Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

Appreciates Human Rights Focus

Thank you very much for the piece on the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission ["Human Rights Wrongs," September 1998, available at www. guidemag.com].

It would be nice to see some sort of rebuttal from them, but I have a feeling that the problems you have with them are justified. Queers are wonderful now at selling their birthrights for a mess of quiche. I see this motif constantly around me. It seems that the main "issue" involved is intergenerational sex, which has become the absolute hot bottom in the vastly fragmented gay community. Part of reason for this is that for centuries gay/queer/same-sexualized was synonymous with pedophilia, so much so that in France the pejorative for gay is "pedophile." Like there's no difference between the two. But we want so much to divorce ourselves from the "bad" queers who "assault" kiddies, that we forget that most of us started off as those kids. A good example is that I have friends who are off on the fringes of S & M, love fisting, bondage, severe punishment, the whole deal-- but who are "nauseated" by the "NAMBLA thing." They feel there should be no place in gay culture for it at all. The hypocrisy of this is pretty apparent.

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These attitudes remind me of my own reactions to whites and blacks in the early civil rights movement who were rigidly homophobic. Back in the early 60s, this was used as a way to separate the black civil rights movement from "deviates." I said: "They love you if you're white, love you if you're black, pink, purple, or blue. They just don't love you if you're you."

P.B.

via the internet

Human Rights Article 'Ridiculous'

The piece on the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission ["Human Rights Wrongs," September 1998, available at www. guidemag.com] is the most ridiculous article I have read in some time. In particular, I found the idea that a group which supports people in the third and fourth worlds should spend any energy on people in the first world a highly privileged position. I also found the argument around pederasty itself privileged when our communities in those countries without any infrastructure are supposed to compete for attention in this debate.

There may be plenty of criticisms one could make of IGLHRC, but having a focus outside "rich western countries" would not be one of them-- unless you were unable to see beyond your own privilege.

Paul Canning

Sydney, Australia

canning@rainbow.net.au

You contend that focusing on rights abuses in the 'third and fourth worlds' to the exclusion of those in the rich West is a legitimate choice. IGLHRC itself would not agree. They insist they care about human rights abuses everywhere, and do not let Western governments off the hook.

First-world human rights activists (and the rhetoric of human rights promulgated by Western states) have been criticized by people in poor countries who say that human-rights rhetoric is often used merely as a cover for pursuing first-world interests.

The legitimacy of human rights campaigning depends on treating nations and individuals with equal regard. That is the very essence of the human rights perspective. Otherwise, human rights work becomes merely politics by other means.

In West today-- and not least in Australia-- the idea that pederasts ('pedophiles' is the usual blanket-term) should be permanently removed from society, or at least imprisoned for long periods, deprived of rights of expression and association, physically mutilated, branded by the state, subject to Apartheid-style pass laws, etc., are wildly popular and are being put into effect.

Poor countries imprison a minuscule proportion of their citizens for consensual sexual activity compared to the rich West. Imprisonment for consensual sex does not exhaust the range of human rights abuses committed against sexual minorities, but it is an important data point. Rich western societies could learn many things from many poorer societies about tolerance and sexual diversity.

It is difficult to comprehend how someone could have any regard for human rights or homosexuals and say that it is a luxury to oppose laws that would require the long-term imprisonment, mutilation, and withholding of basic rights from persons such as Walt Whitman, André Gide, Socrates, or Allen Ginsberg.

Shitheads in Washington

Good for you on the August, 1997, editorial ["Supreme Court, Stalin Style"]. That is what happens when right wing religionists run the Courts. Amerika will just never learn and continue to elect these shitheads on the ability to gab.

Bob Nilsen

Wayne, New Jersey

Appalled by "Dim-Witted Gays"

Thank you for the editorial in your August 1998 issue ["Hate Crime Laws: Dangerous Folly"]. I am grateful someone has found the courage to condemn so-called "hate crime laws" as "dangerous folly." They certainly are! I have been appalled at the number of dim-witted gays who have been suckered in to supporting the oppressive laws which punish speech with severe penalties and are another major exception to our First Amendment protections.

R.A. Horne

Boston, Massachusetts

Hate crime laws are patently unconstitutional; they violate the guarantee of equal protection under the law as well as punish expression protected by the First Amendment.

Of course, except for a brief period under Chief Justice Earl Warren, our Supreme Court has never been terribly interested in protecting civil liberties (witness their recent decision in Kansas vs Hendricks okaying indefinite incarceration for those deemed "potential" criminals and the Court's on-going mockery of the First Amendment in allowing the concocted legal fiction of "obscenity" to justify censorship).

Prison Redecorating

Stimulated by Bill Andriette's article on statuphilia ("Statuary Love," April 1998, also available at www.guidemag.com), the punk (me) petitioned the warden to install a life-size statue of Michelangelo's David in the prison rec-yard. Surprisingly, the request was granted. However, there was additionally an approved addendum-- submitted by the prison chaplain-- to affix a fig-leaf over David's genitalia to protect the morality of the prison population.

"the prison punk"

Gardner, Massachusetts

A Salute from Canada

I have read lot of gay international magazines, but never read such nice, quality, useful magazine as The Guide. Keep your good works. I see money is not everything at least in your business.

Take care; I will continue buying and recommending your mag to all my friends. Thanks for good work and excellent magazine for gay community. Cheers, **

Tyrrel

fashion@sprint.ca