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Dear Representative

I fully support the Civil Rights Act amendment introduced by Rep. Bella Abzug (D.N.Y.) and others on March 25, 1975, banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. PLEASE VOTE FOR IT, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

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Whither GAA?

BY LEON STEVENS

It has been nearly a year since Cleveland GAA abolished itself without public announcement or explanation. Over this period much folklore has evolved about GAA's demise among those who were not associated or familiar with it. Since much of the speculation has been discrediting, I feel obligated as a former member of GAA to dispel the prevailing intrigue.

Cleveland GAA became primarily a student organization on the campus of Case Western Reserve University which would nevertheless avail itself to It the gay community outside of the university. changed each semester as new officers were elected and new students joined to replace those who departed. Due to the transient nature of GAA's membership, it was difficult to construct and implement long-range projects which required the participation of the whole group. Exams and other academic demands also disrupted the continuity of ambitious, collective efforts. Our inability to realize larger socio-political visions continually dampened our optimism.

GAA was highly sensitive to criticism by gays outside the organization and struggled to be "all things to all people." This disposition proved disastrous. Radicals inside and outside of the organization asserted that it lacked sufficient political motivation, and socialites insisted that GAA was too political and threw no gala social functions. Idealists contended that the group had no sense of adventure while realists accused it of recklessness. Populists bewailed its "pompousness, and sophisticates lamented its "crudeness." Because it felt compelled to swing left or right with continued on Page 10

HIGH GEAR May, 1975 Page 3