OCTOBER 1976

PRISONERS

CONTINUED

FROM PAGE 3

GPU News

In June, Milwaukee's newspaper-magazine GPU News also appealed to Midwest regional director, James Henderson over similar censorship of its journal in regards to inmate, Calvin Keach. GPU News associate editor, Lee Rice, observed "the paradox appears to be that, while the federal government has relaxed its restrictions, the new policy allows greater latitutde to individual wardens in setting up guidelines. This, of course, introduces the possibility of denial of civil liberties through homophobia at local levels where, needless, to say, it is more difficult to deal with."

Like High Gear and GCN, GPU News is a non-sexist, news and culturally based publication. Both GPU News and High Gear indicated to regional directors Gary McCune (Southeast) and James Henderson (North Central) that they are nowhere near as graphic in their approach to sexuality as say,, Playboy which is permitted in all state prisons.

GPU News also printed two "recent statistical surveys commissioned by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons which indicate the vast majority of homosexual acts within prisons are performed by persons who are not homosexuals by inclination outside prison. Presumably, these persons will not be exposed to homophile literature in any case."

ACTION

In response to the escalating censorship of gay publications, the Gay Newspaper Association and other gay related periodicals throughout the nation have been asked to send letters of protest to the five Bureau of Prisons regional directors. Ohio gays especially are encouraged to voice their stands as taxpayers and as compatriots of gay prisoners who have been denied civil liberties granted their heterosexual counterparts.

The addresses of the regional directors follow. It is suggested a short statement be sent to one director with copies of the same letter to the remaining four: Gary McCune

Southeast Region, U.S. Bureau of Prisons

3500 Greenbriar Parkway, Atlanta, Georgia 30331

James D. Henderson

North Central Region

KCI Bank Bldg.

8800 Northwest 112th St. Kansas City, Mo. 64153

Gerald Farkas

Scott Plaza 2

Northeast Region, Industrial Highway, Philadelphia, Pa. 19113

1

Charles Hughes

South Central Region, 3883 Turtle Creek Blvd. Dallas, Texas 75219

Elwood O. Toft, Western Region 330 Primrose Rd. 5th Floor Burlingame, California 94010

The American Civil Liberties Union is taking an active interest in the situation as well. Ms. Nancy C. Crisman, Staff Attorney at the National Prison Project ACLU, 1346 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Suite 1031, Washington D.C. 20036 is handling the proceedings.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

"fat is where it's at," "incest is best," or "goompas are great" are jokes, we'd better be prepared to replace them with gallows-humor couplets like "walk and talk," "cruise and choose," "pick your trick" etc., as we are sent home without our statuary come-to-life.

Let's get our act together Gay America! If we want a lover "to have and to hold" let's not go to a bar on Saturday night or even to Severance Hall where our dream of a lifetime may be cruised from the box rows). Let's take in an evening of Rex Humbard!

Why do we suffer these indecencies? It is essentially because we are dominated by barbaric straight "norms." Straight people live in a mediocre chrome-ball and pink flamingo culture, punctuated by closeted relics from us. Wall them off! It is as Novalis said, "humanity is the eye of the universe reflecting upon itself," then we are the pupil of that eye.

Through our relatively uncluttered, collective adult life experience only we, as a group, are capable of presenting to the great heterosexual "valley of bones" a more complete and mellowed cosmology. Of course straights participate in serious culture but WE ALONE ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT CULTURE.

Straights exist for the sake of reproducing. We exist for the sake of existing. Our mode of living is "la vie pour la vie." It represents Wackenroder's great "aesthetic circumstance." No one knows the European Romantic secret but ourselves It is WE who have descended from Sinai with our faces glowing and THEY who have, in the meantime assembled that ridiculous golden calf.

Straights should be left standing in the rain in their high water double-knits. We have, by our definition, cut and baled Schopenaur's diabolical "Willie" and sent it to market as "straight bait." We ought either reject or subject society and only then say to the moment: "Abide, thou art so fair." Let's clear the temple! Only we are dressed for the occasion.

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