srparedon – editorials (archive)

October 2003

In 2002, John J. Geoghan, a Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced to ten years in Massachusetts prison for touching a 10-year-old boy’s backside at a public swimming pool in 1992. Geoghan’s case received unprecedented media coverage. Local papers and television stations told us again and again that Geoghan had abused over a hundred other boys. Soon, dozens of other Boston-area priests were similarly accused– not with legal evidence, but rather with allegations and unsubstantiated hearsay dating back decades. Eventually, over 500 lawsuits alleging misconduct by clergy were filed against the local archdiocese demanding millions and millions… Continue reading →

September 2003

Among the gaggle of candidates for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, former Vermont governor Howard Dean is held in reverence by many lesbigay organizations and publications. Indeed, Dean’s support for gay civil unions in his native Vermont has won him the overwhelming support of gay and lesbian voters, thus providing his first-ever national campaign with a vital financial and organizational base that has startled television and op-ed pundits.

Many gay groups and publications note Dean’s support for civil unions and anti-discrimination laws protecting homosexuals and thereby credit Dean as being a principled civil libertarian. Dean… Continue reading →

August 2003

People who care about sexual freedom and civil liberties can celebrate this summer’s Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence and Garner v Texas striking down sodomy laws. The repugnant notion that the government can police our bedrooms to dictate how we use our own mouths, assholes, and genitals has, at long last, been recognized as legally impermissible.

Most politically aware gay people are familiar with the case: Houston police, responding to a neighbor’s erroneous weapons report, forced their way into John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner’s bedroom. There, they discovered the two men having sex. Police arrested… Continue reading →

July 2003

The chronicler of gay sex Boyd McDonald remarked, “Some people have gotten a lot out of their homosexuality, so they have a lot to give back.” Though he was speaking about the letter-writing contributors to his series of true homosexual experiences, Boyd’s observation also applies to the gay community’s political leadership.

The initial message of the modern gay movement was “gay is good.” Though simplistic, the slogan was an antidote to social condemnation of homosexuality. Instead of buying into prevailing morality, people were encouraged to trust their own experience over pieties about appropriate sexual conduct.… Continue reading →

June 2003

Last month, commenting on the Texas sodomy case currently before the Supreme Court, US Senator Rick Santorum (R- Pennsylvania) noted, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy… to polygamy… to incest… to adultery. You have the right to anything.”

Predictably, gay groups indignantly condemned Santorum. Without exception, the message of local and national homo organizations was, “How dare he compare us to real perverts!”

Such knee-jerk responses underscore that our political groups have devolved into respectability-seeking public relations… Continue reading →

May 2003

Gay people rightly celebrate that thirty years ago, activists successfully pressured the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to revise its attitude towards homosexuality.

Prior to 1973, the APA’s “Bible” (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) labeled homosexuality an unambiguous mental disorder; any and all gay people were– by definition– sick. This “expert” diagnosis endangered gay people’s jobs, housing, and equal treatment before the law. Custody hearings, immigration proceedings, and civil service exams were all tainted by professionally sanctioned anti-gay bigotry.

But lost in many of the stories about the APA’s change of heart are two… Continue reading →