Badpuppy Gay Today |
Thursday, 23 October 1997 |
I was just told that an e-mail list reports today, and it has been confirmed, that Valerie Taylor (pen name of Velma Tate), lesbian novelist since the 1950s, social activist, and advocate for gay and lesbian rights, died last night in Tucson, where she had lived in penurious retirement for years. A native of Aurora, Ill., she was 84 and is survived by two sons. A third died several years ago. In the late 1960s, Val was editor of Chicago's Mattachine Midwest Newsletter, active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and a writer for trade publications in Chicago. She helped to organize the annual Lesbian Writers Conference in Chicago from 1974 to 1978, and she called herself the founder of Lesbian Grandmothers of America. Later she moved to Margaretville, N.Y., and then to Tucson. There, she was involved in a Quaker meeting, environmental activities, and advocacy for the elderly. Besides writing nearly a dozen novels, she was a published poet. In 1992, she was inducted into the City of Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. By coincidence, the Hall of Fame's annual awards ceremony takes place tonight at 5:30 p.m. in the Chicago Cultural Center's Sidney Yates Gallery, 77 E. Randolph St., with (Chicago's) Mayor Richard M. Daley making his annual appearance. A memorial service for Val will be held at 2 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Pima Friends Meeting House in Tucson. HOMOSEXUALITY IN NOVELS By Donald Webster Cory (Edward Sagarin) From The Homosexual in America, 1951 What role can a fictional portrait of homosexuality possibly play? It can enlighten, encourage, and offer a suggestion for the ultimate solution of the individual's dilemma. In its efforts to enlighten, it can impart knowledge and insight for the benefit both of the public at large and the homosexual in particular; it can encourage the invert (ed. note: an old term for the homosexually-inclined) to continue to function, to win his struggle for adjustment, and to accept himself; it can offer similar aid to friends, relatives, and others who must furnish understanding; and finally, in suggesting a way out, it can show all readers that the invert's life is not that of a hopeless person doomed to defeat. |
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