LGB1971_1.pdf

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Part of Gay Lib seeks to establish an off campus community center

Text: Gay Lib seeks to establish an
off campus community center
Since its inception a year ago, Buffalo Gay
Liberation has felt the need for a place off-campus
where gay people from on and off campus could
come together, meet, talk and coordinate programs
with other homophile groups. To fulfill this need,
Gay Lib is presently seeking to establish an
off-campus Gay Community Center.
A spokesman for Gay Liberation explained that
the need for such a center should be evident to
anyone familiar with places available to gays now:
"The gay bars and cruising streets where gay people
are presently forced to gather if they want to meet
other gays are exploitative, expensive and always
oppressive." He continued that these places are
demeaning and create hostility and hate. According
to Gay Liberation, the enormous profits the owners
of such places reap are never used even in small part
for the welfare or interests of gay people.
Paranoia
Gay Liberation mandates the center be
off-campus, viewing its location as essential to its
success. Explaining that the social and work
activities of the Buffalo Gay community are
geographically centered in the Allentown-Richmond
area, a gay lib member said that "we want to make it
-possible for people to have easy, unhampered and,
. most importantly, trauma-free access to any meeting
place." Gay Liberation feels that Norton Hall and
the campus area, in general, do not constitute such a
place: "They foster feelings of paranoia in UB gays
sometimes, and very often in people who have no
real reason to identify with this University at all."
More importantly, according to Gay Lib, many
of the gay people in Buffalo have professional

associations with the State University of Buffalo
which would be endangered by their active or open
participation in anything even remotely related to
gay: "Their relationships and ability to work with
their colleagues and students would undergo a
radical, negative change. This is not to mention the
fact that there is no legal proection in employment
or housing for homosexuals."
Valid fears
This means that some gay people feel that they
are endangering their entire way of life and in some
cases that of their family by participating in any of
Gay Lib's activities in a place as public as Norton.
"Given the current attitude of this society towards
homosexuality, and the questionable willingness of
this University to protect the rights of individuals
you cannot really question the validit·y of people's
fears: the fear that they will be branded and branded
in the most literal sense," a gay lib member
.explained.
Gay Lib is, at this time, investigating the
feasibility of several sites from store fronts to
basements and churches. Under study are questions
of hours and days of operation, and legal
complications that may arise and how to deal with
them. A possible sub-let arrangement is being
worked out with the Linwood Ave. Buffalo Free
School. They are also appealing to Student
Association for funding and support.
A Gay Lib spokesman stated that "Gay Lib
cannot hope to continue to be effective or expand
its activities in any meaningful way without a 'safe'
base of operations for its work ... " ·