THE BRIGGS CLIMATE AND US

How many times have we all heard, "Northeastern Ohio is a Bible-belt, comprised of communities ready to condemn, hang, and repress gays wherever and whenever possible?" And what is our response to this silent, and sometimes verbal, assault on our very nature and existence? Do we quietly slink along hoping no one will notice us, and then are we surprised when voters in Wichita, Eugene, Dade County, Seattle, and California don't understand or know us? This is not a call to arms, brothers and sisters, but a plea for committment to education.

Remember in high school the book covers with the torch and the slogan, "Knowledge is power." If knowledge is power, then education is a sword. A sword has two edges, just as our community generates both good and bad news. Unfortunately the non-gay press will always seize opportunities to print the spectacular, and that fact alone makes our job doubly difficult.

Think of NE Ohio as an empty jar, no preconceived bias or prejudice against us, our task is simple fill the jar with the clear, clean water of truth. Educate the public to who we are, what we do, why we are, and how our contribution to society is unique and of value. But, alas, we aren't starting with an empty jar, we have a jar full of mud and some of it is caked on the sides so think again of how much water will be needed to do the job. The entire country is in the same predicament, we have a massive educational program to carry out and few extensive resources.

Then John Briggs comes along and galvanizes the attention of the nation and we are tested again. Can gay people and their friends really mobilize to fight oppression? We can! At MCC-Akron on Oct. 8, the Sunday we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the founding of our denomination, we raised over $1,000 to fight Proposition 6 (Briggs amendment) just from the people present. People in

this area do care and do act

when the facts are made known and opportunity comes.

Let's now allow ourselves to go back to sleep though when Nov. 7 is over. Let's continue the educational commitment right here. Last month I had a meeting with the Mayor of Akron, John Ballard, he had never before given an appointment to a spokesperson from the gay community. Basically he never felt the need to view us as a viable con-

stituency within the city of Akron. I'm sure many of the mayors of surrouding communities feel the same way. We must let them know we are here.

On the other side of the educational battlefield is a different singular event a Luther Leaguge Conference in Canal Fulton for 500 high school-aged youth and their adult sponsors. The Rev. A. Umbertino, coPastor of MCC-Akron, will be conducting two workshops on

HIGH GEAR 5

gays and the church for this conference. Only a few years ago she would never have been asked to attend.

So think about what you can do with the sword we have to strike a blow for education your friends, your family, your councilperson, need to know that you exist!

FROM A DIFFERENT PEW--

By Donald Cameron Scot

a

On a Sunday morning 21 years ago, my mind wandering from the usual fare of "hellfire and damnation" thundering from the pulpit, I looked over congregation sitting in smug piety murmuring "Amen" at every opportunity, and I thought: "Yes, and I know you on Monday morning, too." With that, I got up and left.

I was only 16 then, but I knew that I wanted no part of a "religion" that carries with it the hatred to be found among Baptists and other fundalmentalists. I was reared a Southern Baptist, a member of the First Baptist Church from the time I was a toddler, twice baptized in that church, and two-up on Anita Bryant I had read the Bible through twice before I was 16; she hasn't read it once, yet.

I know where "Christian charity" stops; I know where it has never been; and I want no part of it or them. If the likes of Batema, Angwin, and Bryant

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cannot find an issue such as gays on which to predicate sermons of hatred, they will turn that inherent negativism on their own congregations. Masochistically, those congregations lap it up, amening" their way through a Sunday morning of mental flagellation that satisfies their egos or libidos, or both. Never much of a masochist, I've spent the last two decades trying to keep their claws out of my throat.

Thanks to the Founding Father of this country in having First Amendment into the Conhad the foresight to write the church-state as fundamentalists stitution to prevent just such a want to establish, that battle had been prety much a personal one. Now, going for total control, the fundamentalists make no bones about their goals: to do away with the Constitution and establish the Bible their interpretation as law. On a KQED Special Report, September 20, 1978, in response to a question which should govern, the Bible by reporter Randy Shilts as to or the Constitution, John Briggs unhesitatingly answered 'the Bible' his version, of course.

I am not a teacher. In that sense, Proposition 6 would not affect my life one way Or

NEW

another. But Proposition 6 is not now, nor has it ever been, an issue of "gay schoolteachers." Not even its proponents are able to keep up that sham. Rather, in that same KQED Special Report, only once in 15 minutes did the word "schoolteacher" crop up. The rest of that time did no more than provide a forum for Briggs, Batema, and Ruegsegger to propound their collective stupidity about gays.

And I am sick and tired of listening to their collective stupidity. I am from there. Despite that Baptist upbringing, I still am gay, and I became aware of it during the time I was a member of the Baptist church. I had no gay teachers. i made no "choice" to be gay, I don't give a damn what Anita Bryant says. I did not leave the church to become gay; I left the church because I am gay and there is no place for gays in that pit of "Christian charity." Proposition 6 is no more than a facade behind which John Briggs hopes to ride to "folk herodom," and with which its proponents are trying to extend their stupidity beyond their church and into the state.

difficult to understand the mentality at work projecting their own "recruiting" efforts off onto others. Recruitment is the name of the game, and it would be difficult to count the number of . sermons I have sat through as congregations were ordered to give more and more money to got missionaries off to somewhere or another before someone else got there. For the fundamentalists, "recruiting" is a way of life, and it is inconceivable to them that there is anyone out there not trying to "recruit." Failing "recruitment," they are just as content to impose their beliefs and lifestyles on others, and it is not surprising that they have picked gays as their first target:

Anita Bryant's

Despite Playboy "Interview" claim of heavenly orgasms,' you will hear a lot among that group about "original sin." For the uninitiated, "original sin" is not when Eve disobyed God's command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. "Original sin" is, rather, S-E-X. From that, "conceived in sin," and "missionary position" are but logical spinoffs. To them, sex is dirty, something you do in the dark, Though we hear a lot about get it over with quickly, and gays' efforts to "recruit" others, pretend that it never happened. in reality, the reverse is true. I Hopefully, it won't happen was not (nor was anyone that I again, but if it does, go back to know) "recruited" into being 'dirty' and start over. If anyone gay; I was "recruited" into the ever invents a way to avoid 'conBaptist Church at a very early 'ceiving in sin,' you can bet that age. Having been an inside bunch will be the first to storm member of that group, it is not (Continued on Page 6)

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