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HIGH GEAR

From Milwaukee's GPU News: Professor B.R. Berg, an authority on colonial history, says that the swashbuckling, pirates of the 18th century who terrorized the Caribbean were virtually all gay. Berg claims the romantic image of buccaneers carrying off struggling women from pillaged ships is erroneous. He says the pirates were far more likely to carry off young boys. According to Berg, there were few women in the West Indies and because pirates were mostly at sea, they developed a tight-knit homosexual community. Berg admits his findings are based on a "situational analysis." As he says, "They had to do something."

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Odds and Ends

Also from the Sentinel: The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a New Jersey court order which instructed a divorced husband to pay his former wife alimony. This in itself is not unusual until one discovers that the former wife is a transsexual...

For Prisoners: The Gay Legal Encounter and Exchange (GLEE) is a legal exchange formed to provide free legal assistance to all gay prisoners incarcerated in Federal and State facilities. Available Iservices include research, assistance with preparation of suits, filing class action suits, and in some cases, nonappointed court representation. For more information write: Jerry Dighera, P.O. Box 2, Lansing, Ka. 66043....

Quotable Quote "God forbid we could ever be 20 years without a rebellion." Thomas Jeffer-

son....

GPU News reports that Allen: Tegtmeier and Christine Mole have come up with a Dirty Old Man Doll just in time for Xmas., Described as an exhibitionist, "Uncle Sherman, the original flasher" comes in a variety of outfits which open with ease, exposing the dolls plastic organ....... No doubt inspired by Grandpa Larkins of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman....

For those of you interested in still purchasing the LP Jade and Sasparilla (which received rave reviews in last month's High Gear), it can now be secured locally through the Olivia Records outlet. Call (216) 321-7026 London's Gay News notes for more information.... that vacationers considering The National Center for Iceland may now contact an Ice-Disease Control reports a new, land gay group which extends strain of penicillin-resistant hospitality to gay travellers. gonorrhea has spread to eleven Those interested may contact states (Ohio is not one of them) Iceland Hospitality P.O. Box and has been identified in sev4166, 124 Reykajavik 4, eral foreign countries. Worried Iceland...... health officials fear the new strain will pose a threat to gonorrhea control efforts and increase the cost of treatment....

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GCN reports lesbian author Rita Mae Brown who has written Rubyfruit Jungle and In Her Day has received an Artists Fellowship from the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundations. The grant for $3,000 is one of five grants in the area of fiction for 1976 made by the non-profit state-funded organization.....

San Francisco's Sentinel reports the military junta which overthrew Argentine President Isabel Peron has been arresting gay people in bars and at private parties. Accounts smuggled in from Argentine gay liberationists indicate 200 gay men and lesbians are being arrested every day in what appears to be a massive crackdown on homosexuals. Those arrested are forced to sign confessions 'admitting' their homosexual activities. If the same person is Ebony, "the black world arrested a third time s/he is magazine," featured an article in automatically imprisoned for its November issue which has three weeks without a trial....... gay activists throughout the

country enraged. Written by Winston E. Moore, Executive Director of the Cook County IIIinois Dept. of Corrections, the piece reads in part: "People wonder what becomes of rapists, arsonists, armed robbers, etc., once they go to prison. It's simple. Most of them become homosexuals. As a result, the majority (some 60 per cent) of prisoners in the nation's penal institutions are latent or overt homosexuals. I am speaking here of the hard core criminals....It may come as a surprise to many to learn that the number one cause of murder in prison is not gambling, as one often reads, but homosexual involvement. This is because practicing homosexuals are basically promiscuous...frequently leading to love triangles and jealousies that end in violence and murder."....Moore goes on to argue that many people involved in corrections work are homosexual "with sadistic and otherwise perverted inclinations." Only by keeping "them" off the staff can "we" begin to end the "Sodoms and Gommorahs" of our prisons."

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The Gay Military Counselor's Manual, a new referencemanual produced by the San Diego Gay Center for SocialServices is now available for a "donation" of $9.00 by writing GCSS, 2250 "B" Street, San Diego, CA. 92102. The volume includes both legal information. and practical advice for emotional survival under difficult circumstances. A survey of servicepersons' rights in general is also presented.....

Students at the University of Delaware have been bedding down with their teachers to get that "A." In a report in CWRU's Observer, the president of U.D. claims there has been 30 to 40 instances of "sexual harassment" which has occurred in the past year. Speaking before the faculty senate at the school, President E.A. Trabant said that these incidents have happened between "man and woman," woman and man, man and man and woman and woman." Most of these cases came to the school's attention through letters or phone calls from. parents... An investigation is planne

Tiny Tim has filed a $15 million suit against Hugh Hefner, Oui, and Playboy Publications, Inc., according to Gay Scene. Tim said Oui hinted that his

sexual practices were "unnatur-' al." In an interview with Tim's estranged wife in the October 1975 issue, Miss Vicki said that after they were married, "nothing happened to us sexually for the first six months. Women didn't really turn him on.... I could tell his heart wasn't in! it..."

DECEMBER 1976

SOUTHERN

OHIO

CHURCH

A study of University of FAILS TO

Chicago psychologist Dr. Salvatore R. Maddi indicates that the main difference between nuns and other women is that the religious have greater sexual conflict and guilt feelings about their sexual urges... Among the men, the major difference was that priests had more conflicts over power and the submission to authority than did laymen. These conclusions were reached from results of administered personality tests of 435 women and 349 men. Maddi speculates the reason fewer people are interested in becoming priests and nuns is that "Life for the religious now offers too much freedom for those with personality conflicts."

Newswest reports notoriously anti-gay L.A. police chief Edward Davis is giving "serious thought" to a race for the California governorship in 1978. At a recent appearance, Davis charged Governor Jerry Brown, who signed a bill repealing the California sodomy statues into law, with permissive attitudes toward sex, drugs and crime....

London's Gay News relates that Italian gays held a mass. rally in Rome early in November to mark the first anniversary of the murder of gay film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini was murdered by a young man in the nearby town of Ostia. The youth claimed that the famous film director made sexual advances to him. When FUORI attempted to march to Ostia, Italian police refused to let them

The New York Times reports former congresswoman Bella Abzug, a vocal supporter of gay and women's issues, is seriously being considered for a "top post" in the Carter administration....

Gay Community News reports a New Jersey Court of Appeals has ordered high school teacher John Gish, who has been involved with the Gay Activists Alliance of New Jersey, to take a psychiatric examination. Gish had appealed a Paramus school board order to that effect to the court which ruled the Board of Education "does not question the right of Gish to say or do" anything in regard to gay rights. "It simply contends that, as it has determined with the supportive corroboration of two. psychiatrists, Gish's actions display evidence of deviation from normal mental health which may affect his ability to teach, discipline and associate with the students." Gish's gay activism was cited by the Board of Education in their demand that he take a mental test, Gish's attorney plans to appeal the decision to the State Supreme Court ...

BAR GAYS

COLUMBUS -The Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio failed to pass a resolution opposing the ordination of homosexuals. The Convention meeting in Columbus on November 19 20 voted to table the motion which was presented by the Church of the Advent in Cincinnati. The argument for tabling this issue was that the General Convention of the Protestant Church Episcopal appointed a commission which will study the issue and report back to the next General Convention which will be held in 1979.

"for

has

gay

Also at the announced Diocesan Convention was the formation of a chapter of INTEGRITY, a national organization Episcopalians and their friends." Mr. Jay Friend of Columbus has been designated Convenor of the chapter and Chairperson of the Steering Committee. The Rev. Tom Timmons, Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in London, Ohio, is the new group's Chaplain. Other members of the Steering Committee are Mr. & Mrs. Worley Rodhaver and The Rev. Wayland Melton, all of Cincinnati.

According to Friend the chapter will operate on a Diocesan rather than a local basis. Eventually, there will be an Integrity Chaplain in each of the major cities of the Diocese of Southern Ohio.

The Rt. Rev. John M. Krumm, Bishop of Southern Ohio, has agreed to meet with representatives of the new group soon after the first of the year. The Rev. Ronald Wesner, National President of INTEGRITY, hopes to be able to come to Southern Ohio to be present at that meeting. Persons desiring more information about INTEGRITY and its plans in the Diocese of Southern, Ohio, should write to: Jay Friend, 630 East Town Street, No. 305, Columbus, Ohio 43215.

SCA