Equal Rights Bills Bloom

The gay drive for equality in the halls of state capitols as picked up steam, with legislation now introduced in even states and pending in at least four others.

Texas, Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin are Considering bills to legalize private consentual sex between adults; such a bill has passed the California Assembly (see story on page 3) and is headed for speedy action in Massachusetts.

Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York and California are taking up bills to outlaw discrimination gainst gay women and men, and Massachusetts was ikely to vote around March 31.

In addition, the drive continues in Washington to line up more sponsors for Abzug-Fraser bills to enact gay rights into federal law. The new authors are expected to be announced at a press conference the last week in March.

Here is a state-by-state roundup of the latest developments:

COLORADO

Five gay-rights bills have been introduced in Denver, including the nation's first proposal to guarantee the ights of gay parents to child custody.

Drafted by Gerald Gerash, a gay lawyer and activist in Denver, the child-custody bill was introduced Feb. 25 by State Rep. Charles DeMoulin, D-Denver, and sent to the Judiciary Committee.

State Rep. Jack McCroskey introduced bills on March 3 to protect gays' rights in employment and public accommodations, the same day that Wellington Webb introduced similar bills on housing and consumer

Contributing to this CONTACT news roundup were Joe Stewart, Gerald Gerash, Carl Griffin Jr., Linda Lachman, Casey van Guard, Neal Parker, Michael Christianson, Louise Rose and others

credit discrimination. The operauve phrase both Denver Democrats' bills is "affectional or sexual orientation," Gerash said, defined as "having or indicating an emotional or physical attachment to another consenting adult, or having or indicating a preference for such attachments."

McCroskey, a freshman elected in November with the help of heavy gay support, said hearings in the Business and Labor Committee may come as soon as early April. MASSACHUSETTS

Sympathetic chairman of the joint House-Senate Committees on Public Service and Commerce & Labor are quietly holding up bills to protect gay rights in state Civil Service and general employment, while gay activists undertake extensive lobbying to line up the votes in Boston.

Linda Lachman, an aide to State Rep. Elaine Noble, D-Boston, said the committee chairmen plan to send the bills to the House and Senate floors when the lobbying peaks, about April 1.

Meanwhile, a public hearing was heid Feb. 26 in the House-Senate Judiciary Committee on a sex-reform package that would repeal the state's laws against open and gross lewdness, lewd and lascivious acts, fornication and sodomy. "The committee is not tremendously friendly," Lachman said, however.

Sex reform passes in California

By Gerald Hansen

and George Mendenhall

WEST COAST CORRESPONDENTS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. The California

Assembly passed a bill to repeal the state's harsh laws against gay sex March 6 by a vote of 45 to

26.

It was the first time in American history that such a bill has been approved by a legislative body standing alone without being part of a reform of the entire criminal code, according to sex-law expert Walter E. Barnett, a law professor at the University of New Mexico who observed the session.

The bill now goes to the State Senate, where its fate is uncertain. Although the California Senate has never voted on the bill before, the body is known to be more conservative.

On the other hand, the chief sponsor there is State Sen. George Moscone, D-San Francisco, who is also the Senate speaker.

The bill was introduced by Assemblyman Willie Brown, D-San Francisco, who had introduced the bill in four previous years and only in 1972 and 1973 managed to get the bill to the Assembly floor, where it was rejected both times.

The bill repeals California's laws against oral copulation, for which the maximum penalty is 15 years in prison; against (rectal) sodomy, maximum life in prison, and adultery.

In the March 6 vote 33 Democrats and 7 Republicans voted for the bill, while 10 Democrats and 16

Republicans voted against it.

The debate lasted only 42 minutes, and only three assemblymen spoke against it – although Vincent · Thomas, D-San Pedro, asked hostile questions before he voted nay.

Assemblyman Robert H. Burke, R-Huntington Park, called the bill "a futher step to the degeneration and demoralization of society. We're passing on a death wish."

Alister McAlister, D-San Jose, voiced fears of "solicitation of 18-year-olds away from home and broke."

He argued that the bill – which would affect gay and non-gay sex equally — would somehow work against marriage. "Marriage is not strictly a private matter, but a social institution. If two homosexuals make a travesty of marriage, it is an attack on society," McAlister said.

Bruce Nestande, R-Anaheim, said homosexuality involves "unnatural human relations requiring medical treatment." He asked, "How are we going to integrate these newly sanctioned relationships into family life courses?"

Leading the defense were Assemblymen John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, and John Foran, D-San Francisco.

Vasconcellos called it hypocrisy for conservatives "who speak so much about individual freedom" to oppose such a bill. The issue, he said, raises a "most precious, significant and basic question. I don't think my body or my life belong to the state."

In an apparent reply to McAlister, he said, "If solicitation is worrisome, all you have to do is say no." Foran said the United States has one of the most backward sex codes in the world. France eliminated such laws in 1810 and Spain, Portugal and Italy embraced the Napoleonic Code shortly after, Foran said. Belgium repealed its law in 1867, the Netherlands in 1896.

Only Idaho, Missouri and Montana have penalties as severe as California's, Foran argued, as he pointed out the "harassment, police sweeps and discrimination" faced by gay people, who find such laws enforced only against them.

Michael Wornum, D-Madera, related sodomy enforcement to "blackmail, entrapment, invasion of privacy, state and thought police," while John Miller, D-Berkeley, contended that the law is "legitimizing only what goes on in 90 per cent of the bedrooms of the state."

A former deputy district attorney from Riverside County, Democrat Walter M. Ingalls, was among the others speaking in favor.

National News

CONNECTICUT

At least seven legislators on the House-Senate Human Rights and Opportunities Committee in Hartford have told gay lobbyists that they're willing to sponsor a gay-rights bill.

The Sexual Orientation Legislation Lobby has already won a promise from the state Women's Political Caucus to make gay rights a top legislative priority this year. Consentual sex has been legal in Connecticut since 1970.

ILLINOIS

State Reps. Aaron Jaffe and Susan Catania are willing to introduce gay-employment rights us in Springfield, according to Betty Planck and Clark House of the Chicago-based Alliance to End Repression's task force on gay rights.

Feminists are playing particular attention to Jaffe's Rape Study Commission report on revising Illinois' rape laws to permit victims to decline to testify about their prior sex lives, to drop requirements that outcries or physical assault be proven, and to include same-sex as well as opposite-sex assaults. Consentual sex has been legal in Illinois since 1981.

Meanwhile, Chicago activists were stunned to discover after the Feb. 25 aldermanic elections that there will be no more City Council meetings until the new Council is sworn in April 18. Aldermen who support the gay-rights package introduced in 1973 had promised prompt action by the lame-duck Council after once the elections. New sponsors and supporters are already being recruited, however. Mayor Richard J. Daley has yet to take a public position on the gay-rights bills.

MINNESOTA

As expected, gay-rights bills were introduced in both houses in St. Paul.

Senate Majority Leader Nicholas Coleman, a Democratic-Farmer-Laborite who represents the gay ghetto in St. Paul, introduced a discrimination bill based on "affectional or sexual preference" Feb. 24, four days after State Rep. John Tomlinson, DFL-St. Paul, offered an identical bill in the House. Each has the full complement of four co-sponsors, both DFLers and Republicans. No gay-rights bill was offered in 1973, but Coleman tacked on a "homosexual orientation" proposal as an author's amendment to another bill. A weak version passed the Senate by a single vote, only to be shot down in the House the last day. This year Sen. Allan Spear will be speaking for it as an open gay. State Rep. James Casserly, DFL-Minneapolis, recruited two Republicans and two DFLers to join him in introducing a sodomy repeal bill March 6. Two years ago a similar bill, offered by four Republicans and a DFLer, was defeated in the House, 69 to 46, and never voted on in the Senate. There is no Senate companion bill so far this year, but the lobbying by Spear's Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights is persisting. TEXAS

State Rep, Craig Washington, D-Houston, introduced a bill in Austin to repeal the $200 maximum fine for consentual sex between gays, but Neal Parker of the Texas Gay Task Force found surprising difficulty in finding co-sponsors.

Parker said an aide to State Rep. Wilhelmina Delco, D-Austin, reported Delco having reconsidered her willingness to join in support. And Ron Waters, D-Houston. who lavishly thanked gay campaign workers and donors for their enthusiastic support in his close primary victory last May, reportedly "needed a little more time" to decide, Parker said.

Meanwhile, Washington has scheduled a public hearing for the bill on April 1 before the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, which he heads.

NEW YORK

The New York State Coalition of Gay Organizations set up car pools for a state-wide lobbying day March 11, bringing gays to Albany to buttonhole their legislators in behalf of gay-rights and sodomy repeal bills. MICHIGAN

State Reps. Perry Bullard, D-Ann Arbor, and Lynn Jondahl, D-East Lansing, say they are willing to introduce gay-rights amendments as part of a complete rewriting of the Michigan human rights law. It was not clear in Lansing, however, when the package will be ready. A similar bill was introduced last session, but did not get a public hearing until late summer and was hever reported out of committee.

The Michigan Crime Commission has scheduled the first in a series of public forums for April 7 on a comprehensive revision of the entire criminal code, which will include legalizing same-gender sex. The revision passed the House in 1972 but was stalled in the Senate. The reforms got nowhere in 1973-74 when the Judiciary Committee chairmen who were the chief sponsors won mid-term elections to Congress Robert Vanderveen of Grand Rapids, who won President Ford's old seat, and J. Bob Traxler of Bay City. PENNSYLVANIA

Gay activists have hopes, but so far no bills have materialized in Harrisburg despite encouraging support from Gov. Milton Shapp. More typical was the response of liberal State Rep. Norman Berson, D-Philadelphia, who told a Lesbian lobbyist March 14, "You know you've got a hot potato there." Berson said he'll consider co-sponsoring an anti-discrimination bill if someone else introduces it first.

National News, and feature articles reprinted by permission of CONTACT, Houston. Local news and editorials are written by The HIGH GEAR Staff. HIGH GEAR is not copyrighted. However, all reprints from HIGH GEAR, that have been reprinted from CONTACT, Houston, require written permission from CONTACT, Houston.