High Gear, Page 5

Letters To The Editor

As one of the "interested parties" referred to, HIGH GEAR received a copy of the following letter. It refers to something going on in California that we thought HIGH GEAR readers might be interested in hearing about.

More than that, it has some interesting things to say regarding qualifications for state commission appointments in California.. Although it has no bearing on the state of Ohio at present, it might in the future.

Peter R. Chacon California Assembly State Capito!

Sacramento, California Dear Sir:

We are informed that as chairman of the newly organized Select Search and Screening Council of State Commission Appointments you are "particularly interested in seeking

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members of the Gay community to consider' for appointments to commissions, boards, and committees." And it is reported that at least one member of the council has been "charged with identifying applicants from the Gay and Lesbian Community" for your sponsorship.

We would like to check the accuracy of our information, and--at the risk of seeming to be spoil sports on the off-chance you are actually engaged in such an undertaking--to urge you to reconsider.

The question we would like to ask is why you would want to inquire into the private sexual practices of candidates as a condition of sponsorship? No matter how well motivated you may be, an attempt to screen prospective appointees by sexual labels for situations where sexuality is irrelevant is to do the exact opposite of what you should

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be doing in the interest of getting sex out of public life and back into the bedroom where it belongs. The goal should be to stop treating people as exclusively sexual beings as soon as possible--unless, of course, it is the secret purpose of the council to establish new canons in sexual stereotyping in the field of commission appointments in general by singling out adulterers, fornicators, prostitutes, and those in other sexual categories, in order to judge their fitness for service by sexual classification as well.

It should be obvious that men and women who have homosexual relations already serve in various capacities throughout the state. They always have, and they always will; active recruitment is unnecessary. Discrimination based on the notion of a homosexual identity is ludicrous and doomed to failure. There is no definitely, definable and distinct group of human beings as "homosexuals," in the sense there are blacks and women. The word "homosexual" describes sexual behavior and choices rather than persons. Homosexuality is not a "state of being" any more than heterosexuality. It is for these reasons that despite generations of bitter antagonism toward so-called “gay people" they are still found in virtu-

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ally every neighborhood, occupation, and profession. Even the armed forces' rigidly-held policy excluding men with "homosexual tendencies" from service is really unenforceable. During the Vietnam conflict, for example, thousands of draft dodgers legally evaded induction by simply declaring homosexual feelings--a claim the Pentagon had to accept at face value because no objective test of its validity exists.

Past attempts by government agencies to draw an assumed relationship between job performance and homosexual proclivities resulted in inequities and personal embarrassment. It is the inquiry into sexual practices that offends the senses and constitutional guarantees of personal privacy, not the purpose of the inquiry. That, indeed, may be very noble. To perpetuate the policy of emphasizing homosexuality-even for the best of reasons--will not right past wrongs. Now that we have won the right to sexual privacy in California it should be a sign to everyone that the politicalization of sexual tastes has come to an end.

We respectfully request to be informed of the status of the council's program in this regard and your views about it.

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Cordially, Don Slater