Page 2 HIGH GEAR

NEWS

Abzug ousted, O'Leary quits

Jean O'Leary, Co-Executive Director of the National Gay Task Force, has resigned from the National Advisory Committee on Women in protest of Presi-

dent Carter's dismissal of Bella Abzug as co-chair of the Committee. More than half of the members of the 40-member Committee, including Carmen Votaw, the other Co-Chair, resigned following Ms. Abzug's dismissal on January 12.

Ms. O'Leary, who has represented the National Gay Task Force on the Committee since last spring when she was invited to serve at the invitation of the President, joined Ms. Abzug at a press conference in New York on Sunday, January 14, to express her support for the former CoChair.

"We are shocked that a President who has given his strong support to women's issues such as the Equal Rights Amendment could have acted so callously in abruptly dismissing the Committee's very able and dedicated CoChair, Bella Abzug. Bella has

been an inspiration to the women's movement and one of its foremost leaders," Ms. O'Leary said.

O'Leary said later that she had taken the step of resignation as a supportive gesture to Ms. Abzug and an expression of solidarity with the women's groups repres-

ented by members of the Committee who also submitted their resignations.

O'Leary expressed confidence that NGTF's ongoing series of

meetings with federal agencies James Richards (foreground) gives some advice to his brother played and our dialogue with the Adminby Kelly Lawrence in the Cleveland Play House world premiere of istration on gay issues would Jonathan Bolt's THREADS at the Drury Theatre through MARCH 3. continue.

Gay progress, no backlash from Ohio Legislature

By George Painter

1978 was a productive year for the Gay rights movement in Ohio. Even though we didn't win on every issue, we made several advances in elections, court rulings and legilsation.

million cast. State Representative Virginia Aveni of Lyndhurst was upset in her bid for a third term. Mrs. Aveni had been very supportive during 1978. However, Sen. Tony Cleebrezze pulled off a big one in beating homophobic, Secretary of State Ted Brown, and pro-Gay Ohio

permits state employees to designate any person, rather than only the spouse, as the beneficiary of their state pension. Another bill permits people to go to probate court and have their will declared valid before their death, which will prevent the will from being challenged

Election night left us with mixed feelings. We suffered two Supreme Court Justice William after their death. This is of ob-

severe setbacks. Strong Gay right supporter Dick Celeste fall just 47,000 votes short of winning the Governorship out of 2.8

Britt gets job

On January 7, San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein announced that she had chosen a successor to slain gay city supervisor Harvey

Milk.

Chosen as the replacement supervisor for predominantly gay District 5 was gay political leader Harry Britt. Britt, whose name was one left on a tape recording by Milk suggesting four possible successors, expressed disagreement with the choice.

He insisted that the best choice for the office was Ann Kronenberg, a twenty-five year old lesbian who was Milk's top aide. He characterized himself as being the district's "third openly gay supervisor," explaining that between Milk, who was the first, and himself, was Kronenberg, since she was the favorite choice of many, including himself, to directly succeed Milk.

Feinstein said that she had passed over Kronenberg because of her youth. Britt is 40.

Britt said that he would probably be somewhat more subdued as an officeholder than Milk was, being accustomed himself to being primarily a "facilitator, a communicator." Britt has been president of the San Francisco Democratic Club,

now renamed the Harvey Milk Democratic Club.

Gear raps

Friday Night Rap Group 8:00 ? Your place to relax, rap and socialize. SCHEDULE OF TOPICS: February 9-What is 'G.E.A.R.? February 16-Coping with Loneliness February 23-Open rap, no topic picked March 2-Meet the President of G.E.A.R. March 9-Why are "they" afraid of "ue"? March 18-Open rap, suggest a topic

B. Brown was reelected in a landslide. State Senator Tony Hall of Dayton, who is also supportive, was elected to Congress.

Homophobic Columbus Board of Education member Virginia Prentice lost her race for the Ohio House of Representatives.

The courts also yielded Gay people in Ohio two victories. In October 1977 the U.S. District Court in Cleveland threw out Ohio's definition of obscentity, which includes a reference to "sexual deviates." In March of 1978 the First District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati struck down Ohio's law making offensive same-sex solicitation a crime, while not making offenssive other-sex solicitation a crime.

We made two discoveries in

vious benefit to Gay people with negative families. The third one is the domestic violence

remedies bill which includes all persons related by affinity who reside with or have resided with the offender.

tories of lesser nature. We sucThere were also some vicceeded in defeating a clearly anti-Gay section in one bill which was written by the Attorney General's office. Our opposition to bills dealing with child custody and requiring a course in "family living," in public schools helped bury them in committee. The juvenile justice bill which included provision to declare juveniles 'unruly" for engaging in sexual conduct with another juvenile never made it alive out of the Senate. However, we did have some disappointments as well. The teacher tenure bill which, among other things, would have protected Gay teachers from Governor Rhodes. Bills we supdiscrimination, was vetoed by ported dealing with outlawing lie detectors for employment purposes, revising Ohio's obscenity laws, permitting employees to review criminal records failed to pass the billsgislature, and will probably be

the law this year. One, in the Ohio Constitution, specifies that no law is subject to a referendum after 90 days from the day it is filed with the Secretary of State. The other permits people to go to their county probate court and have some person (such as a lover) declared their heir-at-law, or legal heir in the event of death without a will.

This year we lobbied the legislature for the first time, and walked away with some significant advances. Three

which became law are major victories for Gay rights. One bill

brought up again in 1979. Three bills we opposed also became

law. One established the joint filing for the state income tax for husband and wife only, and twɔ others dealing with liquor permits could be detrimental to Gay bars. One of them will give local governments the right to object to the transfer of liquor permits and one will give voters to right to shut down a particular establishment in a precinct, if that establishment is considered a nuisance to the area.

The best news, though, is that Ohio made it through 1977 and 1978 without a backlash against Gay people developing in the legislature. They had plenty of opportunity handling such issues as teacher tenure, obscenity, child pornography and child molesting. Each of these issues was handled professionally by the legislature, and in the cases of the teacher tenure and obscenity bills. would have benefitted Gay people.

We are looking forward to the 113th General Assembly in 1979 and 1980, where we hope to have even greater influence over the legislature. We have sent drafts of two bills we hope will be introduced for us, one deal-

ing with miscellaneous sex offenses and the other with professional licensing standards.

Cover photo

Giddy-up. Having just returned from the Cleveland Play

House, Marion Davies (top) and Bille Dove (bottom) entertain friends by doing a scene from Equus, Review In this lenye.