"Your current cover story 'Boy Scouts: Beacon for Men in the Making' was very offensive to me, a VFW [ Veterans of Foreign Wars ] active member ... . I do not consider myself gay, but I do know it is okay to use the word 'gay.' echoing use of 'homosxual' by the author, Mr. Turbak, unfairly hints at the sickness model which was dumped by the medical field about the time the Vietnam War ended. I agree that private groups should pick and choose their members. That is true for the Scouts, privated military schools, square dance clubs, even Nazi gatherings. But the reality is the Scouts really have little control over their membership. If they had ... issued an exclusionary proclaimation against Black Americans, the Supreme Court, the media, and the American people would have responded with Hell's fury." -; Miss Neala Lynn Balmes of Phoenix writing to VFW Magazine.
"Even though huge sections of the GLBT community protested against radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger ... and our community generally seemed to understand why those protests were needed, somehow the spin on protesting Eminem coming from many gay and gay-friendly entertainers was that we were trying to 'censor' Eminem. This is incorrect. When we protested Dr. Laura, an older woman perceived by many as homely, for calling us biological errors and pedophiles, her words were called quackery and medical malpractice. But when Eminem, a young, hunky, attractive white man, raps about killing faggots and dykes and women, it's called 'art.'" -; Robin Tyler in the Gay & Lesbian Review; hglc.org/hglc/glr/review.htm.
"Elton John and Melissa Etheridge rushed to defend a fellow musician's right to 'free speech.' They seemed to think that a performer's musical talent should insulate his ideas from any kind of public response. But just because John and Etheridge are gay and out and happen to be 'stars' does not make them leaders of our community, let alone authorities on all things gay and lesbian. ... To those of us more deeply rooted in social and political advocacy, the issue is not censorship at all. Let me quote ... from Jennifer Pizer, managing attorney with the Western Regional Office of Lambda Legal Defense: 'Accusations that gay rights advocates are 'censoring' Eminem come from a basic misunderstanding of how the First Amendment works. Censorship is when the government forcibly silences a speaker and removes her or his ideas from the marketplace. Here, Eminem's critics—private individuals and community groups, not the government—are adding their voices and creating a boisterous, educational mix. ... There is no issue of Eminem's critics forcibly silencing him. They are simply calling on him voluntarily to stop, think and get it that he is hurting people.'" -; Robin Tyler.
"I have been a comic for 30 years, and I also teach the history of comedy as it relates to the Civil Rights movements. One thing I've learned is this: There's no such thing as 'just kidding' [ as Eminem sometimes says he is doing ] ! Humor is the razor sharp edge of the truth. It is pain and anger made funny. Eminem's words are neither satirical nor funny. But even if they were in any sense 'a joke,' the joke would still be at our expense. As I write this, a 15-year-old boy has just shot 17 students in Santee, Calif. He talked about doing it all weekend, and then said, he was 'just joking.'" -; Tyler.
"'When it comes to examining whether gay culture plays a role in societal ills, we are sometimes as willfully blind as our conservative foes,' observed Chris Crain in an editorial ... in Southern Voice, the Atlanta-based gay weekly. Crain is a co-founder of Window Media, the company that ... announced it was buying the gay papers The New York Blade and The Washington Blade, and which already owns Southern Voice and Houston Voice ... In his editorial, Crain was discussing the murder of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising, the Arkansas boy who died during violent sex with a gay couple, both adults ... . Crain believes that there is something about the 'sun-drenched gay culture and the value-less homosexual lifestyle' to which right-wingers point that indeed may have fed into Dirhising's murder. 'Could you stand in front of [ Dirkhising's parents ] and disclaim any responsibility for gay culture in his killing?' Crain asked earnestly. Needless to say, religious conservatives and the right-wing media have begun using the quotes of Crain and gay conservatives about the Dirkhising murder to back up their attacks on homosexuality and on the gay rights movement. ... As someone who has written a book that in large part discussed the unhealthier aspects of gay male sexual culture ... and who saw my own words often used in a twisted manner by religious conservatives, I'm not about to condemn Crain for honestly speaking his mind despite the ways in which his statements might be used. But I've got to address what I think is a major leap of logic on his part. There's no question that much of gay male culture is focused on sex, youth and beauty—like much of heterosexual culture ... . But does it lead to drugging and binding a 13-year-old boy, gagging him with his own underwear and taping his mouth shut, forcing violent sex on him, shoving objects up his rectum and ultimately watching him suffocate to death on the gag? Come on. -; March 28 column by Gay.com's Michelangelo Signorile.