Jim Andris, Facebook

WICHITA ENACTS GAY RIGHTS LAW

The Wichita City Commission, by a 3-2 vote, has enacted a gay rights ordinance banning discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations. The Kansas city becomes the 42nd U.S. municipality to adopt legislation protecting gay citizens from various forms of discrimination.

Approval of the ordinance, proposed in July by the Homophile Alliance of Sedgwick County, came shortly after Kansas Attorney General Curt Schneider issued an opinion that such a law would not violate sodomy statutes still on that state's books.

Several local conservative groups, including the anti-pornography Concerned Citizens for Community Standards, have vowed to seek the ordinance's repeal by referendum next year. They're promising what one of the ordinance's opponents calls "a bigger fight then the one in Miami."

Although buoyed by their victory, local gay leaders are already gearing up for the expected repeal campaign and are launching a voter registration drive and educational campaign of their own.

U OF MISSOURI SEEKS SUPREME COURT RULING

The University of Missouri has asked the U. S. Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that Gay Lib must be allowed to use campus facilities and see student activity funds.

The administration's latest move marks another chapter in a six-year struggle by the gay student's group to achieve recognition as a campus organization. Gay Lib's request for recognition initially was rejected by the university in 1971. A federal district judge upheld that decision, but the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned it earlier this year. As Gay Lib prepares for the possibility of a Supreme Court test, the university continues to refuse funding and facilities, arguing that such recognition would violate Missouri's sodomy law.

GAY RIGHTS ORDINANCES: This summer Champaign, Illinois, and Wichita, Kansas, became the 36th and 37th American cities, respectively, to enact ordinances protecting lesbians and gay men from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accomodation. Both took this action after the repeal of a similar ordinance in Dade County, Fla., which shows that "Hurricane Anita" and her allies may have won a battle but are still losing the war.

-from NGTF Action Report