friday, february 24, 1978
fathom
page 7
gay groups work to dispel myths
"Lincoln lacks a good social outlet,"
Adam said. The gay bars in Omaha also
are lacking the scope of entertainment
necessary to fulfill the diverse needs of the
gay community, Adam continued.
"When social activity is limited to
singles bars, relationships become one
dimensional. People go to the bars but they
share little ground of common interest,"
Adam said.
"The bars have heavy sexual undertone
and they are the seamier and the most
publicized side of gay life. But the total
number of gays who do go to the bars
are only a fractional number of the entire
community. We need a full social base,
too," he said.
A
Xi dam doesn't profess to speak for the
entire Lincoln gay community because,
he said, there is a "severe personality split
in the community."
Gay people do not have one mass con
sciousness nor do they all agree on what is
needed and how to accomplish those
needs.
Matthew was on the Gay Action Group
board of directors on-and-off for four
years. He resigned recently because of
friction within the group and discourage
ment with group policies.
"The Gay Action Group is too con
servative," Matthew complained. He also
expressed doubt in the initiative of the
group to accomplish any goals.
Matthew was annoyed that plans for a
Halloween Ball dance in the Union were
scrapped because the board of directors
were concerned that the appearance of
drag queens (men dressed as women)
would not be good for the image of the
Lincoln gay community.
"That was a valid concern but taken
completely out of text. You would have
thought that all the national networks and
the wire services would cover the entrance
of the in-drag gay community.
"The group is more concerned with
appeasing the straight community than
serving the gay community."
The Halloween Ball was scheduled to
follow on the heels of the successful Com-ing-Out
dance which the group sponsored
in September.
Matthew said that the popularity of
Coffeehouse and the occasional dances
sponsored by the group, such as Walpur
gjsnacht disco, is evidence that the com
munity, both gay and straight, enjoy
such diversions.
or five women attend the weekly Rap
Group meetings and only one of the eight
directors is a woman.
Last semester a Gay Women's Rap
Group was started and met weekly in the
Women's Resource Center. The space grew
too small for the group and now about 15
to 20 women meet weekly in the Union.
The group makes it possible for women
to meet other women and it serves as a
support and social group, explained
Rachel, a member of the group. The Gay
Women's Rap Group satisfied an unmet
need by the straight community and the
Gay Action Group.
Some women did not feel particularly
welcome in the male-dominated group and
some just weren't ready to come out with
men, gay or straight.
However both groups now are interest
ed in seeing what the other group has to
offer and working together to benefit the
entire gay community, Adam and Rachel
agreed.
Ruth, a member of the Gay Women's
Rap Group, said that there is some com
mon ground between gay men and women.
"Working together to overcome oppres
sion would be enhanced by working to
gether," she said.
However, because of the typical pitfalls
in male-female relationships, Ruth acknow
ledged some problems with working with
men. Gay men and women are susceptible
to the role playing that the women's move
ment has focused attention on.
"Women are coerced into those roles
by males," Ruth said. "There is a whole
spectrum of responses from women to
those roles."
One response from gay women is les
bian separatists. They would just as soon
not have men in their lives for any reason.
"Lesbian separatists have an effect on
gradually diminishing the male energy and
hierarchy," Ruth continued.
"Separatists are doing a lot to change
men by withdrawing," agreed Mary,
another member of the Gay Women's Rap
Group.
But separatists or not, gay or straight,
Mary said, "women are taking time out just
for themselves."
Rachel said that society has placed men
and women into artificial masculine and
feminine roles.
"Both men and women are oppressed
by these roles but because men have a
power base to lose and attributes such as
gentleness to gain, which they can't see as
immediately beneficial, men then aren't
willing to give up their roles," Mary said.
By Kate Gaul
3 ay people captured the national
attention and curiosity in 1969 when,
during a then-routine raid of a gay bar in
New York City, gay people protested the
unfair, discriminatory treatment they were
receiving.
Gay pride blossomed and became an
annual event for gay people in the larger
cities; 'out of the closet' became a chiche
bandied about for every sort of public
endeavor; and even the term gay crept into
popular usage for describing a lifestyle
particular to homosexuals and lesbians.
Nearly a decade later, gay people still
are struggling to overcome the myths that
ignorance generate. As women and blacks
fight against the myths of inferiority and
inadequacy, gay people battle to overcome
the accusations of mental and moral sick
ness. In Nebraska, the Lincoln and UNL
Gay Action Group has provided a social
and supportive service for gay people since
the early 1970s. More recently, the Gay
Awareness lowa-Nebraska (GAIN) began in
Omaha to fill a social and political gap that
exists for gay people living in the conser
vative, Bible-belt Midwest.
After a period of apathy from the Lin
coln gay community and resistance from
the Lincoln straight community, which
culminated in the complete elimination
of student funding to help support the
(lay Rap Line, the Gay Action Group
has revamped in an effort to spur activ
ities for Nebraska's socially alienated gays.
Newly elected Gay Action Group pre
sident and UNL student Adam (not his
real name) said that the group needs to
expand its services and involve more
people.
"Social activities sponsored by the
group need to include a greater diversityof
interests. Previously our main social
function has been providing dances and an
occasional dinner," he noted.
Coffeehouse, was a popular Sunday
evening Gay Action Group function until
last summer. Coffeehouse provided a com
fortable atmosphere for gay people to
socialize, listen to folk singers and disco
dance.
But trouble with finding a permanent
place ended Coffeehouse, after ' being
shuffled from the basement of UMHE
Commonplace, 333 N. 14th St., to above a
bar and back to the basement. And so
began the weekend trek to Omaha for
many gays. Omaha supports several gay
bars, but the atmosphere there is not
congenial to many gay people.
"The group needs to provide social
gatherings not necessarily oriented to the
same people. Possibly weekend trips as a
group to other cities, such as opera in
Omaha, shopping in the Old Market or
to Kansas City's Ivanhoe Cabaret for
nightclub entertainment," Adam suggested.
"But no one on the board is aggressive
enough to rent a room in the Union
on a monthly basis. No one is willing to
step that far," Matthew said, blaming the
inaction on poor leadership, conservatism
and apathy within the Lincoln gay com
munity, as well as a hostile, repressive en
vironment. The Gay Action Group is a predomin
ately male organization. Only about four
D espite misgivings, Ruth said that
she thought the Gay Action Group was ser
ving a needed function.
"The group is not doing as well a job as
it possibly could," because of the varied
interests within the gay community, she
said.
Mary said that not all of the women
who attended the Gay Women's Rap
Group were definitively gay. She said that
some of the women were exploring their
feelings and their sexuality.
Ruth said that gay people are only dif
ferent because society describes them as
being different.
"The culture at large is stereotyping,"
she said, "but sexuality is only one aspect
of a person."
Neither Rachel, Ruth nor Mary thought
it was particularly difficult being gay
women in Lincoln. They said that their
straight friends were supportive and at least
two bars in town openly welcome gay
people.
However, Rachel said that when she
first moved to Lincoln from the East Coast
she felt alienated because she thought she
was the only gay woman in town.
Once she began to meet gay women, she
said, it was no longer a problem. Suddenly,
Rachel said, she was meeting new women
frequently. Now, she said, she is content
with a circle of gay women friends.
Mary said that gay women are well
hidden in Lincoln.
"tt is repressive if something appears
not to exist," she said. There "is a real
need for openness. A real need to let
straight people know we're just people
too."
An effort at openness is being sponsored
by the National Gay Task Force (NGTF),
Ruth said.
"April 14 is Blue Jeans Day when gay
people will be asked to identify themselves
by wearing blue jeans," she said. "On that
day straight people will be forced to think
before they slip into a pair of jeans. Maybe
they can feel a bit of the repression."
Adam said he thinks there is an under
standing gap between gays and straights.
Last summer that understanding gap re
sulted in the beatings of at least two gay
men at an outdoors gay meeting place in
Lincoln.
Many gays are afraid to turn to the po
lice because they will reveal themselves,
Adam said.
It's a circle of "gay paranoia" fed by
"straight homophobia," he said.
The Gay Action Group sponsors a
speakers bureau of gay. men and women
who will speak to classrooms, organiza
tions and churches about the gay
experience. This bureau is aimed at educa
ting straight people in an attempt to dispell
the myths about being gay, Adam said.
The Gay Action Group's Tuesday Rap
Group meetings at Commonplace and the
Gay Women's Rap Group are the only ac
tive functions for the Lincoln gay com.
munity.
Both groups have an interest in reopen
ing a Gay Rap Line. In the past the rap line
was a counseling and referral service for the
gay community which, Adam said, cannot
be fulfilled by Outreach or other general
crisis lines in Lincoln.
Living in Lincoln right now is, accord
ing to one gay woman, "like being straight.
Pretty dull."
chambers . . .
Continued from page 6
didn't think we should be upset. Well now
you get the opportunity.
You're the things that are going to be
destroyed. Your hospitals are going to be
blown up like you did in Vietnam. Your
schools are going to be wiped out. Your
orphanages are going to be bombed, like
you've done to other people. Now since
youVe dished it out, it's your turn to
take it. Let me see the same courage and
bravado, your John Wayne spirit manifest
itself now that the bombs are bursting on
you and yours.
And 111 put my hands in my pockets,
and 111 walk down the streets whistling
Happy Days are Here Again. That's a con
solation. White people should think when
they create such bitterness in a group of
people. . .
And you think the Russians don't know
how weak Americans are? When I say
weak, I mean weak in the spirit, accus
tomed to bullying those who can not fight
back. Taking rights away from people
who can not defend themselves.
When they won't allow district elections
of the city council in Omaha so we can
have representation, they don't hook it
up to what's happening in the rest of the
world, but we do. Because it's just another
in a long train of abuses that the colonists,
when they wrote the Declaration of Inde
pendence in this country talked about. .
All of the things they said that King
Georgelll did to them, was a long train of
abuses. . .What the colonists said against
the British can be said by black people
against America, only multiplied by 10 or
12 times
Fathom : How can the problems you raise
be solved?
Chambers: Give the black people our due.
Give us everything that we're due right
now. But that's not going to be done.
There's no need in making a laundry list,
because it's not going to be complied with.
Fathom: How can individuals help?
Chambers: Let them show (their concern)
by the things that they do, and counteract
those that their brothers and sisters who do
those things, because you're around white
people more than me. . But white people
are not going to do it and I know it.
So I say again, let America continue as
she is. But there is a day of reckoning, and
I don't even have to talk about black
people engaging in revolution in this coun
try any more, though that very well could
happen. I'm looking at Russia, and I'm
looking at China.
Civilizations rise and they fall. And I
think it's just a matter of time for America.
But see I'm going down anyway. I'm going
down at the hands of Americans.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if white
people and black people who have not
been able to do what Martin Luther King
said, join hands and say "free at last, free
at last, thank God almighty we're free
at last." If they can't join hands in free
dom, they can share a common cremator
ium. We can all be vaporized by the same
nuclear holocaust. Isn't that a wonderful
thought? That's the only way we're going
to be together.