A Question About One Magazine

David Williams of the Williams-Nichols Collection at the University of Louisville asks:

From May to at least August 1965 there were two different versions of One Magazine.  One was edited by Don Slater and the other by Richard Conger. We have both versions of the magazine during that time. My question is, how long were the two different versions published? Did it end in August 1965, or were there different editions in  September, October, and perhaps November 1965?

Our reply:

Hello David!

Thank you so much for contacting us on this question.

When ONE, Inc. divided in the spring of 1965, Don Slater and company moved the entire operation to a new location. Even though Slater had emptied ONE’s office completely, Dorr Legg (as “Richard Conger”) was still able to continue to produce and distribute ONE Magazine (much, of course, to Slater’s dismay). Legg said that he had committed ONE’s mailing list to memory, but that's just silly. My best guess is that Legg anticipated some sort of brash act by Slater (Legg, it seems, was moving to kill ONE magazine entirely in order to grow his Institute) and had managed to have a copy of the list secured off site. (ONE’s mailing list was a highly coveted and much protected, so this is actually a very big deal, a confession Legg could never publicly make).

Soon after the division, a judge determined that Legg would keep the office and rights to the name ONE, Inc. Slater retained his materials but had to stop doing business as or representing himself as ONE. This was to be a tentative arrangement, but even after Legg continued his fruitless and expensive lawsuit against Slater for two more years, this is how things remained. 

You will find that the content of the two first dual issues is similar to identical. Some of the work was by Joe Hansen, who was devoted to Slater and would never have consented to have his work printed in Legg’s magazine, yet there it was. How Legg obtained that content remains a total mystery to me.

You can see the four covers of Slater’s magazine (clearly subtitled “The Homosexual Viewpoint” here.

I have started to post content, but work is proceeding slowly since I can only do this on a voluntary basis at the moment. As you can see, the magazine changed its name to Tangents in October, 1965. This, in a way, makes Tangents the “true” continuation of ONE magazine, with a great majority of ONE’s editorial and writing staff continuing on in this new venue. The July issue of ONE features a play on the male/female symbols that was designed by Joe Hansen's wife, Jane, and remains HIC’s logo to this day.

I have been talking to several people about bringing Tangents back as a biannual newsletter, I hope becoming quarterly in time. I will keep you posted on the progress there as this could be happening very soon.

I hope this helps to clarify. The details of this can be found in my book, Pre-Gay L.A.: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights, published by the University of Illinois Press, if you are interested in learning more about this history. 

Best wishes,

Todd

C. Todd White, Ph.D.

Chair

Homosexual Information Center

http://www.tangentgroup.org

<todd@tangentgroup.org>

Connecting discussion on articles in the current Gay & Lesbian Review to events/issue in our community today

Dear Richard Schneider:

It may not be what editors seek, but I usually find articles in publications not just interesting on their own, but relevant to issues in the real world now.  But first I admit I thought, as I read the articles on homosexuality in other nations  in your publication, of reading such articles in the 1950s in ONE magazine.

I do wonder if anyone else will think of the issue of Manning and the San Francisco Pride fiasco when they read the article on Spain, as it connects Lorca (Federico Garcia) with the war; fascist and communist, and where he fit, etc.

The same theme is in the coverage of Cuba and Jamaica, and how politics affected/affects life of homosexual citizens.  By the way, I gather our government did finally let the Cuban come to the Equality Forum event.

I had mixed thoughts on John Lauritsen's interview with the Cuban visiting the U. S.  It is strange to hear that trans people are thought of as leading the effort to change things sexually in Cuba. I personally did not find drag queens here ahead of the middle class people like those in ONE and Mattachine and DOB. They were “out” in a sense but did not work for their civil rights in a way that would change society. In the 1950s transsexuals were non-existent and transvestites were protesting they were not homosexual and were not out enough to be working for change. AND while I do not say he was claiming it, I do not believe that the visitor could have any valid view of this nation based on his first, short, visit. I am not sure who he visited with, and what places he went to, but it would take a lot of contact, and perhaps reading a lot of our publications and study of our history to really know how good life is for us today.  Perhaps if he judged us by seeing a Pride parade, that might be a clue, but like in Cuba, there is still harassment of bars and people are still being attacked on the street.  There is less government persecution, but how would he know that?

The whole issue of life for women in India is current, because they are not men and  because they are lesbian and thus it is they who suffer when they are raped, not the men, no matter which religion dominates

Religion is our worst enemy, and for women and it seems still for blacks. There is, for example,  a church, in Texas, that preaches (from the Bible) that there should be separation of races, by law. So it is not surprising that such churches send missionaries to Africa and we have the organization representing “Christian” churches telling the government of Malawi to keep anti-gay laws. It is referred to by MCC, which is strange, considering our MCC. Apparently ignorant people can not see the hypocrisy in the use of the Bible here to justify slavery and separation of race—thus making black citizens second-class citizens, and then black preachers using that same Bible to preach hatred for homosexual citizens.

I am not sure that as we have to worry about Islam, and the attempt to impose sharia law on everyone, we can ignore what is covered in the article on Israel. I had not known of the hypocrisy there shown by the marriage issue. Living in LA )(the state), I am well aware of hypocrisy, both religiously and politically—shown by the fact that we have a law against gambling, but by using the term “gaming,” we now have six riverboat casinos in my area. (A “double” case of hypocrisy because those in the northern part of the state—WASPs—always spoke badly of those in the south—mainly French Catholics—for their gambling, drinking, all-night dancing, Mardi Gras. and today we have more of it than they do.) But I had not known that, again, sort of like Islam, the ONLY marriage there is religious, and so only Orthodox can marry, and yet they let other citizens go to another country and marry and then that marriage will be recognized.  Religion makes us hypocrites.

And I sure was surprised to learn that Plato thought the same way as rightwingers on marriage—that it was only for having baby.

Finally there is the question not of how Beye thought of himself but how we should. He used the word gay he said as it was the word society used. But if I understand him, he denied he was bisexual (in theory) yet had been married (heterosexually) twice and had four children. He tells us most had no problem with his living with men, and this is truly what many in our community say is the way to change society—just to BE.  Let your children and others learn to deal with you. I did not understand how he dealt with himself—if he had thought about homosexuality, had been active in helping himself and others understand it and work for civil rights.

Like those who work for our cause today, the book on letters we got at ONE magazine were what made us happy to go to work each day, knowing that we were helping people who had not known there were resources to help them and that there were people working for change: to make the nation gay-friendly (or as Don and Dorr preferred, homosexual-friendly).  I of course believe that the world is better today not just because some celebrity recently came out, but because since 1950 there have been homosexual men and women who devoted their lives, at great cost in some cases, to educating people about homosexuality, using classrooms, courts, and even the streets.

Saving issues of the first national publication discussing homosexuality from and by and homosexuals

Written by Billy Glover on 11-17-2012:

What seems to not have been understood is that, except for a few nuts who would find something wrong today even with the good newspapers and magazines in the movement/community, from the first issue, ONE magazine was professional, something even closeted men and women could be proud of.  They didn’t have anything else.  Early Mattachine had been secret except for the front group formed to support Dale Jennings’ court case which he, in a sense, won due to a hung jury—probably the first time someone had said they were homosexual but did not publicly solicit sex with this man.  (He covered this in the first issues and was the first editor as well as a co-founder of Mattachine and ONE. Later he was famous for writing The Cowboys, the movie John Wayne was in.)

The editors asked famous homosexual authors to contribute but none would except Norman Mailer. So no author/writer/media person could later say they did not know there was, at last, a homosexual publication, telling people what was being said and done about homosexuality. And with no apology.

Jim Kepner had a hard job searching for news, since few places—except for printing names of those arrested—would mention or use the word “homosexual.”  As I have pointed out, a search of the Readers Guide to Periodical Index over the decades will show just how little news, articles, etc., there was in the 1950s and 1960s.  Slowly but surely the coverage grew, until today, you would need a whole book to list all the articles.

The most-read parts of ONE and later Tangents were the Tangents news section and the letters to the editor.  The letters were real.  It is still interesting to see/hear people from all over the nation were writing to ONE in those years, saying what they write to Ellen and celebrities today—saying, to new people each year, “You are an inspiration. I did not know anyone else was like me. You give me courage, etc.”  I wonder why editors today do not think readers would like to see the letters they get?

The movement / community has to know that there was a doubt that you could publish such a magazine promoting acceptance of homosexuality—and obviously they were right since ONE had to go to court to protect that right. That court case (when the Post Office stopped an issue, at the urging of a politician) is covered well in the book Courting Justice.

Some young writers and media types were able to test the waters by writing for ONE.  Joseph Hansen is an example. Some fiction was good.  The different views on homosexuality were educational.  There was no other place this discussion was taking place.  We did not censor.  We let the readers hear the opinion and decide for themselves.  I do not think there is an idea or view heard today that was not covered in ONE—such as the early discussion about marriage.

Harry Hay and Don Slater: Two Views on Homosexuality from Pioneer Friends and Parallels with the Tea Party and the Founders of America

If it is worthwhile and even important to try to learn how this nation was founded and who the founders were and how they thought about the government they were establishing (Constitution/Bill of Rights) then it is equally important for citizens to know how and why a movement was started go gain civil/equal rights for homosexual Americans, and who the founders were and what they thought about homosexuality.

This civil rights movement is easy to document, and primary sources still exist with a few of the founders and historical material of their work and ideas. 

Each year there are more books written about the founding of America and the founders.  But there has been no such historical interest in the founders of this movement, even though issues of homosexuality are in the pages of most newspapers, and on tv talk shows and in the halls of Congress.

Why is there no interest in knowing the people who started a movement that was successful in about 50 years and continues to add success each year, despite opposition from bigots?  In a few cases, people working in this movement also worked in the black or women’s civil rights movements, including Dr. King’s co-worker, Bayard Rustin.  It should be worth knowing how Harry Hay, Dale Jennings, et al., started, in secret, the first organization, Mattachine (the foundation) in 1950, during the worst of times, the McCarthy anti-communist era when homosexuality was “joined” with communism to gain political power.  The irony is that most of the founders had been Communists but were kicked out of the party because of their sexuality—and thus they started this movement which has thrived while the Communist Party has essentially died.  But it is important to know that after early Mattachine was so wildly successful, with meetings all over Los Angeles and then California, it was “killed” and was reborn (the Society)  by Hal Call, et al., in San Francisco, by conservatives.

But before this happened in 1953, part of the organization had separated in 1952 to become the public voice, and publish a magazine, and thus under conservatives (Don Slater, Dorr Legg, et al) was born the first homosexual magazine, ONE, social service organization, educational work-with classes (and ONE Institute and Quarterly), some of the first homosexual books (Homosexuals Today, Game of Fools) and public lectures and legal efforts (a lawsuit against the Post Office that went to, and was barely won in, the U. S. Supreme Court (1958).

Like a new current book on America’s founders,  Madison and Jefferson, in which we again learn how the founders were able to work together while having different views on how america should be governed, a book should be written about how the pioneers of this movement also worked together, while having different views on homosexuality, how to change society, etc.

The two major views were important because they were so different.  The first was that of Harry Hay, covered in an article in one of the major glbt publications trying to discuss serious issues, The Gay & Lesbian Review, of January/February, 2008).  The author, Douglas Sadownich (and Chris Kilbourne) make the point perfectly before writing a word, by quoting Harry himself:  “We are a separate people, with, in several measurable respects, a rather different window, a different consciousness which may be triggered into being by our sexuality.”  There can be no exaggeration of the importance of Harry, and his views still exist, and his work is added to in the current issue of the Review by a co-worker, Don Kilhefner, discussing another organization/work harry co-founded, the Radical Faeries.

This view was welcomed by closet cases and bigots since it fit the stereotype that we are different, exotic and not like the majority.  

The second view was that of the ONE founders, mainly Don Slater and Dorr Legg.  Their view was based partly on the work of Dr. Kinsey and Dr. Hooker.  They took the view that this is not a lifestyle but a sex act, and all we needed was the right to privacy and we didn’t care what others thought but they should not be allowed to vote about our civil rights, especially if they based their views on some religious doctrine.  And further, we did not want to be separate—it was only society that forced us to be a minority by passing laws against us.  (This is also the view taken by a decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in a Colorado case.)  We sought integration, not ghettos.

This is relevant to issues of the Tea Party people. What authority the government has over our personal lives is what the Constitution and Bill of Rights say.  Don Slater said the legal people should re-read the Ninth Amendment.

The one point that has to be made, to newly “out” people and young homosexual men and women, is that, whether or not  they know it or like it, how they live today is based on the work and views of both Harry Hay and Don Slater.  Even though they disagreed on what they both considered basic issues, they always worked together on the major efforts, and from the start to the day they died, they loved and admired each other.  And they worked; they didn’t sit in meetings talking about terminology and making up academic words and phrases such as “gay identity,” “deconstructionism,” “gay essentialism,” “social construction,” etc.

Our rights do not depend on why we are or if we could change; they are granted to us as individual citizens. It is time for Americans to stop trying to “understand” us but to understand why some people seem to hate us and have a personal interest in denying us our rights.

And our cause will continue to become even more successful if young people and citizens interested in all citizens having equal right join us.  It is strange to hear some young people be so skeptical of politics and the ability to gain our goals.  Some even think we have gotten everything we needed—full (or close enough) equality.  The facts don’t support this—as suicides and bar raids in 2010 prove.  And to those who think we have not made positive changes over the years, I suggest they get in a time machine and go back and live in 1950.  

I say the same thing to some Tea Party people who want to go back to yesterday, when their kind were so happy and gay.  That is because they were in control, a clear majority, and thus benefitted from the way things were.  Let them try living in 1950 as a black or a homosexual citizen—and to do without the technology we have today.

Homosexual citizens and Tea Party citizens actually have the same problem with government: it is too involved in our personal lives.

Good and bad in current Washington Blade

The historic news that the Republican party's candidates for president and vice president have said they are gay-friendly is good, and I have suggested that people view the McCain interview in your publication, online.

You also did a good coverage of our community/movement loss of Del Martin. I have not seen coverage of the loss of John Burnside. But this is the time in our movement’s history, which essentially started in Los Angeles in 1950 with Harry Hay, Dale Jennings, et al. and early Mattachine, from which came the first public organization and publication, ONE Inc and ONE Magazine (Jan. 1953), and then a different Mattachine under Hal Call, and then Del and Phyllis and the Daughters of Bilitis, SIR, etc., when those who got us started are leaving us.

So it is good that Equality Forum and others are aware of just who did start this movement. The question is why they have not been able to cite the words of Don Slater, Jim Kepner, Stella Rush, or mention the history as recorded in the book Vern Bullough edited, Before Stonewall, or in Paul Cain's Leading the Parade, etc.

And my worry is that in your pages some of us see the major event of McCain's interview, but what your columnist seems to only see is that Palin, equally historic, says that terribly un-pc word: choice. In what world is that the most important word she said? How does an intelligent, objective person ignore the other words? And who gave your columnist the authority to decide technical issues such as what makes us homosexual or heterosexual, etc? That sure sounds just like the bigots, who come from the most ignorant part of society but, seem to personally know when life begins and want the authority to force the rest of us to let them make our choice-in other words we have no choice.

Perhaps serious homosexuals or gays should go back and read a few of the great articles in ONE Magazine and Tangents where the founders put forth their ideas, and then tell us why such ideas are wrong. That might be difficult of course, since those are the ideas that have got us to where we are today—which is a great place to most of us.

A newsletter that should be read by the people at the LGBT Journalists Association

I have been looking around at material and found a copy of our newsletter #55, of Fall/Winter, 1996.

If we don't let the world know any more about our work, they should know the information and views expressed in the reviews of the books and the books themselves, mainly the two relevant to NLGJA: Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media, by Edward Alwood (Columbia University Press, 1996) and Unspeakable, the Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America, by Rodger Streitmatter (Faber & Faber, 1995).

The reviews say that for the most part the books give information and history that journalists, and everyone, needs to understand how this movement got to where it is today.

But the reviewers also point out the misinformation, and that is important since for the most part later historians will just quote from the books without checking to see if there are any errors.

Straight News is reviewed by Joseph Hansen, famous not for being an editor and writer for ONE/Tangents Magazine, but as a gay writer of gay mysteries. But he knows the facts. And he points out important things relevant even to the discussion I have had with NLGJA people and the editor of Bay Windows.

Gay/lesbian journalists of today may not even know how bad the situation was in the ’50s and ’60s and how awful the media covered us, in the few times they did cover homosexuality.

Later journalists still did not check their facts. As Joe points out, sometimes he, Morris Kight, Troy Perry or others may have been at the same event and the newspaper coverage only gave one view-usually Morris’s. One strange point is that AIDS got us attention.

You will understand the feeling I have even now, reading Joe’s closing remarks: The efforts told to us in story after story in Edward Alwood’s fine book, efforts by numberless heroic men and women down the decades to educate and awaken to our common humanity the people among whom we lived should lift your hearts.

"Not that the war is won as this grisly century dies. Many battles lie ahead, not the least to wipe antihomosexual laws off the books of ALL states. But reading this account of the equal-rights battles already won should give all of us courage to fight on with the certainty that if we do, in the end our victory will be complete." Joe and Don would rejoice to see how much has been done so far.

Unspeakable is reviewed by Jim Kepner. He of course points out the conflict among g/l journalists,which in the early days seemed to be that “professional” college trained journalists looked down on the first g/l journalists who trained on the job. He says rightly that Streitmatter seems to not have really read his material and makes statements that are simply not true, such as that ONE was not forceful on seeking rights, or that we were not as good as the Mattachine Review and The Ladder, which is by any objective view simply nonsense. Hal Call merely used “professionals” and copied items and ONE did original work, and we never allowed “professionals” to tell us about us: we told them.

He points out that there were publications before Vice Versa, and that even Henry Gerber is ignored. And Jim's work is completely misunderstood by Streitmatter—Jim didn't merely quote the news, he commented on it—the very title of the Tangents section was news and views. But ONE has to be given credit as the first public and continuing-for two decades homosexual publication. And the NLGJA honored Don Slater as its editor and his struggle to make the magazine professional and something our community could be proud of.

Jim also points out the constantly repeated error that ONE was an all-male publication/organization. Obviously he never looked at the credits as for years the main editor was a woman and Stella Rush, still alive and kicking was a writer as was Betty Perdue (as Geraldine Jackson).

Thinking about how the internet would have affected the pioneers of the homosexual civil rights movent

At first it seems that if the pioneers of the homosexual civil rights movement would have been able to do a lot more if they had the tools, such as computers and the internet and cell phone, that we have today.

I don’t think so. You can not judge such things by looking back. But it is clear that nothing they could have said to more people with the internet, or had cheaper ways of reaching people, etc. would have affected the world of that day any better than they did.

We forget, not only in the homosexual civil rights movement but in all civil rights movements, that it is not just the words and “news” that the public gets that instantly changes them, but education over time. We also forget that the same “media” in the 1950s and ’60s that were extremely anti-gay were also extremely anti-black, etc.

It might be a good sociological learning experience to read a biography of Bayard Rustin, the Don Slater of the black movement, such as Bayard Rustin, The Troubles I've Seen. He was one of the greatest organizers of his time, and did the March on Washington. But he had to constantly fight the lies of the FBI, jealousy of other black leaders who were afraid Dr. King et al. would get more credit for changing things than they did. If you think Senator Clinton’s words saying that it took President Johnson to fulfill the dream of Dr. King, you will know find that Wilkins and the NAACP were thinking the same thing: he once told King that he had spoken good words but had not changed a single law, which is the same argument.

And it was the local newspaper that tried to get Bayard killed, and worked with bigoted politicians to try to stop the marches in Alabama. Nothing a computer or the internet could have done then would have changed that fact. And when Bayard’s homosexuality was used by jealous black leaders, nothing at the time would have prevented that. Rustin, like Don Slater, and sort of like the Barney Franks of today, was a practical person who didn’t waste time talking about some dream but worked to get things done that could be done at the time.

So I don't think we need an article praising the computer and internet. We need to use it today, but it would have made no difference in the ’50s and ’60s. AND, it can be helpful today ONLY because of what we did in the ’50s and ’60s to prepare people to “hear” the truth.

While is is truly frustrating in each decade to hear young people say they did not know there were others like them, and they can now find information and chat rooms on the internet, these were available from the day Mattachine’s group opened shop as ONE in 1952 and had a phone, public office, and a magazine that was available on newsstands in most major cities. Anyone who sought information in the 50s could have found ONE Magazine, and then the Mattachine Review, The Ladder, Drum, Vector, Advocate, and we were holding national meetings, appearing on radio and television shows, so that there has to be some other explanation if people in the ’60s on did NOT know that homosexuals were speaking out. We were winning court decisions in the U. S. Supreme Court in 1958. The media ignored this and only ran terror articles accusing us of being child molesters, or traitors-quoting McCarthy without doing any checking for facts, which they are guilty of today. And so it seems to me that it is the fault of these people if they did not learn about homosexuality until they saw Ellen, or saw some cute girl or guy on a TV show.

And when people seek information on the internet today, which websites do they go to? HRC’s? The Tangent Group’s? Or do they go to some sex chat room and share ignorances?

What has truly changed is that the media can no longer just publish or speak what anti-gay bigots say. And MTV shows homosexuals living with heterosexuals in The Real World. And Brothers and Sisters shows discussion of a gay wedding, and reaches people no gay publication can. LOGO does nothing that helps promote homosexuality. And the glossy gay men’s magazines do little for our community/movement—they promote expensive cars, clothing, and vacations. If that is what the computer and internet have given us, it is no improvement.

Where is serious discussion of issues of homosexuality? The media is flooded with “news” about same sex marriage. Is that the only issue homosexual Americans face? What about how we deal with issues that are not simple. For instance, we oppose in theory the war in Iraq, BUT we must face the news everyday that Islamists are killing homosexuals. What do you think we should do if you oppose the war? If you have no altgernative, you are no better than the present administration. Again, even Bayard Rustin had to come to a view about dealing with the world that he did not have at first as a pacifist. And he had to deal with the issue of trying to work for more than one cause at the same time. He chose the black cause, but never doubted that the homosexual cause needed support too, but knew that it would hurt both causes if they were combined. That is an issue we face today.

Are all of these courses/classes in colleges actually giving information on homosexuality any better than MTV? Are all of these websites and blogs on the internet giving us any better ideas? THAT is why we need the pioneers back. They were thinkers. I don't see any thinkers in our community today. And the internet, so far, can not doing the thinking. And much of their thinking is available today, in our dozen or so libraries/archives. But the gay press ignores these resources. They aren’t “sexy.”

The only hope is that once we get all of our history on the internet, some day serious citizens will seek this information out and it will be there, thanks mainly to the pioneers.

The Good Old Days...

I’m about to try to cover a little flavor of the letters I faxed to Jim Schneider and Joseph Hensen in 1997– ’99. And our published newsletters would cover the history too. But obviously I am intrigued by rereading a decade later what in a sense is current history, compared to what we were doing 50 years ago. It seems to me that there has been more change in things I am in or interested in the last 10 years than all the 40 years previously.

Jim (and Joe) would know the difference; from phone calls at high cost, to the fax, after Don Slater died, at a cheaper rate—12 cents a minute I think and then 5 cents—(I sent hundreds of newspapers a single page on the book A Few Doors West of Hope) as I do now by email at NO cost.  And cell phone, so I don't have to be at home (although this one does lose calls, etc.)

And think about it, Todd White alone came in this time period. And Ron Tate retired and became active. I finally met and visited with Bill Percy, as did Paul Harris and Melvin Cain. While I used to have phone visits with Jeanne Barney and Morris Kight, not as much as I do by email now (I'm not sure she considers this a plus of course.) And I didn't know Aristide before this decade, or Tobias (Toby) or Toby (Johnson).  The sodomy case came after Don, but I think the CO case had happened before he died, didn't it? And the surge of gay characters on TV shows, and I had not heard of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert before—I didn't get satellite here in Louisiana before 2003 I think.

Some of the old issues remain—people still trying to stop us from using the term homosexual, the media still covering only the celebrities—how many covered Yolanda Retter’s death?  And I see letters I wrote in the past decade saying the same things I'm saying today. And we discussed before Don’s death about getting HIC on the internet and now Todd is doing that. And if our material is safe at CSUN and is known and available then that will at least make it hard for future historians to say they didn’t know our views and information and what we did.

I have said before but will say again, there are two things that are of great interest to me, and things that I dont think I or anyone else would understand when they are young. First, I have now outlived most of my friends and enemies. And second, in a sense I have lived to find the answers, or know how things turned out when I/we thought about the future 50 years ago. I’m afriad one thing didn’t change: me.  Specifically, I can (if I could send copies to you, show you how terrible my typing was on an old typewriter, still sitting on the floor in the kitchen, with no ribbon available—it was an old Sears given to me and can’t  be used now anyway), but it cut off part of letters, etc., and had lots of typos, and even with spell check I still have typos, but at least the letters are not cut off, etc. And oh how much easier typing is this way! And the cell phone, if working, is free after 7 and on weekends, and costs less than the old house phone.

As opposed to the old stereotype of older people telling young kids how much better they have it today, I'm telling them that and it is TRUE. I have always, for instance, told students that if they want to see how much progress has been made in talk about homosexuality, go look at old issues of Readers Guide to Periodical Index and see how few items are listed in the 60s and then glance at today, where hundreds a month are listed, even though most are from the Advocate and still don't reflect a diversity of opinion as much as ONE did back when it was the only publication.

Gay/Lesbian Publications on newsstands or online (as compared to old days)

The first question should be, are homosexuals reading the publications aimed at them. If not, can that be their personal failing or that of the editors and publishers? Here’s what I found at the local bookstore, good and bad.
 
Instinct Magazine has an excellent series of articles on the homosexual community in Durango CO. But most gay men’s magazines spend most of their space on silly clothing and non-gay celebrities. So it is good to find coverage of people who are working to change things.

In most gay publications the people covered are models, or people who may be gay but have done nothing for our community/movement.  That must mean that the editors are interested in celebrities, or think their readers are only interested in celebrities. I also find that many publications have not only ads, which is good, but articles on products, which means they may be like too many motion picture producers, who make money by putting products in their films. That is of course ironic since in the early days ONE Magazine and others could not get ads.

Outlook Magazine and others have book reviews, such as the new book by Victor J Banis, Longhorn. But none have reviews of books that cover homosexuality seriously. But we learn of a James Lyon who was in the movie Poison and died.
 
The Advocate has mention of the coming production of the Beebo Brinker Chronicles, by Ann Bannon, and a letter from Toby Johnson about how gay bombs might be a good weapon. 
 
Several publications have ads for the new retirement developments for wealthy homosexuals, such as the one at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, the ones in Santa Fe, Blue Ridge NC, etc. This is a sociologically interesting development in our community. Most ads are aimed only at rich gay/lesbian readers, as are the articles, on expensive housing, cars, clothes, vacations, etc. And most could be found in any general publication as they are not aimed specifically at homosexuals. In fact travel writers seem to never cover a gay/lesbian center, library, historical site, book store, but only cover hotels and bars that in some case are not even mainly gay. It seems to me that a gay visiting a new town would want to find the local gay/lesbian newspaper or magazine, and see what information the local gay/lesbian center would have, and perhaps find the local gay church.
 
Curve had lots of articles on lesbians, most of whom have done something for the cause, which makes them a better supporter of those who are working in our community.
 
OUT Magazine is an example of how the men’s magazines often are the opposite-they cover no community/movement people. I would like to discuss with the writers of the article in the current issue that devote a lot fo space to two men, one of whom adopted the other and had to get the state of Illinois to change its laws to do so, was a millionaire and the two men then spent their lives to growing lovely gardens. Is that what gays do? Apparently all their money and time and energy went to gardening and none to helping our community/movement.  And they are they type people OUT covers. Where are the articles on men and women who are working in our community/movement, dead or alive? I would think young homosexual men and women would be interested in knowing who changed America for homosexual citizens in 50 years and how they came to do it.
 
If so, they will, sadly, have to go to non-gay publications. I direct them to Details, which covers the issue of a homosexual man who has been in and out of the military and is an example of why we need to change the rules, something our movement has been trying to do since the early ’60s.
 
But on one of the most important issues we face, we also have to go to a general publication, Mother Jones. Here we find a great article on the issue of what makes us homosexual—or as the pc people would insist, gay. And here we find the view Don Slater and ONE/HIC has been making since the ’50s: it is NOT a good idea to insist that we are born homosexual. It doesn't matter whether or not this is true. It is lousy politics. And it can and is backfiring. The ex-gay and NARTH people are using it against us and there is a danger that the issue will go backwards and become a “medical problem” in which the main issue, our civil rights, is lost.
 
And the issue is found in another place, not on the newsstands but in a religiously oriented publication, the Record of the Evangelicals Concerned. Among the interesting news items we find a discussion of the Exodus, ex-gay meeting in Los Angeles in mid-June. And the strange statements by what have been promoters of ex-gay issues, such as Alan Chambers, who admits that he still has homosexual desires. More ex-gays have recanted, Michael Bussee, Jeremy Marks and Darlene Bogle. And covered is the “issue” that the Southern Baptist Church is still promoting ex-gay work but in a “kinder, gentler” way. But a member of that church has said that he thinks there may be a biological component of being gay. Is that good for us? Some think so, but most of us think that merely means we can be forced to change if they can find a way of doing that.
 
But is this and other important issues being covered in our press? Are we seeing books on the subject (Besen does cover it)? Mostly we are seeing books promoted by closeted gays who were rich and famous but now are safely able to come out thanks to he 50 years of a few homosexuals and allies who devoted their lives to making changes but are ignored by the current editors and publishers.
 
I of course have a conflict of interest, but I have no doubt that ONE Magazine, and later Tangents, did a better job of balanced coverage of homosexuality than the publications of today. Today there are so many, as in organizations, that they can specialize. But they even in doing that do not serve our community well. How many even have editorials? They seem to not want to say anything that might upset readers or advertisers, much like our politicians. And they often don't even have letters to the editor sections, so they don't even let their readers have a voice. Most don't carry movement news. 
 
I think it may be a good thing that many people now turn to the internet and gay/lesbian sites. There we find news, and views. So I won't have to go to the newsstand in my local book store much any more. Once the advertisers learn this, they may go to the internet too, where most of us have gone.

Review of Gay L. A.

Gay L. A., by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, from Basic Books, NY, 2006, $27.50, 429 pages.

A review by someone who was there for about a 10th of the material covered.
 
The main thing this excellent book points out is that the continuing  movement for civil rights for homosexual Americans started in about 1950 in Southern California, by the founders of early Mattachine (Harry Hay, Dale Jennings, et al.) and ONE, Inc. (Tony Reyes, Don Slater, Dale Jennings, Dorr Legg (Bill Lambert), Martin Block, et al.), which came out of that start, and that each decade since then there has seen a large growth of people and organizations and publications that pushed he cause forward.
 
The first 100 or so pages cover early L. A. which was transgendered Indians (often called berdache) and then the closeted movie stars, none of whom did a thing to make the world a better place of homosexuals—and there were ways to do that and remain in the closet, then as now. Then we come to the moment when a few good men and women decided to fight back, at the discrimination, by cops, preachers, psychiatrists, and the media—which gaily published names, address and employers of those arrested. Women were arrested as well as men.
 
And the work of ONE, Inc. is covered after the early Mattachine essentially died in L. A. as it was "moved" to San Francisco by the Hal Call faction which took over to remove the communist legacy that they feared would eventually destroy the cause in the McCarthy era.
 
The internal disagreements in ONE that eventually led to a separation are covered in a sense, but not well, as I will discuss later. But almost every decade saw gay/lesbian groups have internal disagreements, up to today, so that is a generic problem.
 
When ONE was the only local organization it had to do everything: publish its main work, ONE Magazine, and then educate homosexuals and non-homosexuals-often while under attack for making the issue public which closeted gays feared would hurt them by making the public aware that not all homosexuals were acting like the opposite sex.
 
Each decade from 1960 on saw new organizations, such as PRIDE, publications like the Advocate, and later specialized groups, such as political ones (MECLA), religious ones (MCC), ethnic groups, women's groups, running and hiking clubs, as well as the a growing number of gay bars.  And finally homosexuals became politicians and won offices, such as state senator, and became judges. Gay attorneys became willing to handle cases which they had been afraid to in the first decades. (That is why the movement had to rely on allies such as attorneys like Eric Julber, who handled the ONE Magazine case all the way to the U S Supreme Court, and won (1958) and Herb Selwyn, who incorporated Mattachine and the Homosexual Information Center and other groups and handled arrest cases. They didn't get as much notoriety and make as much money as others, such as Gladys Towle Root or Harry Weiss, but the did the most important work for the nascent movement.
 
The authors say what they intend to do in their introduction and tell us what they did in the ending pages. Mostly they did a good job in the 351 pages, and they give us lots of notes and an index. Any student of the history of the homosexual movement will have to know what is in the pages of this book.
 
But regarding the one part of history that I was in, I believe that the authors, for what eve reason, seem to have a biased view of the problems at ONE, Inc., and I wonder if the fact that Stuart was at one time a director of ONE Institute might have given him a biased view of the facts. I'm not sure they would have come out different even if they had interviewed me, wich they could have but didn't. But I will leave it to my co-workers at ONE and the Homosexual Information Center (many of whom are no longer with us) and to other serious scholars of the civil rights movements to point out some significant distortions of the facts.
 
Often it is just the words they select that give a "flavor" that is wrong.  For instance, Faderman and Timmons seem to say that Don Slater agreed to sign a settelement agreement, as if Dorr Legg didn't have to sign the agreement too.  And they imply that Don owed Dorr materials, when a reading of the settlement (which is on our website at www.tangentgroup.org, as is much of the material covered, including a famous speech by Dale Jennings that the book mentions but fails to cite) would show that mainly all Dorr got was the right to the name "ONE." And they imply that Don held material and didn't give it back till his death in 1997. In the first place, the notes of this hisotyr are full of material from ONE Institute, which would seem to say Dorr had the material--otherwise how woudl Faderman and Timmons have access to it? But Don Slater's death was irrelevant since the material belongs to the Corporation and not to him as an individual.
 
A distinction that should be made is that ONE Institute is not ONE, Inc. ONE, Inc. is owned by the funding arm of ONE, the Institute for the Study of Human Resources, so that any material in dispute would be ONE's, not the Institute's. 
 
The authors seem to say that the internal problems in ONE were mainly between Don and Dorr (the only remaining, and equal, co-founders of ONE, Inc.) and only became problematic in 1965. The problem had actually been building for several years, as former board members kept pointing out to Don. Many were upset over Dorr's behavior and attitude. As several told Don later, they had warned him, but until Legg hit the magazine, Don just ignored the problem. But they pointed out that ethically only Don and Dorr had a right to decide what ONE would do as they were the reason it existed. And there were obviously two sides to the issues: Dorr was right that we needed to promote education with the education classes and that lousy Quarterly, etc. But they were local and money spent on the courses was not getting a return. Don was right that the magazine brought in the money and "educated" a national audience.
 
What I never understood is why this was an issue in 1965, since by the time Reed Erickson had come from Louisiana, as I had (and LSU as I had) and was funding our work by ISHR. Later Dorr would try to deceive the court and public by claiming that Don was mentally ill to have moved the material and was not even a ONE employee at the time. Technically (although time would prove Don's mental ability was better than Dorr's) that was true, since once ISHR was started, Don and I were "moved" to ISHR, and paid by ISHR, so as to help cut the overhead at ONE. 
 
When Dorr rigged the election in 1965 (to keep me from being elected to the board, which again was strange since up to that time I worked mainly with Dorr, not Don), Don knew he had to do something to save the work he had done since 1952. He consulted with an attorney and then acted. On Easter Sunday, 1965, a few of us (Don, Tony, Jano, Melvin and I) moved ONE to Cahuenga Blvd West. Dorr refused to try to compromise, and Jim Kepner got what may have been a "deciding" vote, Chet Sampson's, to go to Dorr by telling him Don would not last a month—another bit of evidence that even good people can be wrong—and thus Jim Schneider's attempt to get a settlement was killed and  as a  reward for his  work  Dorr kicked him off the board.
 
Dorr filed a lawsuit to recover ONE's materials. His attorney, Hillel Chodos, was misinformed from the start, but then blundered and got the judge mad at him, and our attorney, Ed Raiden (and Lequita McKay) was doing a good job, so the judge made it plain he was not going to waste much time on this frivolous case and the attorneys decided to work fast on a settlement, which they did and the judge approved.
 
Dorr immediately violated the settlement by issuing a claim that we were crooks and he had won. One day he and I were sitting on the floor in our office on Cahuenga dividing books we were going to give him, and the next we stopped all contact. We did NOT give up the name ONE.  Since The Tangent Group (a dba) had incorporated in the name of the Homosexual Information Center, and was the first honest homosexual organization gain tax-exemption, we continued to operate as ONE for tax purposes, until we closed the Bookservice years later. Government agencies knew and understood the two ONEs and we had no problem.  I think later there was also a third ONE, since the center in Long Beach at first was ONE in By ABCBeach.
 
There are other little questions I have as to why the authors chose to cover one incident and ignore another which was done by HIC.  For instance, they (in covering troy Perry and the MCC also cover him picketing with Gay Lib (and Morris Kight) at the Los Angeles Times, and getting a good mention the paper. The reason for the picket I gather was trying to get the paper to use the word "homosexual." Well, why do the authors ignore, then, the HIC-sponsored picketing of the paper, earlier, which was over their refusal to let us use the word homosexual in an ad for a play we were helping sponsor, Geese, by Gus Weill, also of Louisiana? We held discussions after the performances, and while we got no publicity, the paper did change its policy. Troy Perry got the publicity then, since John Dart, a religion writer, came down while we picketed and interviewed Troy and his article was carried not only in the Los Angeles Times but in many other papers.
 
Also, while the authors cover our work as the Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals From the Armed Forces, they say only that it was covered by ABC news. Why do they not say the person was Connie Chung, and that Tom Brokaw also interviewed us for NBC. They say correctly that the Los AngelesTimes ignored us but don't say that Peter Bart, now with Variety, did a good article in the New York Times. They gore Don’s further work with draftees, covered by Randy Shilts in his book Conduct Unbecoming. Don won court cases and was successful in his legal work, using attorneys, psychologists, etc.
 
They report that someone appeared on the Regis Philbin show. Why then not point out that I also appeared on his show, and was treated badly. And that I was on the Louis Lomax show, Don was on Joe Pyne, and Harry and John were on shows, etc. But probably most important, they don't mention that Maria Cole and Stan Bohrman had Don Slater on as co-host of their KHJ show for a week—Don had others as guests to talk about aspects of homosexuality. If we are going to honor celebrities who seem gay-friendly now, why not honor Maria Cole who did it before it was cool?
 
And a part of the cause they ignore, while covering almost too much the movie stars, are writers and authors. Why do they mention Joseph Hansen only once and in a strange way? "By 1948, the center of action had moved west along with the burgeoning migration, as L. A. writer Joseph Hansen reports." (Where?) That's it! There is o mention of him being a world-famous author, probably the first "out" one, and a co-founder of HIC, with his wife Jane.
 
And the only other author/writer and book mentioned that I remember was ONLY mentioned because it was an example of how "Hollywood" had been fearful of gay movies. That of course is Patricia Nell Warren and her famous book, The Front Runner.
 
We hosted political speakers and argued when Dorr tried to support Lamport despite his anti-gay ways. We supported the Gay-In. We had a play, thanks to Don Schneider, who organized with friends a benefit for HIC by a performance of an all-male version of The Women, at which time Don [Slater] was arrested, and we changed the rules making a permit necessary. We had a good time as well as working for the cause.
 
Some may think I'm worrying too much about these details, but it is interesting that the authors went to the trouble of seeking out Marvin Edwards, who came to L. A. with Dorr, and was arrested and left town, so why not take the trouble of seeking out "primary sources"to be sure their version of events were right, and give readers both sides of arguments?
 
But the information and groups covered in this book are important and I know of no other place they are on the record. And the history of this movement and the work to gain equal/civil rights for homosexual Americans needs to be told, just as those of the black movement, the women's movement, etc.
 
Because of what a few brave souls did in 1950 (Mattachine), ’52 (ONE), ’55 (DOB) and the people and groups and publications that follow each decade, starting in the dozens, then hundreds and now thousands, we now celebrate our lives, as the founders/pioneers dreamed of. We have the institutions they dreamed of, churches, center, housing for older homosexuals, in a few places for the poor, and in several places large housing developments where retired homosexuals live in luxury.
 
The authors have done a good job of telling this history in a book that is a pleasure to read and deserve the gratitude of those who helped make this history. This book removes any excuse for future historians not to know how we got to where we are today and who helped get us here.
 

The Death of Elvis and TV This Month

I wonder how many people, and of what age groups, have been hearing and seeing Elvis on many TV shows this month? I gather in memory of his death. And if the older people who grew up on his music and remember how he changed music have thought about this in relation to music and politics and religion today. And if they realize, as I believe, that Elvis and Mattachine/ONE and Playboy affected this nation in a major way.  Below are some mixed thoughts, in no order, but I believe are important for anyone trying to understand where America is today in viewing music, sexuality and even religion.
 
First, do people remember how much the religious nuts and politicians and in fact lots of "artists" attacked Elvis? Watching the upbeat shows made at the time, showing his concerts, and some personal life ignore the constant harassment in the early days he got from white people in the south over his singing black music, shaking his booty, etc. Some DJ's actually broke his records, as people still burn books, as if that will hold back the tide of history.
 
I think we can compare Elvis and his world wide popularity as a major event in history, but it is in a way the same as saying that he was rock and roll's Stonewall. Think about it. There were, we now know, major black artists/singers who did the same thing as Elvis, as he acknowledged and honored. But it took Elvis to get on tv and get the music to all groups of people, and the media was willing to support him where they had not supported earlier black artists. And again, not many tv shows show the terrible hardships black artists had to suffer, not only in the south, but even in las Vegas, to do what they wanted to do, just sing and entertain people.

And history has to give credit to ONE Magazine, and Playboy, for getting the legal right to publish about sexuality. There had been Kinsey before, and others, but perhaps it was just the time that was ready, but ONE's U.S. Supreme Court victory, as Playboy's, changed publishing forever. But it took Stonewall for the media to finally get to covering our movement/cause. (And don't forget the problems Playboy had with distribution, censorship, etc.)
 
So any history classes in any university that tries to cover America since the 50s has to give space to ON, Playboy and Elvis. And when we hear religious nuts still attacking homosexuals today, we must remember that their ignorance is the same as the ignorance of earlier "religious" people when they used the Bible to support slavery, racial segregation, hatred for Jews, hatred for homosexuals, prohibition, and most of the bad things that have happened in America on our way to being the nation envisioned by the founders of equal/ civil rights for everyone.