rOf Money pr Love, hv Rglsin Lloyd, Ballantine Books, New York — 1976. I thought For Money or Love would be the typical type of hysterical crap you usually find on the bookstands. I was interested particularly as how a public mind, incensed by Anita Bryant, might respond to Such a book. I was wrong. The book is honest. The author gives a humane portrait of the “chickenhawks,” pointing out that in many cases, they are the only care and attention these boys ever receive. Such cases are rare. Lloyd is appalled by what he calls the “mutilation of a child’s spirit” and for a large part, his book reads like a chart of casualties. The book stunned me, made me want to do something. A few days later, of course, I still do nothing, It is s« easy to doze off, to live iiie with blinders on. Mr.-Lloyd’s book then begins to sound like a man shouting at a wall of bricks. Does anyone even care about these kids. They are exploited by homophobes to create sensational arguments against gay civil rights. To most gay people they are something of a skeleton in the closet, sexually exciting and embarrassing. I believe the sexual love of men for men contains within it a concern that goes beyond sex. Almost spirituallyV we are p«y§ ana inert iroqbles. Some Christian gay people operate “outreach” programs - for hustlers, gay community services are surely open (where they exist at all.) Several gay activists are intended by Lloyd. One, Morris Kight, exasperatedly ' exclaims, ‘‘They (the police) don’t want ourJielp.” . A paradox: The myth of the “candyman” may be the biggest block to our advancement, yet our feelings, including the erotic, may well qualify, us to quoting the opposition — “save our. children.”. Are Ex-Gays Really Cured? Holier Than Thou Hocus Pocus and Homosexuality, by Dr. Ralph Blair. Usually I am not concerned with Biblical defenses .of homosexuality — and this little booklet escaped my attention The stoiy of a young, English footman who served the Lady Booby but loved the little Fanny. RIBESTHICTIP^ UNOC" w MCOUMCS * Now Showing at: AKERS KILL NORTHLAKE * LOWES TARA PERIMETER MALL for quite a while. I come from years of Family Devotions and thousands of choruses of “Just As I Am.” I have a festering guilt complex which makes it necessary to avoid the subject of Christianity. Period. Dr. Blair’s booklet covers the “ex-gay” movement, These ex gays have been making public appearances to denounce gay civil rights and to paint pictures of painless deliverance from all homosexual impulses and acts. They woo the disturbed and troubled with their claims t-o complete freedom. Th,e hypocrisy is most apparent in the ones who try to make the men who come to them for salvation. But what is contained in all such claims is a type of “double-think that boggles the mind. Ex-gays admit privately, and some even publicly, to strong temptations and sexual feelings for attractive men. But they are no longer gay, you see, it is only habit from all the years that they were gay. Some even have erotic dreams. But they are cured. Yawn. Yes, we’ve all heard that one before.