PA Council for Sexual Minorities established
Adapted from reporting by PGN staff
Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp established the long-awaited Council for Sexual Minorities in 1976, and named to its service 17 gay community representatives, eight state agency liaisons and seven at-large members. The action made gay activism an official part of the executive branch of state government, a first in the nation.
The council grew out of the ad-hoc Governor’s Gay Rights Task Force, which first met in January 1975.
Anthony Silvestre, a sociologist at Penn State University, was named to chair the council. He also participated in the Task Force and worked closely with top officials in the state Department of Education regarding rights of sexual minorities.
Shapp said, “The charge … to this council is to clearly define the problems of sexual minorities throughout the commonwealth and to recommend ways in which discrimination against sexual minorities can be ended.”
He added he wanted the council to give an opinion on legislation affecting sexual minorities.
The Philadelphia members of the council included Barbara Gittings, PGN publisher Mark Segal, PGN political reporter Harry Langhorne, Thomas Wilson, Frances Hanckel, Janet Cooper and Karin Martin.
NOW nixes endorsement of candidate for antigay votes
Adapted from reporting by PGN staff
The state board of the National Organization for Women in Pennsylvania voted Jan. 18, 1976, to withdraw its support for state Sen. Jeannette Reibman’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
Reibman, a Democrat, was the first female Pennsylvania state Senator. She represented parts of Lehigh and Northampton counties in the state Senate at the time. She was elected to her position in 1969.
NOW said it revoked Reibman’s endorsement because she voted in favor of Senate Bills 196 and 743, which would bar gay people from certain state jobs. Reibman subsequently refused to change her stand on those bills in conversations throughout December and January 1976 with NOW members.
Reibman did not win the U.S. Senate seat, which was vacated when Sen. Hugh Scott retired. She served in the state Senate until 1994. From 1955-66, Reibman also represented Northampton County in the state House of Representatives. She died March 11, 2006, in Allentown.
— compiled by Paige Cooperstein