Page 2 HIGH GEAR

Union Square area...before the march.

3 major March themes

Three major themes dominated the rally at the end of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay People on Sunday October 14--the assassination of gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, gay people being everywhere, and the 1980's as the decade of gay rights.

The rally was emceed by comic Robin Tyler and March Transportation Office coordinator Ray Hill.

Hill said to the crowd, "Let's tell Harvey that we're here," and repeatedly referred to Milk's murder last November.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), told the crowd that the last time she had addressed a gay rights rally Milk was with her on the platform. Holly Near sang a song about Milk's assassination. (Other entertainers at the rally included Meg Christian, Tom Robinson, Blackberri, and Gotham.)

Charles Law, a gay activist from Houston, told the crowd not to settle for as little progress in the decade following Milk's assassination as there was progress for black people in the decade following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Gays being everywhere was illuminated by speakers representing several different groups.

Included as speakers were parents of gays, black gays, Native American gays, Latin American gays, deaf gays, and speakers in behalf of gay youth.

"We are no longer secondclass citizens," emcee Ray Hill told the crowd. "We are declaring our freedom this day and celebrating it."

"As we move into the next decade," said Betty Santoro, a member of Lesbian Feminist Liberation, "we move with the energy and force of a united people."

Said Arlie Scott, vice president of NOW, "Listen, America, we're going to force you to live up to your rhetoric... You are going to have to deal with us in the 1980's."

Said feminist writer Charlotte Bunch to the crowd, "Indeed the 1980's is our decade."

Fourth theme

In addition to the three main themes of the National March that emerged at the rally in front of the Washington Monument on October 14, there has emerged since then a fourth theme of the March: Gays need gay publications to find out what's happening that concerns them.

There was practically no mention of the March ahead of time in the "straight news media across

the United States despite the fact that plans for the March were announced over a year before it took place.

Coverage of the March afterwards was at best perfunctory. daily newspapers for Monday In checking several dozen October 15, one could find only a handful that carried a story about the March on the front page--or even mentioned it on the front

page at all.

100,000 at march

Including in the total figure the Police Department gave a fig thousands who arrived too late of 75,000. Its estimate for the march and attended only arrived at by timing how long the rally in front of the Washingmarch lasted and noting ton Monument, the National, many people passed by in a March on Washington on Suntain number of minutes. 1 day October 14 had over 100,000 estimated was double chec participants. by taking a "grid section" of rally after 2:30 p.m. when march was over.

The final estimate by the National March Media Committee of the total attendance is 120,000.

The rally started at 2 p.m. "At a quarter to twelve," said Eric Rofes, a member of the National March Media Committee, "there were only about 60,000 at the mall. But that was before forty buses from Baltimore had arrived--and thirty more from New York. At that point we told the media, 'There are 50,000 people here and more coming.' By the time the march got to the end of the route we had counted more than 90,000."

The media committee's crowd estimate was the work of three persons--one person stationed at the top of the Washington Monument and two persons at 17th Street at Constitution Avenue counting the marchers as they reached the rally site.

The District of Columbia

Using the same methods as District of Columbia Police, U.S. Park Service arrived a crowd estimate of 25,000.

This estimate contains a mi incongruity. The Park Sen 'said that its preliminary estim of the crowd size at the n matched their 3 p.m. estim made from a helicopter.

A number of marchers h pointed out that the two figu could not match each other a be accurate since there were s eral thousand additional peo at the rally who arrived too lat be in the march.

A number of gays, both m and female, have angrily accus the "straight" press of using smallest crowd estimates it co get away with in order to do play the significance of 1 March.

Methodists refuse Clark, receive sex report

PHILADEPHIA (UMC)--The The task force report o Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries ended its fall meeting here Oct. 15 after accepting a report from an eight-member task force on human sexuality. At the same time the division refused to rehire avowed lesbian Joan Clark, field staff member fired last April.

ing. 12 in favor and one The vote was 49 against rehir-

abstention.

human sexuality said the churc "must concern itself with th reality of human sexuality in all c its aspects." Enumerated wer the needs of single persons, th nuclear family, the aging and th handicapped, sex stereotypin which results in inferior status fo women, sexual orientation and homosexual, the meaning o including heterosexual, bisexua sexuality and the fear of sexualit including homophobia, as wel as the theological and biblica issues "which would enlighten a of the above."

"Nowhere in the church's con

A move to institute a nondiscriminatory hiring policy with regard to sexual orientation was was said to give the church's delayed until the fall of 1980. This legislative body, the General sideration of human sexuality i Conference, a chance to set an there more confusion, embar employment policy for the whole rassment and even self-hatre church when it meets in April evident than in the currentl (Cont'd on page 19)

1980.

Rallying on the Mall