Word: gay
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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These organizations generally divide into two types. Many are primarily meeting, counseling and support groups for homosexual lawyers, doctors, businessmen, teachers, whatever. A person calling such a group will be put in touch with other gay males or lesbians with whom he or she can arrange quiet dinners and talks about professional or social problems. The organizations are particularly helpful for older gays who have no desire to patronize bars or discos catering to homosexuals, and whose life-style is far removed from the tight-jeans...
...other type of homosexual organization is the community service group. For the religiously inclined, there is a national gay church: the Metropolitan Community Church, headquartered in Los Angeles and including 80 congregations throughout the U.S. In Boston, the Homophile Community Health Service provides psychological counseling for gays who fear that straight doctors will tell them that the source of all gays' problems is their homosexuality...
Even in cities or states that have freedom-of-sex laws, the gays are often in danger of losing jobs, or their apartments, if they come out. Says Gay Boston Attorney John P. Ward, speaking of Massachusetts, whose highest court has handed down two notably liberal decisions: "What the law really is is what happens in the little district courts, and between you and the police officer-and the law has to change considerably before the message goes out to places like Fitchburg and Leominster that it is not open season on homosexuals...
...result, while the gay rights movement is definitely moving ahead, the life-styles of homosexuals vary widely throughout the nation. Some examples...
...Mankato, Minn. (pop. 32,000), Jim Chalgren, 27, and five other men were thrown out of the Trader and Trapper Discotheque in 1976 for dancing together. Now Chalgren occasionally dances with other men in bars and encounters nothing worse than name-calling. In fact, he has organized gay dances that are held every three or four months in hotel ballrooms, drawing crowds of as many as 130. But, he says, "there are people who meet at our dances who will avoid each other if they cross paths in a hardware store. It can still be a disaster to be identified...