From: owen@autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Unversity Fac/Staff LESBIGAY Organizations?
Date: 7 Jan 93 18:19:11 GMT

In article <C0Fy8z.II8@panix.com>, mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik) writes:
> I'm surprised to hear that it's that _short_ a time.  I was a
> grad student at Columbia from 1967 through 1975.  (That, of course,
> includes Stonewall.)   I remember the following incident from my
> years there:

> Is there anyone else around who was at Columbia in those days?

I worked for G.K. Hall, publishers of library card catalogue sourcebooks
back in that era, and was the camera operator on their Columbia Law
Library project circa 1970.

They were definitly *exciting times* :-)

> It was certainly no earlier than autumn, 1968, but it was before
> October 1, 1971.  I was sitting in a student lounge in the building 
> just east of Butler Library (the name of which I don't remember)
> talking to a woman who was a classmate of mine.  She pointed to a
> poster demanding a gay student lounge and asked me what I thought
> of it.  I said that I thought it was too bad that the gay students
> felt a need for a separate lounge, but that if they did I certainly
> thought they should have one.  At that, a man sitting halfway across
> the room came over, excused himself for having overheard what I'd
> said, and asked to shake my hand.  I remember offering it perfectly
> willingly, but without much understanding (as I don't understand
> even now) what I had said that had such an effect on him.  Anyhow,
> it's because of that handshake that I remember the incident at all.
> I can place the timing by the years that my friend was in NYC and
> things happening in my life during the time that we were hanging out
> together.

I was there in 1970, as I said, and I remeber the *lounge* flap.
Though I was deeply closeted even to myself at that time, I did note
several of the homophile events.

That was the year of the second SDS wave of building takeovers, and
I was very politically active with the SWP, I was also a founding member
of their side organisation "Vietnam vets against the war"
Both organisations were heavily infused with Trotskyite *theology*
and I found the SDS radicalism ..uh.. fascinating .. if nothing else :-)

Anyway.. I remember one group calling itself the Pacifist-Anarchist-
BiSexual-conspiracy, holding a money burning event one day. And I remember
one lone picket carrying a sign regarding the homophile organisation
at  the University during that and several other SDS related events.

This confession of radical left wing political affiliation may come as
a shock to the liberal motssistas who have me pegged as fascist, but
what it really signifys is that my distrust and disillusionment with
the left came about as a result of direct observation and experience
within the heart of the radical left.

Yippies, weather underground, Black panthers, SWP, etc... I was right there
in the middle of it, and I was quite involved.

I'm sure my FBI file has plenty of detail, and perhaps even photos showing
the extent of my participation in the events of that year, but I haven't
attempted to use the FOI act to look into it.
(I had held a very high security clearance while in the military, and
I have no doubt that such FBI files exist)

One of the really fun things to do was anti-war leafletting of
Military personell at the port Authority bus terminal.  :-)

Once we actually went to west point and did some leafletting there as well.
( for about 5 minutes before we wre thrown out :-)

> But anyhow, my point in this recollection is that this was over 20
> years ago.  So:  Who put up those posters if there was not yet a gay
> (with or without lesbian and bisexual membership) group at Columbia?

I got the impression that it was the work of a few people.
There also was some information floating around about a womens group
called the ?sisters/daughters of Bilitis?, I think.


LUX ./. owen

--
D. Owen Rowley {uunet,fernwood,sun}!autodesk!owen, owen@autodesk.com
[ EU-PHORIA: A STATE OF WELL BEING ]
Euphoria is my natural state, I do what I enjoy and an abundance 
of all good fortune comes to me for it.