IN THE light of the Monopolies Commission Report on the Wholesaling of Newspapers and Periodicals, which confirmed WH monopoly position in this field, we the undersigned wish to condemn in SLTOTECSE possible lerms Smith's decision to cease stocking Gay News after a two-and-a-half year "trial" period and their continued refusal to restock it despite widescale protest.
Despite the liberalisation of the law on male homosexuality the majority of gay women and men remain in isolation and fear. constantly under tharasmenof byolene alice More narasnc police. importantly. most homosexuals are still conditioned to feel guilt and self-disgust, their only problem being that they live in a society that hates homosexuals and denies them all the freedoms that heterosexuals take for granted.
Gay News provides isolated and oppressed homosexual men with a point of contact with the gay world and a source .or generally ignored by the mass press. It also gives a positive image of homosexuality a an alternative to the demeaning and serco voicar mase perpetuated by most of the mass media.
WH Smith ignored these considerations in taking their action to ban Gay News. Din s OsensiDie Teasons To! the ban, in terms of the content of Xr recent issues of Gay News, are belied by the fact that the same subject matter appeared in the newspaper two-and-a-half years ago when it was first stocked.
and Surridge Dawson they control 69 distribution, and a decision to ban a wholesale particular journal has effects. believe therefore that WH Smith's Smith have abused committed willul discrimination against homosexuals, WH Jane benavec In manner which has serious implicaColin suggests, while the unions are frightened to use even the limited periodical Race Relations widescale affirmative action. The danger is that, by also calling the Act a 'non-starter". revolutionaries can appear to be in the their position, same league as Tierney and his mates.
Fact RAGHIB AHSAN [Birmingham] an irresponsibic on BSA and political conflict.
Act, never mind music. But busy Tnel The only justification I can see for this book is that B& P wanted to create a work as disturbing and unsettling in prose as the Sex Pistols achieved in whereas the Pistols unleashed a wave of energy and an image of revolt (surely rock culture can never achieve more than that) B & P misanthropie and Contaco oca enesa o! • On a point of fact, our first direct contact with Persons Unknown was when a group of their supporters repeatedly visited the Other Bookshop SneDuSee ne ureaenee memoer of theshop and editorial staff if we did nou orini imeir arce This sort of thing is still going on: a ineranan suoDonera tue paper wa. recently threatened by a group of for CTSONSHKOWI SUDOOTICT