srparedon – editorials (archive)

December 2005

In newspapers, television reports, and press releases, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court Samuel Alito is billed as a “conservative.” Indeed, Alito boasts of his conservative judicial outlook, and pundits suggest his conservatism was a key factor in Bush’s nomination.

For most people, political conservatism embraces key principles: limited governmental intrusion into peoples’ lives and commerce, a commitment to individual freedom, a government reined in by checks and balances, and an appreciation for the stability lent society through respect for legal precedent.

By all these measures Samuel Alito is no conservative.

In… Continue reading →

November 2005

This past summer, a sex study conducted by researchers in Chicago and Toronto supposedly demonstrated that most of those men calling themselves bisexual respond to sexually-charged visual stimulation more like gay men than straight men. The implication, widely picked up on by both the gay and mainstream press, was that most self-reported bisexual men were either self-deluded or misrepresenting their attractions: “Gay, Straight, or Lying?” as a New York Times op-ed piece put it.

The study involved about one hundred men recruited from ads in gay and “alternative” publications. Study subjects fell into roughly equal… Continue reading →

October 2005

This issue, our main story examines the execution in Iran of Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, killed by Iranian courts for alleged sex crimes with– or perhaps against– another teen boy.

There has been much sloganeering and muddle-headed thinking about the Iranian executions. Many critics cite the case as exemplary of “Islamo-fascism.” Others decry the killing of teenagers, with the implication that the execution of adults is morally acceptable. Some suggest that if the charges of “raping” other teen boys were true, then the death sentence is understandable. And many GLBT groups have rallied against… Continue reading →

September 2005

Subway commuters in metropolitan Boston have recently been bombarded with “security” announcements. Three different recorded warnings (urging riders to report strange packages, to call police about suspicious people, to remain ever-vigilant and ever-worried) are blared over loudspeakers in a continuous loop with only a brief reprieve of silence before the next cycle. Thus, commuters can easily hear dozens of high-decibel danger alerts in a single trip. Regular subway riders will hear such “be afraid” warnings hundreds of times a week and many tens of thousands of times throughout the year.

Given that subway riders are… Continue reading →

August 2005

Earlier this year, the Boston media went berserk reporting on a case involving a 15-year-old female student giving blowjobs to five members of her high school’s hockey team (ages 15 to 18) in the boy’s locker room on multiple occasions. No force or coercion was ever alleged, no one involved ever complained, yet all the boys were charged with child rape. They faced lifetime registration as sexually dangerous persons meaning each would have to notify all future employers and neighbors that he was a convicted child rapist. Under laws now being drafted by Massachusetts (and likely… Continue reading →

July 2005

The Religious Right is overtly crusading to transform the United States into what they would call a “Christian” nation. Politically active fundamentalists contend that school curriculums, environmental priorities, foreign policy, and all other matters of state can best be solved by relying on their interpretation of their version of scripture.

Almost all of these religious zealots contend that they are not extremists, that they are merely restoring America to the divinely inspired path laid out by the Founding Fathers. Indeed, their websites, broadcasts, and mailings are full of appeals to “return America” to the faith… Continue reading →