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Boston's Gay Community Carol News reports that Whitehead, a lesbian from Portland, Maine, has won unconditional custody of her two children in what may be a precedent setting decision involving gay parents. Danny F. Block, Whitehead's former husband had challenged her custody because she is a lesbian. Maine Superior. Court Justice Harry P. Glassman made the decision. Whitehead's case was handled by the only all women lawyer's firm in Portland. Copies of the landmark 13 page decision may be obtained for $2.00 from the Maine Gay Task Force, Box 4542, Portland, Maine 04112.....

From The Body Politic: The papal crown on a statue of Pope Alexander VII atop St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican has been struck by lightning. A lightning rod mounted on the cupola of the cathedral completely shattered the crown, sending splinters flying as far as 600 feet...In January Pope Paul VI issued statement reaffirming the sinfulness of homosexuality. Paul spent part of March denying that he himself had a male lover while he Archbishop of was

Milan...Asked The Body Politic; Can this be a confusing sign from on high?.....

GPU News reports faith healer Ruth Carter Stapleton, sister of Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter, said in a California television program recently that she has "cured numerous ailments, including homosexuality."......

HIGH GEAR

ODDS AND ENDS

homosexuals; but in the meantime they have "the right" to establish standards of behavior. Matlovich, 32, a Vietnam veteran with 12 years service said he would appeal Gesell's ruling....

Quotable Quotes: From a Village Voice interview: Paul Lynde: "Gay people killed Judy Garland, but they're not going to kill me.".....?

Verry interesting note from The Advocate. According to Donald Bain's new book, The Control of Candy Jones there's more to President Gerald Ford's past than meets the eye. Says Bain, "With a matching investment of $500.00 from a young male model who was also his roommate, Gerald currently the President of the United States and Harry Conover, formed the nation's most prestigious modeling agencies...Four chapters later, Bain reveals "Harry Conover was bisexual."...

Ford,

same

Rhonda of Chicago's Gay Life reports that Arthur Bell in his Village Voice column asked Bette Davis why she thinks she has so many gay fans. She indicated it was due to approval of her work and said, "Gay people are the most ardent admirers of any group of people in the world."....In the column Bell claims that the press agent of one lesbian comedienne stopped her from revealing her gayness in Advocate interview, for fear that her sponsers would cut off support to her TV specials. Said Rhonda, "I guess that settles the question of Edith Ann's sexual preference, doesn't it?"....

San.I Francisco's Gay Crusader reports that the U.S. Labor Party (National Caucus of Labor Committees) has launched an intensive campaign against homosexuality, particularly in Boston where another communist person who is gay and a member of SWP (Socialist Worker's Party), Terry. Knapp was recently both verbally and physical attacked as "an agent of the CIA and FBI. The Crusader says "-Fag-baiting' by the U.S. Labor Party groups in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco has become monplace."

com-

U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell upheld the discharge of Ann Landers continues her Sgt. Leonard Matlovich from the irrational attacks on gay people. Air Force because he is an Recently a reader wrote and acknowleged homosexual. informed Ms. Landers that the Gesell said he thought the American Psychiatric Assoarmed services should reciation removed homosexuality examine their attitudes toward from its list of mental disorders.

Her response as it appeared in the Press: "Many psychiatrists refused to accept the decision. I do not believe homosexuality is 'just another lifestyle.' I believe these people suffer from severe personality disorders. Granted some are sicker than others, but sick they are, and all the fancy rhetoric by the American Psychiatric Association will not change it.".... Welcome back to the 19th century, Ann.....

According to a report made at an international endocrinology congress in Hamburg, West Germany there is evidence that Spring time is not sex time as the poets have lead us to believe. Apparently, a man's hormone level is at its highest in late fall and in winter. People may feel stimulated sexually in the spring but a Belgian authority claims that is a psychological matter, not a matter of hormones or sexual strength.....

Like father, like son.... In a Rolling Stone interview it was reported that Jack Ford, son of President Gerald was asked about his views on homosexuality on a Los Angeles TV show. Said Jack, after "a stunned pause," "Uhmm... my views on that are something I haven't given much thought to, quite frankly. I think I try to respect everyone's point of view or difference of opinion. I don't have any strong feelings either way, quite frankly. I'm not in a position to give it much thought, quite frank....to be quite honest..."...

The National Gay Task Force reports that at the recent Democratic Convention gay rights resolutions were passed by the Women's Caucus and the Youth Caucus. A Gay Rights Support Caucus was formed within the party for the first time in its history, as close to 600 convention delegates signed an NGTF petition of support for gay rights issues.....These accomplishments are, indeed, significant.....

mail are SO great that a congressman would have to be crazy to do something like this."

A coalition of gay activists whose goal is to help elect former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter as President has been formed in New York. In a press release the group defended Carter strategists' decision to eliminate gay rights in this year's Democratic platform plank. Said the statement, "Jimmy Carter is running for President, not for martyr. The platform is the party's tool for winning elections, not a statement of Carter's position personally or politically on every issue." Anyone interested in Gays for Carter should contact the group at 347 Fifth Avenue, Suite 510, New York 10001.....

Bicentennial Thought from Loretta Lotman..... "If you mix red, white, and blue, you get lavender!"

Flashes from the Democratic Convention....Did you know that "macho" New York Bell telephone installers balked at placing phones in the National Gay Task Force district offices because they were afraid of being seen....that Cleveland press representatives at the convention were approached by a man claiming to be the Gay Activist Alliance nominee for President in 1980. He told area reporters that he would run on a budgeted economy plank as both President and First Lady...that lesbian delegate Jean O'Leary, co-board director of NGTF is a native Clevelander and a former nun.

Ms. O'Leary's parents, in fact, still reside in a Northeast Ohio suburb....

Director-choreographer Ron Field ("Applause," "Cabaret") who is currently helping Liza Minelli with her dance steps in "New York, New York," will disclose he is gay in an upcoming interview with The Advocate. Field says, "My homosexuality is a very big part of my life in terms of who I am and where I am and what brought me here."....

West Virginia and lowa became respectively the 16th and 17th state which have repealed laws criminalizing sexual behavior between consenting adults in private. Other states which now have no restrictions on consensual sex acts are Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington. The 17 liberated states represent one third of the states in the Union and one third of the nation's population...... As usual, no straight press coverage was given to West Virginia and lowa's sodomy-repeal actions......

Washington D.C.;s The Blade administered a spot survey of male congressional staff workers to see if they are subjected to sexual pressures by congressmen bosses. Capitol Another Barrier falls!....Elisha Hill aide Coleen Gardner had Marsh, a Pan Alto, CA elecsaid they were; but the respontronics technician has become dents in the survey contacted by the first open gay to be granted Blade reporter Lou Romano ina security clearance by the dicated they have neither perDefensé Department. According sonally experienced nor heard to Gay Life Marsh had pleaded of such incidents. Said one guilty to a charge of "lewd source: "The chances for black-conduct" following an incident.

AUGUST 1976

in 1971. The federal government did not want to grant the clearance because of the possibility of blackmail and called Marsh "unreliable" and "untrustworthy." However his former wife and his lover, a psychology professor, both testified to his fine character. The defense department examiner sided with Marsh......

A recent ruling by the Secretary of the Navy states that discharge for gay servicepeople is not mandatory. Discharge, according to the new Navy policy, should be decided on a case-tocase basis...

After the Los Angeles Gay Pride march,the right-wing New Hampshire Manchester Union Leader editorialized: "Only a sick society would render tribute to a sickness." "Burp"

.....

According to UPI, the XXI Olympic Games ended with "the soul-pleasing strains of gay music, spirited folk dancing and electrifying light.". Now that's gay culture...... SEVENDAYS, a news weekly alternative to Time and Newsweek, reports that the presence of a gay deputy in the Italian parliament a first for Europe may become a reality within the next two years. The Radical Party (Partito Radicale), a small party which takes a strong stand on gay and women's issues and which won four seats in the recent June parliamentary elections, plans to replace its four deputies by others within two years. One of the replacements "will probably include the head of the Unitary Revolutionary Front of Italian Homosexuals."FUORI has long had a close association with the Radical Party......

....

What Bobby Gentry never told us in "Ode to Billy Joe:" Why did Billy Joe jump? Because he made it with another man and was impotent with Bobbie Lee thereafter.....Jeez.....

The Chicago Gay Life reports the Catholic Press Association has awarded its 1976 Journalism Award for the Best Article of the Year (originating in a magazine) to Brian McNaught, columnist for Detroit's gay newspaper, Metro Gay News. The award was for his story "Sad Dilemma for the Gay Catholic" which appeared in the August 1975 issue of U.S. Catholic. McNaught wrote the article after he had been dismissed as a staff writer for the Michigan Catholic, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Detroit. His dismissal followed his coming out as a homosexual in an article with the Detroit News.... McNaught views the award as a "bittersweet" victory for himself and all gay people......

In Carter's Closet: A Gay Nephew.... Boston's Gay Community News reports that Democratic Presidential nominee Jimmy Carter's nephew, imprisoned for two armed robberies, has revealed a prison relationship with a gay lover and has claimed that the family has disowned him. William Carter Spann, son of Gloria Spann, Carter's sister, charged that as the former Georgia governor closed in on the Democratic pre