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Show volume one October, 1977 CONTENTS THE PAYNE PAPERS Feature of the Month Page 6 THEATRE What do homosexuals want? What do homosexuals teachers want? I do not know. I am not all gay persons nor all gay teachers. I am an individual who happens to be gay and a teacher. 1 only know what I want: the freedom not to live a lie. Until recently homophobes have argued that gayness, open or closeted is so undesirable that no one who is gay should be allowed to teach. This argument seems to be giving way to a more subtle, though no less vicious one. The new idea is that gay teachers should retain their jobs as long as they remain closeted. That is, as long as they let no one know about their gayness. This argument sounds fine, not only to many non-gapeople but even to some gay teachers. For myself this argument is an attempt to make me live a lie. The supporters of this new argument say gay teachers should not flaunt their sexuality. What do they mean by 'flaunt?' 1 get the impression that they expect a gay e teacher to run around carrying a sign supporters of this new argument say gay teachers should not flaunt, their sexuality. What do they mean by 'flaunt?' I get the impression that they expect a gay teacher to run around carrying a sign saying "I am homosexual". While 1 am an out gay teacher, I have never so flaunted my sexual preference. I say that I am out...what does that asks mean? It means that when a if I am married or dating I say yes. If they ask further about "her" I correct them. I say it is a "him". The alternative to this would be rudeness...tell them it is none of thier business, or to lie. My outness also means that if someone makes a homophobic statement 1 remind them that they are wrong, at least as far as it sterotypes me. To do otherwise would beto allow myself to be dehumanized: I can not and will n t. y Upcoming Live Shows Page CLASSIFIED 19 Page 21 W t RELIGION say-Th- MCC Needs Us Now Pages 1 and 22 As for my students, they are all young children and I prefer to avoid discussing anything too personal with them, be it sexual or If I were a teacher of adolescents then I would respond to them as I do with adults. At no point do I try to push my sexual preference on to another, and in return I will not allow society to impose on me a life of lies and belittlement. If the refusal to live such a false life is flaunting my sexuality, then I flaunt it, and and will continue to do so. non-secua- . Norman McClelland President, Gay Teachers of Ivos Angeles Hollywood, Calif. Just over in Gloryland Dear Brothers and Sisters: I have been counseled to knock at the door leading out of homosexuality until my knuckles are bloody. I have had ten years of intermittent Anita does it Again . Bigotry, prejudice and hatred have been with us a long time and it is going to continue to be with us, probably for the rest of our lives. Unfortunately for Utah, a sad example was this years Utah State Fair. On the last day the Queen of Bigo-- . try was the star attraction which was reminiscent of Hitlers Germany instead of anything close to entertainment. It was a political rally instead. Thousands of foot stomping, Bible tooting zealots, ignorance overiding good taste filled the stadium while a handfull of brave men and women picketed in the cause of human dignity and against man's inhumanity to man. Being spat upon and facing an openly hostile mob the supporters of Gay Liberation silently spoke out in favor of Love and the right to coexist on this planet with their Brothers and Sisters. Back in the stadium, stirring the crowd with ho pseudo-religiousongs, her voice cracking with age and her pancake makeup dripping, she belted such favorites as "Onward Christian Solders and "Glory, Glory, Hallelu- jab". It was easy to understand why this star was fading and her contracts not being renewed. The sadder realization was the fact this mob was openly supporting her . s l. psychotherapy, aversion shock ther- instead of demanding she stand trial for instigation of the murders of John Ward, Robert Hillsborough and Jeffrey PauL Without her ignorant stand these men would be alive today. Many articles have been written about this woman and her followers and both sides have made asses' of themselves but the one overriding truth has been trampled by the verbosity. She is wrong. She maintains homosexuality is sinful when in fact the teachings of the Holy Book tells us that the obsession of sex (or anything else for that matter) is sinful We would like to invite her sup-- p orters to read this months feature article, titled the "Payne Papers. Perhaps the realization being Gay is not a matter of choice will help these narrow people to widen their cerebral horizons. Unfortunately, most will not read this tabloid simply because of their To the thousands of our straight supporters, however, we say Thank You. Thank You for standing up when she started to sing and slowly filing out. Thank you for joining in the demonstrations. Thank you for standing by us in our Forward Struggle. narrow-mindednes- s. apy. fasting, praying, marriage, father hood, and work in the Temple. I must now wash the blood from my my hands, anoint them and wrap them until they are healed. As soon as the scars have receded, my hands will be whole from the palsied masochistic beating I gave them a the Master's Door. I retreat from this Knocking quietly now. I has who he ears, let him hear. pray This account concerns my attendance at BYU a decade ago and the n. vicious act I committed against my fellow men. My soul begs forgiveness for this action. Conversion to the church was like a ray of light to me. fatherless as an infant, burdened by a mother's the abounding love to a convert soon darkened as I understood my homosexuality was diametrically to The Plan. Somehow God tolerated my condition as we dozen souls to his church mission. while on a But I was homosexual, and I made the mistake of trusting others with this information, so at the completion of my mission I was to report to President Spencer W. Kimball. He let me tell my story, then told me I was too good for that kind of behavior and I didn't lobk like a queer. Giving me a beautiful loving blessing, he counseled me not to be taught of Satan and his plan of force." I wept, not tears of joy but sorrow because I knew I was still attracted to men. not women, and I would have op-poss- convert-edsever- full-tim- e The Rising of a People We are unlike any other people on earth. We know each other, and will be known, solely by the ways we love and how well we fight for each other. Nothing can contain us, no prison, no family, no era, no age or time of life no phase, no class, no religion, no language, no theory, no law, no culture, state or race. We have never known that we could be a people. We have always been other things first; I am a person Moslem Brazilian bourgeois Chinese Presbyterian proletarian Canadian - all these identities weve learned, or are struggling to learn. Our universal Gay identity has come last. Ask not what your country can do for you..." - of course not; how many, having asked could acknowledge the country as theirs? We have always been a people; only recently have we begun to know it, to hear echoes of a common past. When the Holy Church burned us in the Middle Ages it also burned the trial records - we were never to have existed. Our story as we win it back reads more of what has been done to a people than of what the people did for themselves. Some of us have been more fortunate, more free than others in certain times and places, as now. Some have been martyrs, some victims, some sacrificed themselves in wild defiance, others pressed wearily for a lifetime, some are recorded, most are unknown. More than anything, the past cries out our isolation. We have been forced to defend ourselves almost always alone. We assumed the protective colors of our surroundings, veiling our own. Our anger steeped, corroded us or spilled on each other. Our humor soured to endure. We wasted ourselves living down the false myths that others have constructed of us, fighting our way out of one imprisoning theory and definition after W e ve been forced or fooled into buying others' images of what we should be, living by their ways and their laws, paying their taxes,, fighting their wars, trusting their gods, suffering their families who never suffered us. We have fought each other for the scraps they granted us special favors, occasional privilege, exotic status - each of us almost always alone. Now we begin to make our own story, to rise as a people. We are not a nation, we have no need to become one or to compete with any other. We need fight no one for land or lanquage, nor among ourselves for the spoils of power. We will never have borders to defend, never national interest or pride to uphold. Our struggle is unlike any other people's: we fight for the ways we love These are inseparable from our lives, from our being. Our enemy is any person or power anywhere that denies or threatens this being, this open expression of ourselves. We have always known how power ful our enemies were; they remind us when we forget They, on the other hand, have had only the first notices of our power. We ourselves are only beginning to sense it, or to focus it. They have always been able to eliminate us as individuals. The more we speak and fight as a people the more our enemies must deal with us as a people. They cannot eliminate us as a people. A Gay person murdered in Chile is a defeat for Gay people in Canada and the U.S.S.R., .a Gay -- . adoption in Denmark is a Gay victory in Dade County, in Australia and in Cuba. A danger to one of us is a danger to the whole people. Your coming out is mine. The enemy continues to hope that each of us will be alone, and helpless. When one of us dares to rebel in appearance or behaviour, the enemy is startled. When two of us exhibit love we are revolting, the uneasy reaction mounts. When more than two love, when we tell the young who we are or when swelling numbers of us march, when we rise as a people we threaten "the very foundations of society. Our enemies must intensify and accelerate their attacks. They will tend to use only the power that seems necessary to disarm or eliminate us. When a people is inert, no repression is needed, when it is weak, moderate repression and bribery combine to anaesthetize, to confuse and to disintegrate. But in a people grown strong, repression tightens ranks and hardens collective will The backlash" bring orchestrated against us where we've made gains can only increase; the weapons they use are a measure of our effect, a test of their power, and ours. We are closely watched, by opponents on one side for signs of weakness and division, by our own people on the other for signs of hope and unity. As persons we trail a cumbersome, inhibiting baggage of second-hanedicts, customs, habits and assumptions; as a people we want none of these. Once we recognize who we are and what we share we can do what no other people has ever done: we can make of ourselves the people we want to be. We need neither space nor materials, we are building principles. We need each other, and time to build well, to last. During the Algerian war of liberation women fought as equals with men, or so it seemed when they d were needed. Many discarded veil, for centuries the symbol of their enslavement. But when the war was won most men forced most women back behind the veil, back into their old chains. Tradition, the "national interest and revolutinary necessity" prevailed. Another battle remains to be fought in Algeria. Unaccustomed as we are to seeing ourselves as a people, and faced with the examples of other peoples, we will continue to have intense, even bitter quarrels among ourselves as we mold and test the forms of our liberation. But if we demand for ourselves the right to define ourselves, and use it. we cannot avoid redefining our relationships with all other entities. We can't help juding their relevance to our lives, their advantages and costs to us. Every people or group fighting for its liberation has had to define itself and its enemies, to reject the terms and methods of the enemy, to learn form previous and current struggles, and to improvise and invent on the move. Our struggle resembles no other can can expect surprise, costly errors, freedom of movement and disillusionment. We must create our own potent mix of reason and passion, our. own unheard of methods, amazing and terrible. We can only become more a people, e can only rise. Mystical romantic nonsense? Reprinted from Rody Politic and superbly written by Min.nrl Riordon |