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Gay Peoples Chronicle

NATIONAL NEWS ..

NY GETS GAY RIGHTS

New York City finally obtained a gay rights law on March 22 when its City Coun cil approved Intro. 2. The 21 to 14 vote was an unexpectedly wide margin of victory

Welfare Committee Hearing

For the past 12 years, majority leader Tom Cuite, a close ally of the Catholic Archdiocese, kept gay rights bills bottled up in the Welfare Committee. His techniques included packing the Committee with anti-gays, letting homophobes testify at length, and encouraging vicious heckling and harassment of those testifying for the bills. His retirement cleared the way for the current human rights victory.

Democrat Samuel Horwitz, the new Committee Chairman, was on record as opposing the bill but promised to release it for a City Council. vote. In the end he voted for the measure, telling the New York Times that the opposition's behavior helped change his views.

Testimony during the Committee hearing was reported in detail by the Gay Community News and the New York Native.

As in past years, opposition testimony was often vicious and homophobic know-nothings in the audience behaved atrociously in spite of Horwitz's attempts to keep order.

Hasidim Disrupt Hearings

The entrance of Mayor Roch as first witness, was loudly booed by Hasidim, who have consistently provided the vocal backbone of the opposition. When Koch testified they turned their backs and tried to drown him out with boos and jeers until Horwitz threatened to remove them.

Several witnesses testifying for the bill responded directly to the Hasidim.

Lesbian Defeats Army

Miriam Ben-Shalom, discharged by the U.S. Army in 1976 after she described herself as a lesbian, won a court decision ordering the Army to reinstate her by March 1. The Army has won a stay while an Appeals Court decides whether to hear the

case.

Ben-Shalom told the Washington Blade, "If they think they can wear me down, they're terribly mistaken. I've been fighting this for 10 years, and I have nothing else to lose."

NUMBERS

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Director Joseph Papp reminded them of the gay men who died in Nazi death camps. Labor leader Victor Gotbaum, who spoke for the AFL-CIO made an obscene gesture them as he left the podium. When a heckler kept shouting "To the bedroom, Harvey Fierstein drew laughter and applause by responding, "You should be so lucky."

Clergy Against Gay Rights

Representing the New York Archdiocese and the Brooklyn Diocese, Brother Patrick Lochrane insisted the bill legally approved homosexual activity, something that is totally abhorrent to people of every religious persua-

sion."

Chairman Horwitz threatened to remove Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who in his testimony called Koch crooked and corrupt and demanded his resignation. Levin ran unsuccessfully for mayor in the last election.

Moral Majority member Heshie Freedman, who wore an isolation mask, was cut off by Council member Miriam Friendlander, who called his charges slanderous.

Clergy for Gay Rights

Several religious leaders strongly supported the bill. Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore called discrimination because of sexual orientation a cancer.

Rabbi Balfour Brickner, repeatedly interrupted by jeering Hasidim, said, "Long ago our rabbinical teachers decreed that the practice of homosexuality belongs to the category of those acts that 'are free from legal punishment by human agency.'" He suggested that God created homosexuals as "part of the

April 1986

BY: Casmir Kuczynski

gay rights "scandalous," describing him as obsessed with "homogenital activity" and of seriously perverting the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Cameron Denies Lying Homophobe Paul Cameron was roughly handled by Committee members who questioned him closely about his credentials and professional standing. Councilman Dryfoos asked him whether it was true that he is a habitual. liar. Cameron denied the charge. During his testimony Cameron accused writer Darrell Yates Rist of sexually assaulting him during the hearing. Apparently Rist had patted his buttocks.

Committee Approves Bill

A last-minute attempt to sabotage the bill was made by Councilwoman Susan Alter who tried to amend it to make it an approval of homosexual lifestyle. Horwitz refused her request, pointing out she was not a Committee member.

The Committee voted 5 to 1 to pass the bill on to City Council. The one opposing vote was cast by Noach Dear, whose constituency is Hasidic and who spearheaded the opposition.

Council Passes Bill Consideration of the billin Council was surprisingly quiet, although when Dear spoke 40 spectators rose to turn their backs to him, in silence.

Perhaps the most dramatic moment came when Democrat Wendell Foster, a minister with the United Church of Christ, explained why he was voting for the bill. The New York Times reported Foster

human mix as intended and Chrying must love my homo-

Sister Jeanine Grammish of the National Coalition of American Nuns called Cardinal O'Connor's stand against

sexual brothers and sisters, even though I don't understand them. They frighten me. They intimidate me. Yet I have to live with myself."

Homophobe Outdoes Herself

Mildred Ingram, Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, is at it again.

A year ago Ms. Ingram introduced a bill making it illegal for homosexuals to donate blood. Apparently unable to believe that lesbians transmit the HTLV-3 virus, the House voted it down.

Ingram's latest bill would have prohibited gay people's adopting children or becoming foster parents. Claiming it was necessary to protect the children," she made the excessively fatuous observa-

tion that "If homosexuals love children as much as they claim, they should abandon their unnatural way of life, marry some nice girl and have children of their own."

[Ms. Ingram seems incapable of learning that we gay people include women. Well, some lesbians have followed her prescription, in their way. We also wonder what "nice girl" would be ready to marry all the gay males in New Hampshire.]

The house rejected her bill by a vote of 205-145.

Terrigno Guilty

A federal jury found West Hollywood city council menber and former mayor Valerie Terrigno guilty of embezzling $7000. The charges involved Terrigno's running Crossroads Counseling, å gay-oriented social agency that received federal funds.

Although Terrigno's attorney argued that she was beng persecuted because she is

a lesbian, the jurors said her sexual orientation was irrelevant.

Washington Blade reports of Terrigno's trial suggest that the most damaging evidence presented were cancelled checks that had been altered. For instance, $570 Crossroads Counseling check with which Terrigno paid Macho, a men's clothing store, for purchases she and a friend made, was changed to "Machond Apts" before it was sent to the city.

The reports indicate that the case has split the Los Angeles area gay community. Some activists defend Terrigno as victim of a homophobic witch-hunt. Others insist this is not in any sense a gay issue and are angry about åttempts to make

it one.

Final Election

Postscript

Tim Mains, who ran as an openly gay candidate for the Rochester, N.Y. city council, was finally declared elected to the position in January, after à long court battle with the closest runner-up. Main's margin of victory was 11 votes.

In a recent interview, Mains told the Washington Blade that when he ran in the Democratic primary he saw no hope of winning and wanted to establish a precedent of openly gay people running for office in the city.