August 1980 HIGH GEAR Page 7
Is Mottl helping Anderson?
By R. Woodward Running unopposed this autumn and basking in the realization that he cannot hurt himself in the 1980 election, Congressman Ron Mottl seems to have given little thought to how much he can hurt anybody else. He may be damaging the Democrats in this November's presidential election by inadvertently giving the campaign of independent candidate John Anderson one of its biggest boosts in Northern Ohio.
Motti by becoming a co-
sponsor of HR 166. that semiliterate anti-gay bill in the House of Representatives, has angered many of his constituents to the point where they would have voted for anyone else at all other than him if he were not running unopposed.
On the gay rights issue Mottl is directly opposed by Anderson.
On April 21 Anderson, who is a Congressman for Illinois. announced that he had become
the 55th co-sponsor of HR 2074, the pro-gay civil rights bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Ted Weiss, a democrat from New York, and Representative Henry Waxman, à Democrat from California.
HR 2074 and its companion bill in the Senate would add "affectional or sexual-preference" to existing civil rights laws that ban discrimination in employment, housing, public services, or "federally assisted opportunities."
Said Anderson's prepared statement handed out to reporters during the first Congressional briefings on the bill on April 21, "If freedom under our Constitution is to have a real meaning, this legislation is a natural extension of one's civil rights."
HR 166, the anti-gay bill, was introduced last July by Congressman Larry McDonald, a Democrat from Georgia, under the sponsorship of the Christian
Voting in Ohio
Qualifications
You are qualified to vote in the State of Ohio if you are a citizen of the United States, if you are at least 18 years old on the date of the election, if you have been a resident of the State of Ohio for at least 30 days before the election, and if you have been registered to vote at least 30 days before the election.
Except for members of the military and their spouses, everybody must be registered to vote. How to register
Registering to vote in the State of Ohio is not difficult. There are a number of different ways to register.
You can register in person at the office of the Board of Elections, at branch registration offices or locations established by the Board, or at the office of a motor vehicle deputy registrar when you apply for a driver's license or State of Ohio identification card.
. There are several different ways to register by mail. You can get registration forms by writing to ask for them, by telephoning to ask that they be sent to you, by picking them up in person, or by
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having someone pick them up for you. After completing the forms, you may return them to the board by mail.
You can also register by completing registration forms obtained from any individual who may distribute registration forms. The completed forms may be returned to the Board by mail. in person, or by having somebody deliver them for you.
You may also return registra tion forms to the individual you got them from. This person will give you a receipt and deliver them to the Board for you.
Registration forms must be received by the Board by the date registration closes to be valid for that election.
You do not have to declare your politics when you register.
Re-registering
If you are already registered you do not have to re-register unless you have failed to vote in any election for four years in a
row.
You must notify the Board of Elections if you change your place of residence from one pre-
what
she wants
Voice, an anti-gay fundamentalist lobby--primarily to serve as a rallying point for efforts to block the pro-gay bill.
HR 166 was referred to the Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional and Civil Rights, the chairman of which, Representative Don Edward, a Democrat from California, is a co-
Mottl is co-sponsoring are circulating among West Side gays at the same time.
tions on the Democratic Party in general this November by voting for Anderson. The Republicans, Unable to vote against Mottl, a who might have benefited in this particular Democrat, a large election from a large bloc of one number of West Side gays might issue voters, might very well end very well take out their frustraup being completely ignored.
sponsor of the pro-gay bill. Oppression as challenge
Unlikely.to go any place in the near future, HR 166 exists primarily to get publicity for its supporters.
Ron Mottl is one of the few co-
sponsors that it has managed to pick up..
Anderson appears to be doing all he can to let gays know what his position is. He was interviewed; for example, for a cover story in the May 15 issue of the Advocate, a nationally distrib. uted gay publication widely subscribed to by Cleveland gays.
News of what Anderson is cosponsoring and news of what
cinct to another within a county or move from one county to another, or if you change your
name.
Notice of a change of address must be received by the Board of Elections before the registration deadline to be valid for that election. If you move from one precinct to another after registration closes, or from one county to another. you may return to the polling place in the precinct where you were properly registered and vote in that election.
If you move within your precinct, you may complete a change of residence notice at your polling place on election day.
How you vote
Each voter casts his or her ballot at the polling place designated to serve the precinct in which he or she lives. If you do not know where this polling place is, you can call or write to your county Board of Elections to find out.
When you go to vote you first sign your name and address on a poll list. Your signature on the (Continued on Page 11)
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By ERIC KOTILA
The United States appears to be experiencing a resurgence of conservatism. As groups of born-again, homosexuality-condemning Christians grows dramatically in size and organized influence, as the Equal Rights Amendment seems assured of failure, as funding for abortion and abortion in general precariously continue, as the Ku Klux Klan experiences renewed media exposure and growth, as economic and political instability strike the quick of our personal insecurities, let the gay community be thankful! Let us welcome our own oppression.
Throughout history, oppression has resulted in one of two possible Inquisition or Stalin's purges of Soviet Russia): or revolt by that group outcomes: extermination of the oppressed group (as in the Spanish (as in the American and French Revolutions). Eleven years ago, the gay movement was born of police oppression in Greenwich Village: we experienced a resurgence of interest, strength, and direction with the widely publicized oppression by Anita Bryant, her followers and her clones.
The repression that seems imminent will be hard, long, and personally taxing. Depending on its severity, some or many of us will succumb to self-hatred, fear, neurosis and even suicide. Of course, even if one gay person reacts in such a manner, we will grieve for his personal tragedy because it is a tragedy most of us have ourselves intensely experienced. It is the death of parts of ourselves, our humanity murdered by the cruel hands of an inhumane society.
But the tragedies we remember or those that we see anew can also instill resolve into the gay community. Just as past oppression served as fuel for the beginnings of our liberation, renewed oppression shall again propel us toward an even greater freedom. Our present complacency will be shattered by the hurt of renewed injustices committed against us. We will ache for our wounded brothers and sisters, for we know that an assault on them is only a hairs breadth away from an assault on us. Our grief will remind us to be strong, our hurt will deflect into anger, and our fear will become fearlessness.
Too many oppressed peoples in this country, of which the gay community is but one, have tasted freedom. That taste has only made Our hunger more acute; satisfaction is still beyond the horizon. There are too many of us to succumb to oppression.
Renewed oppression will emblazon in our minds our most fundamental choice: the choice between life and death. We, the gay comimunity, shall choose life. We will smash though out closets and stand proud, tall and strong. The pink through our Hitler's concentration camps will be branded on our minds so that no gay man or woman is ever so branded again. Never shall we look to death as an escape, but only to life as a resplendent victory. We shall affirm our existence. We shall affirm ourselves in the midst of our oppression. We shall meet the challenge. We can never be stopped.
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