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Pen Points
Letters to Gay Today |
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Solidarity Against the Nazis
An anti-Nazi counter-demonstration at the White House has been organized by gays, lesbians, African-
Americans and Jews and will take place Saturday, August 7 at 2 p.m. to protest the agendas of those
racist and sexist warmongers who'll also be present: 1000+ Nazis. Our counter-demonstration is sponsored
by The Oral Majority and Shalom International.
The lessons of the past, we say, are simple. Once a particular group is treated as expendable, all of us become vulnerable. Over ten thousand gay men were also victims earlier in this century during the Nazi-engineered Holocaust. The founder of America's first Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, boasted he'd hang all homosexuals in front of the U.S. capitol building. Now we're witnessing a new and massive wave of 'hate' crimes directed at Gays, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and at anyone else who isn't one of these Nazis, these emotionally and sexually insecure losers eager to finish what their fathers and grandfathers started. Denying the importance of their campaign against us can only lead to many more murders. Take your pick: Mathew Shepard in Wyoming, Billy Jack Gaither in Alabama, or the male couple murdered in California (Gary Matson and Winfield Scott Mowder) reportedly by two 'religious' brothers who're also suspected in the torching of 3 synagogues.
We must unite, helping our communities realize how this crisis is affecting all of us, how it's mushrooming, pushed by nutty Armageddonists eager to fulfill their hate agenda, to divide and conquer us through fear, intimidation, violence. We must collectively counter them. Let your networks know of our efforts. Join with us at the White House on Saturday if you live in the Northeast. Or, any concerned citizens elsewhere may provide financial support for Shalom International, P.O. Box 402263, Miami Beach, Florida. 33140 Telephone: Bob Kunst 305-864-5110; Jerry McGuire:301-946-3316 Help and be part of this much-needed response locally and nationally. Save our communities and its innocents from a spreading scourge of 900+ hate groups in the U.S. alone, and 2000+ hate web sites internationally. Never Again is happening AGAIN!
Yours Faithfully, bobkunst@mindspring.com Solidarity Against Police Stings & Brutality? With reference to Bruce Mirken's legal victory over a police sting in California just the other day I got a call about a new NYPD sting operation -- cops go online, into a chatroom and make appointments with escorts. A number of escorts were arrested very recently one-by-one at a midtown hotel. Our sources tell us a gay vice cop was involved in this maneuver. Isn't it time to get rid of the vice squad? The NYPD is apparently at historically-high staffing levels.
Meanwhile, the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center NYC recently sent
out 55,000 brochures to help recruit more gay cops.
According to the community center's Richard Burns, the executive director, "It's something we've been thinking about for years." One wonders what Richard Burns was thinking about in the last year...when several episodes of police misconduct in New York City have received extensive publicity --the torture-sodomization of Abner Louima, the killing of Amadou Diallo in a hail of 41 bullets and last but not least, the arrests of more than 100 people for trying to have a peaceful protest march down Fifth Avenue - the Matthew Shepard Political Funeral. I'm not holding my breath to see any leadership from Richard Burns or the 'Community Center' on the issue of police brutality.
William K. Dobbs
Why Congress Must Pass Hate Crimes Legislation
It gets so tiresome to have to dispel the same lame arguments against this legislation. Let's be clear: it is only the minority of hate crimes that end in death. Most such crimes are against persons and property but do not end in death. So the argument that hate crimes laws are unnecessary because you can only kill a person once is patently irrelevant.
Even if Shepard's killers had received the death penalty, there would still be a need to address the epidemic of anti-minority violence through criminal law. Hate crimes laws already exist, on the federal level, that cover, for example, race and religion. Those who argue that such laws are irrelevant because they will not eliminate hate crimes are making a silly argument. No criminal laws eliminate crime. Duh. That is not an argument for an absence of law, however. The proposed legislation would expand current federal hate crimes laws to cover sex, sexual orientation and disability. Furthermore, these laws would not mandate federal involvement in any case. States still do and would do the great bulk of investigations and prosecutions. But some localities are not equipped to investigate hate crimes due to lack of personnel and lack of expertise. This law would make federal resources and support available to them. What's more, people who find themselves, say, in rural Nebraska and who are victims of anti-gay violence could find themselves in a position where their needs are not addressed because of the prejudices of local police (did anyone see the Brandon Teena story?). Nebraska already has a hate crimes law that covers sexual orientation, but if the locals won't apply it, then what? Then the federal government could step in to redress what is essentially a failure to protect an individual's civil rights, or at least take a more active role in monitoring the case, spurring the locals to action. Why is any of this important? Because the greatest threat to democracies is organized and/or pandemic hate. The nightmare for democracies, pluralistic democracies, is what we have seen in Kosovo and elsewhere. In this society, we say that all people are to have equal protection under the law. We have civil rights protections to recognize the fact that some minorities are denied equal rights due to systemic bias and prejudices. Those who argue against the whole notion of civil rights as applied to sexual orientation must, if they are to be logically consistent, call for an undoing if the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. And note: sexual orientation covers people of any sexual orientation, and it would be just as hateful for a band of angry Act Up folks to go hunting for straight people to bash. Under the proposed law, they could be charged with federal hate crimes as well. So let's get beyond the shibboleths and false arguments. The more you study this legislation, the less controversial it becomes. It is only controversial to those who want to undo the whole civil rights direction this country has taken, and controversial to those who possess animus against gay and lesbian people. Unfortunately, there are some gay and lesbian people who have this very kind of animus. A. Lorenzo |
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