Recent Frisco riots may diminish gays' power

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population, turning it into one of the city's most significant political forces. Candidates openly court the gay vote here the way politicians angle for organized labor support in other cities.

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Election officials believe nearly 30% of all city voters are gay, and their turnout at the polls is rivaled only by that of senior citizens. In Milk's district in 1977, five of the 17 candidates for supervisor were avowed homosexuals.

There are gay political clubs, as well as gay churches and synagogues, gay community protection patrols, a gay dating service and a public school curriculum that has eliminated all discriminatory references to homosexuals.

San Francisco's public television station employs a reporter who provides gay-oriented news. And two years ago, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a daily soap opera column whose main characters were gay.

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Moscone, a Democratic state senator who had been one of the prime sponsors of legislation permitting homosexual acts between consenting adults, was strongly endorsed in his race for mayor in 1975, and later claimed that he could not have won without gay support.

Gay power here hit a new high in 1977 with the election of Milk as supervisor (city councilman). Both Milk and the mayor championed homosexual causes, often to the dismay of the Board of Supervisors' most outspoken conservative -Dan White.

Since the assassinations six months ago, homosexuals have charged that they have become the targets of increasing police harassment. Numerous gay leaders have criticized Mayor Dianne Feinstein for being less sympathetic to gay causes than was Moscone.

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Although Police Chief Charles Gain has publicly called homosexual officers to "come out of the closet," and the department is in the midst of an unprecendented hiring drive aimed at homosexuals, resentment of the police has increased.

Two months ago, several offduty policemen were involved in a brawl at a lesbian bar in the city. And reports of other policemen wearing "Free Dan White" T-shirts have outraged heavily gay neighborhoods.

In Monday night's battle with police, some demonstrators shouted "Kill Gain," and "Kill Dianne."

"The gay community has been pushed to the edge, harassed and mistreated," said Harry Britt, the

avowed homosexual whom Mrs. Feinstein appointed to fill out Milk's term. "Since, Harvey died,. every policeman we have seen has been Dan White to us. We are sick of the Dan Whites of this world and the violence they are allowed to perpetrate on us.”

Britt called the lenient verdice imposed on White, "white, heterosexual, establishment male. justice. It's not the kind of justice which would be dispensed to any minority group person.”

After the decision was announced, Mrs. Feinstein urged the state legislature to reexamine California's laws permitting a legal defense of "diminished capacity."

"Anyone who kills can be judged

to be mentally impared," she said.

Mrs. Feinstein also expressed hope that San Franciscans would not harbor animosity toward homosexuals as a group for the City Hall violence following the verdict. "We have enough polarization here as it is," she lamented.

A police spokesman said tensions in the gay community "would be watched carefully" in coming days, but "no special measures" would be instituted anywhere in the city.

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"We just hope all the anger has been vented, and no new anger has been stirred up against the gays,' he said. "We want to try to calm things down now. We can't let these assassinations drive this city crazy any longer."