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DENIES GAY FIRING

Dr. Josette Escamilla Mondanaro has been fired by GoverInor Jerry Brown of California. Dr. Mondanaro alleged that the firing stems from the fact that she is a lesbian and she feels that as such she is a political liability to the Governor's reelection efforts. Governor Brown denies the charge. Mondanaro is the $43,000 a year director of the California Health Department's Division of Substance Abuse. The 32 year old doctor would have completed her probationary period the day after her dismissal.

Mondanaro has appealed the order. Testimony was taken from some of the state's top officials including Governor Brown at a recent administration hearing. The Governor testified that he ordered the dismissal because of the language in a letter Dr. Mondanaro wrote a friend. The letter was on state stationery with her name and title typed at the bottom, but was signed "Josette."

Dr. Mondanaro said that the letter was stolen from her files, that she never intended it to become public, that it was on state stationery by mistake and that she was dismissed because she is a lesbian and because she refused to go along with what she considered to be cronyism by the Governor's top appointees.

"It wasn't a consideration," the Governor said of Dr. Mondanaro's homosexuality. "What people do in the privacy of their own homes or what they do in their own minds, that's not a subject matter for government." "Absent this letter, Dr. Mondanaro would be working for the State of California," Governor Brown said. He also said that he and his administration might have been discredited by the letter unless he dismissed its author.

The letter was in response to one from Dr. Judianne Densen'Gerber, president of Odyssey Institute Inc. of New York City, an organization concerned with

AKBON

HIGH GEAR/FEBRUARY 1978

stopping child abuse. Dr. Densen-Gerber had written in "Behavior Today," a periodical, to support legislation to curb child pornography and she wrote to Dr. Mondanaro about her distress over criticism of some of her assertions in a letter to the editor from Larry Constantine, an instructor at Tufts University.

Dr. Mondanaro's advice to Dr. Densen-Gerber was earthy. "I would not grace his article with a rebuttal," it cautioned. "Why do these intellectual midgets attempt to cloud the issue by going to the gray zone when we are clearly talking about the extremes of sexuality?" She wrote. "Have they come too close to these feelings toward their own children ..."

The sentence that upset Governor Brown referred to sodomy and fellatio.

GAYS AND ALCOHOLISM

By JACK E. RYAN

I do not believe that this article will be of any help to those who WANT to drink and who can do so when they want to and as they should in any given set of circumstances. Rather would like to offer some help to those who NEED to drink to make it through life in general through their homosexual life in particular.

Further I do not believe there are any experts in the field of alcoholism or in the field of homosexuality. Authorities, knowledgeable people, yes. Experts, No. But I do believe that there are enough of us who have suffered with the illness of alcoholism and who either enjoy or suffer with being gay that Gray Davis, the Governor's together we might add to the chief assistant, said that he was fund of knowledge in both present when Mario Obledo, the fields. More especially we might Secretary of Health and Welfare, showed the letter to the Governor. He said that Mr. Brown decided within the hour to dismiss Dr. Mondanaro.

Mr. Davis said the Governor approved her hiring in October 1976 and was told that Dr. Mondanaro had pointedly declared at her employment interview that she was a lesbian.

The Chief administrator of the Department of Health, Raymond K. Procunier and Dr. Lackner, Dr. Mondanaro's direct supervisor, have described her as an excellent administrator. Mr. Procunier testified that Mr. Obledo and Mr. Mena had made "incredible" demands on her for various reports which he described as "make-work." *

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share with others our own experience, strength and hope with a view to helping those afflicted with alcholism to enjoy life more and perhaps to enjoy sex for the first time. In my work as an alcoholism counselor I have seen the pain and suffering that booze can cause, especially as it relates to loving others.

Some questions may be of value which you can ask yourself which may help you know and/or admit that' drinking is really a problem for you. Do you need a drink (or several) to release your inhibitions to look for or enjoy sex? Are you "straight" when sober and "gay" when drinking? (Or viceversa?) Is your gay life restricted to the kind found in bars? Do you drink more than usual when cruising or when out with your gay friends? On the other hand do you need more booze when you are socializing in the straight world? Does sex mean more or less to you after a few drinks? Does alcohol affect your potency? Has drinking interferred with your making friends, keeping friends, being loyal to friends? Do you have excessive fears relative to or following your drinking episodes? Have you ever forgotten where you were, what you did, or whom you were with after drinking?

ANITA SAYS CALIFORNIAS draught WAS CAUSED by God Cause of the

GAYS!

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Alcohol is a pefectly acceptable part of social life. But for about one out of ten of us, Americans it becomes a problem. We are addicts and our choice of chemicals is alcohol. Alcoholism complicates and even ruins the lives of about ten million Americans. It can be even more devastating to the homosexual.

There are probably many people who have both enhanced and wrecked personal encounters by trying to mix chemicals and love. Here we would like to restrict our discussion to the illness of alcoholism as it relates to the homosexual. Let us begin by accepting a working definition of alcoholism. It has been defined as an illness and pronounced so by the American Medical Association (1956). It is considered by most authorities to be a physical, mental and emotional illness. Here let us use as working definition: ALCOHOLISM: That illness by which the drinking of alcohol affects a person adversely in any area of his life.

For many alcoholics drinking began in the early or mid teens. it began as with others in the crowd of friends, but quickly became different. It became compulsive. Others stopped after a few drinks. The alcoholic didn't. The young alcoholic drank at inappropriate times. His drinking fogged his memory and his reason. From the stage in life' where normal people are beginning to establish interpersonal relationships, the alcoholic can't personally involved with anyone. At the age when other people are beginning to experience the joy, thrill, meaning of sex, the alcoholic is bungling through sexual encounters with both physical and emotional ineptitude. It may well be that a forty year old alcoholic has never had a sexual experience without being at least somewhat, if not severely, under the influence of alcohol. (Allow me to say here that much of what we say about alcohol will apply equally to the other mind. altering, mood-changing drugs.)

THEN HOW DOES She ACCOUNT FOR ALL THE FROZEN ORANGE GROVES IN FIOR/DA?

For many young men and women, the earliest sex experlences are accompanied by much guilt and remorse. These are two of the alcoholics prime sex emotional problems. The growth is therefore complicated in the alcoholic.While it took him several drinks to get up nerve enough to have sex the first few times, those same several drinks made the experience less than rewarding for both persons involved, perhaps caused the 'alcoholic to think of himself as sexually inadequate, impotent or even deviated. If the young man is homosexual and he first tries heterosexual activity, the failure can be misinterpreted and lead to terrible frustration. His reasoning, clouded by booze, guilt and remorse, may not function sufficiently to allow him to look to "the other" way.

On the other hand if he is heterosexual, he may well find comfort and release in sex with a male friend who happens to be homosexual. The alcoholic may then spend years acting out what he believes himself to be

while never getting the full rich satisfaction of a personal relationship. His homosexual life will lack something since he isn't really homosexual. And he may never find his way to the heterosexual relationships because of his fears and guilt.

For the relationship between two human beings to be really rewarding, whether it is sexual or not, there must be an open honest exchange. The "I" must be ready and willing to reveal himself totally to the "thou". Here two things interfere with the alcholics attempt to establish really meaningful relationships. First, he will not reveal the "" because he has a very low self-image. He says, "I'm afraid to tell you who I am because you might not like it and that's all I have." (John Powell, "Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am") His stunted emotional development

prohibits him from ever having a mature adult relationship Secondly, the alcholic is most often a liar and a con-artist. He has led since he was little and still does so even when there is no reason at all. And he has conned people all his life, using obsolutely genius type techniques to cover up his drinking, make excuses for his mistakes and poor performance socially and on the job. and to assure hie supply.

If you are an alcoholic or feel that you might have a drinking problem, you can talk with someone who will offer you help. Please call Alcoholic Anonymous at 241-7387 and ask to talk with someone from the OPEN DOOR.

836-3930