srparedon – editorials (archive)

October 2004

Perpetual war– that is President Bush’s declared vision for America. We are to arm ourselves to the teeth and initiate first-strike “preemptive” wars with those who might become our enemies. We are to ignore the Geneva Conventions in order to torture and kill enemy prisoners “legally.” The Bill of Rights’ fair and open trials are to be replaced with secret tribunals and off-shore military “justice.” Neighbors are encouraged to report neighbors to secret government hotlines. Any citizen questioning administration policies is to be branded a traitor whose video rentals, library records, and credit card purchases can… Continue reading →

September 2004

Our society remains bedeviled by the Puritanical notion that sex is wicked. Despite gay liberation’s advances, many people continue to see any sex outside narrow boundaries (with the ideal being a married man and woman having vaginal sex in an attempt to procreate) as intrinsically wrong.

Even folks not quite so uptight often see sex as needing some other redemptive purpose, usually formulated as an aid to building “intimacy” in a “committed relationship.” Sex unredeemed by such a “higher” purpose is still viewed as terribly dangerous. Enormous numbers of people are incarcerated for consensual, mutually… Continue reading →

August 2004

Opposition to gay marriage comes from two primary sources. One source for such opposition comes from gay liberationists who’ve fought to create alternatives to heterosexist norms and expectations. They rightly worry that efforts to access heretofore exclusively heterosexual privileges will stifle gay expression and erode hard-won sexual freedoms. Will unmarried gay people be discriminated against? How are the rights of threesomes and other non-traditional households to be accommodated? Will adultery and fornication laws be used to rein in non-monogamous and promiscuous homosexuals as they have heterosexuals? Will domestic partner benefits be denied to those who refuse… Continue reading →

July 2004

It is horrific to learn that the Bush administration has engaged in the systematic torture of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the concentration camps of Guantanamo, Cuba. It is also chilling to realize that the majority of those beaten (some to death), attacked by dogs, electro-shocked on their genitals, sodomized with large objects, and made to curse their religion on video are not combatants, but simply among the thousands rounded-up and imprisoned, held indefinitely, with no way to assert their innocence, no hope of a hearing, no date for release– just endless months, or years, of… Continue reading →

June 2004

Veterans of earlier pride marches, parades, and demonstrations can easily lament the relatively apolitical, non-confrontational tone of many of this June’s pride celebrations. No longer are pride events rowdy gatherings of sexual outlaws demanding an end to legal and political persecution. Instead, they have become “family friendly” events aimed at demonstrating our normality– and peddling a plethora of rainbow hoopla to our new “market niche.”

It is understandable that some regret the loss of pride’s edginess. But nostalgic sentiment should not so cloud our judgment that we romanticize a past marred by rampant anti-gay bigotry.… Continue reading →

May 2004

Bravo’s hit cable series “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” is a remarkable phenomenon. In it, five homosexuals offer grooming and decorating tips to an un-hip heterosexual guy. By following gay advice about hair removal and puff pastry, the straight guy’s previously slovenly life is, supposedly, transformed into something more fabulous than it was before his queer make-over.

At first, “Queer Eye” seems an advance for the gay cause– who’d have thought just a decade ago that an overt gay sensibility would be so embraced by those marketing television shows and all the products they… Continue reading →