1978_10 The Daily Collegian October 1978

              Proposition 6:
'Witch hunt or prevention of 'public sickness'
By BARBARA ANDERSON
Ellen Wellman says H resembles the
1600 s witch hunts Marilyn Affeldt
believes it will help prevent public
sickness
What the California voter thinks
about Proposition 6, the proposed state
amendment allowing teachers to be
fired for puulic involvement in homosexual conduct or activity, won't be
known until Nov 6
But Wellman and Randy Odem.
members of the'CSUF Cay People's
Union, are convinced that the proposition commonly known as the Briggs
e and un
by  Senator  lohn  Briggs.
c essfullv ran for the governorship
Odem opposes t
iS^-_3
,t on the ballot       "   _      _
'The initiative does not deal only
with what takes place within the confines of the school grounds but what
occurs in private homes,* Odem says
Affeldt disagrees. The volunteer
manager of a politically conservative
Fresno bookstore, Affeldt was also the
former executive director of Family
Life, a group which fought Assembly
Bill 489, legalising the homosexual
act between consenting adults.
'Privacy is actually what Proposition
6 is advocating,' she says. 'It's the
public aspect that the intiative deals
imposing, encouraging c
of public or private homosexual activity directed at or likely to a
employees.*
Affeldt agrees that the initiative is
not Just directed at admitted gay
teachers, but also at straight teachers
jality
But Odem says the initiative goes
beyond   the    firing    of    'out-of-the-
'lt discriminates against anyone who
speaks out against the initiative be
cause under the clause of solicitation
or encouragement of homosexual beha
vior you don't have to be gay to be
fired,* he says
Homosexual activity is defined in the
'It isn't Just against the gay teachers,' Affeldt says. * I feel that every
adult has a responsibility to protect
young people as they're growing up.*
Affeldt also feels that homosexuality
is a sickness that can be spread to
school children by role models, such as
'The whole thing is sick and that's
why we cannot have teachers promoting this,* she says.
Odem says several psychiatric and
psychological studies of homosexuality.
however,  have found  that a child's
SeePage*
Proposition 6 spurs political activity
By DAVID BORCEN
,-,l,
doWttStOWn   by Tim Downs
TheLaylofapers.
,N FRANCISCO (LNS)-'What
e seeing is a real upsurge in
cal activity rather than people (ust
running and hiding and saying, 'Oh
(,od, they ve got us ' If s mobilized a
whoie new sector of the gay communi-
• People are pissed off There's a
whole sector of the gay community
that s furious '
This is how Amber Hollibaugh, lesbian activist and organizer of the
historic Statewide Workers Conference
Against the Briggs Initiative/Proposition 6, describes the current mood of
California s estimated 2 million gay
citizens
Califomians will go to the polls on
Nov 7 to vote on State Senator John
Briggs' Proposition 6, a legislative
initiative which, if passed, would require school boards to fire any gay
schoohvorker not willing to hide and
any non-gay schootworkar who openly
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The militancy of the gay community
under attack is summed up in the
slogan, 'Come out fighting!" And in
this struggle, the gay movement has
the support of many labor and leftist
groups
Hollibaugh told LNS 'An incredible network is being built right now
of progressive forces, much bigger
than the left has had in a long time
Enormous links are being made between groups "
Cay/Labor Alliances Forged
The Statewide Workers Conference
Against Briggs/Prop 6, held the
weekend of Sept. 9 and 10 in San
Francisco's Latino Mission District, is
an example of the developments
catalyzed by the present attack on the
gay community.
Over 500 gay activists and labor
representatives converged on Mission
High School for a weekend of workshops designed to improve anti Briggs
tactics in the coming months.
The Conference was a militant assertion of the fay worker's place In the
labor movement and ol gays as a /ital
part of the left resistance to Briggs and
those right wing forces he represents.
Participants in the speakers' workshops at the conference brainstormed
on how to improve Labor Outreach.
So far, speakers from conference
organizations like the Progressive
Caucus, Radical Women and Cay
Teachers and Schoohvorkers have been
addressing labor union meetings
that,never had a gay speaker before.
A workshop participant explained to
LNS: 'Even with unions that are traditionally older, male and white, when
the Briggs Initiative is clearly explained to them, they've been really
blown away. It really is a dangerous
initiative in terms of organized labor.
Since it is so loosely defined. It could
easily be used against any dissident
workers.'
An ever-increasing number of
California trade unions are realizing
that the Initiative would over-ride the
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