This story first appeared on statehornet.com on April 12, 2017.
When George Raya requested that the Society for Homosexual Freedom be recognized as an official Sacramento State club in 1970, school officials were uneasy about Associated Students, Inc. granting club status to a group they called “deviants.”
“The police called us ‘unapprehended felons’ — it was against the law to do homosexual acts,” Raya said. “The priests said we were going to hell, that we were sinners. The American Psychological Association said we had a mental illness. So things were rough back in those days.”
Raya, who was serving on Sac State’s student senate, had come out of the closet one year earlier at the age of 19 and was an early member of SHF, a club that included both gay and straight students who wanted to learn more about the LGBT community.
The inspiration for SHF was a similar group at UC Davis known only as C7 — the name of the classroom in which it met.
Martin Rodgers, a psychology professor at Sac State, was called in by the UC Davis administration to investigate if C7 members were in need of counseling.
“Marty went back to the administration and said ‘There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re very happy people (and) well-adjusted,’ ” Raya said. “The only thing, of course, is they’re homosexual.”
Rodgers felt that a similar club for Sac State students would be a good idea, and the first meeting was held in his apartment.
“Every time someone knocked on the door or rang the doorbell, we kind of stiffened a bit because we didn’t know if it was another person coming to attend or if it was the police coming to arrest us,” Raya said.
When Raya proposed that SHF be recognized by Associated Students, Inc., Otto Butz — the acting president of the college — shot down the idea, refusing to approve the group’s charter.
“He wanted to become the permanent president and he felt that if he granted us a charter, (then-Governor) Ronald Reagan wouldn’t like approving a gay student group,” Raya said.
So ASI filed a lawsuit against both Sac State and the Cal State trustees.
Sac State and the trustees argued that an LGBT club shouldn’t be approved because it would promote what were then illegal sexual acts.
Judge William Gallagher decided the case on Feb. 9, 1971 in favor of ASI, declaring that the school had to recognize SHF because of protections for freedom of speech and assembly in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
“The judge said ‘Look, you can’t deny them based on what you think they will do, they have to have actually done something,’ ” Raya said. “That case was used by other campus groups around the state and country. If they got denied they’d go to their president and say ‘Look, you lost in Sacramento, you’re not going to win here.’ ”
That spring, Sac State held a symposium on the topic of homosexuality headlined by none other than Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
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John Ferrannini 