Sports Illustrated spurs lesbian witch hunt

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These are years often spent in abject poverty. Their social security income may be as low as $125 a month. Then they qualify for a sort of welfare: Supplementary Security Income-SSl-the safety net. It is supposed to guarantee the aged enough money to live on. Bureaucrats have decided that $439 a month is enough for a single person. If she gets a gift of a few dollars from a son or daughter, the amount is deducted from her next SSI check.

This is the famous fixed income you have heard about. Only it is not fixed, as rising prices shrink its purchasing power. Life for the elderly poor becomes a process of constantly diminishing living standards.

In San Francisco $477 a month will scarcely rent a studio apartment. The elderly have to double-up and still pay over 50 percent of their income for rent.

by Dianne Feeley & Paul Le Blanc The pamphlet may be obtained.

through Socialist Action for $4 plusı $1 for postage.

SOCIALIST ACTION account, her home, and any other property she plans to leave to her children. All these must be liquidated to pay the voracious nursing home operators, who are often large conglomerates.

When nothing is left and the patient is reduced to pauper status, she qualifies for MediCal, a California program. This will pay for a minimum level of nursing home care. Often the home that has been taking $2000 a month from the patient as long as her money lasted, refuses to accept lower MediCal payments. Then the old, frail woman must be moved to an inferior home, often far from friends or relatives. The trauma of making this move further breaks down her health and often leads to an earlier death.

You might think that death would bring an end to this litany of capitalist exploitation of the old. But I have a further horror story to report. Many elderly make arrangements for their funerals while they are still alive. Often they stipulate that they be cremated and their ashes scattered high above the Sierra mountains. There are a number of mortuaries who are contracted with pilots to carry out this final rite.

For 10 years one pilot collected ashes and scattered them as requested. Or so everyone thought-until someone in the Sierras found mounds of ashes piled up in a field. Pieces of bone indicated they were human remains. It had transpired that the pilot had encountered difficul ties in dropping them from his plane. So he had loaded them into a pickup truck and dumped them onto a field that he SEPTEMBER 198‹ COLUMBIA, S.C.-When Pam Parsons resigned in 1982 as women's basketball coach at the University of South Carolina, she expected to find a similar job at another university. But antilesbian prejudice, fanned by an article in Sports Illustrated magazine, has closed the doors of every college to this promising athletic director.

The Sports Illustrated article, published three months after her resignation, reported that Parsons had had sexual relations with Tina Buck, a member of her basketball team. It also charged that the coach had recruited players "with sex in mind."

This libelous charge, broadcast by the most important national sports magazine, destroyed Pam Parson's career. She decided to sue for libel. Tina Buck filed a similar, but independent, suit. The women did not base their suits on their right to be lesbians, but denied that they were. This disappointed many of their supporters, who felt that lesbian and gay rights were the main issue.

When Parson's suit came to trial in Columbia, S.C., last June, the local press made the event a lurid media circus calculated to stir antilesbian prejudice. Lawyers for Sports Illustrated brought in witnesses to prove that the two women were lesbians. Witnesses testified to "French kissing" and visits to gay bars. This tactic by the magazine's lawyers made lesbianism the defendant in the case instead of Sports Illustrated's libelous accusation of "sexual" recruiting.

The thoroughly prejudiced jury brought in a verdict exonerating Sports Illustrated. The jury declared Pam Parsons to be a lesbian; she had no protection against the slanderous charges. Furthermore, the court decreed that Parsons must pay the costs of the suit, which amount to $28,000 for the defense alone. It is understandable in the light of this verdict that Tina Buck has dropped her suit. Pam Parsons does not plan to appeal.

Even this demoralizing defeat for the two friends was not enough for the court and community. The federal judge asked the FBI to look for perjury by Parsons and her witnesses. The bigots in South Carolina would like to see Pam Parsons in jail, where they believe all lesbians should be.

Because of the lynch atmosphere in Columbia, it is not surprising that women might hesitate to come out of the closet. Nevertheless, the real issue in the case was the right to sexual freedom. The verdict of the jury was a heavy blow to gays and lesbians in South Carolina.