SGN Page 40

Letters


The SGN welcomes your letters to the editor regarding the relocation of Seattle's LGBT Pride celebrations to Seattle Center next year. Email your thoughts to: sgn2@sgn.org - or snail mail to: SGN, 1605 12th Ave., Ste. 31, Seattle, WA, 98122. Please be sure to include your name and contact information for verification. The SGN reserves the right to edit all letters for content, clarity and length. THE HILL IS STILL OUR GAY MECCA Dear Friends of Our Gay Community, Here are my views on the Pride Parade/March & Rally. I have viewed a few! (They haven't changed much.) #1. Moving the Parade to 3rd Avenue will be a disaster. Where do they assemble and then disassemble at Seattle Center? #2. Whose idea is this? The City's? Due to what? Light rail construction? What? While Broadway over the years has become a disaster too, a lot of vacancies, only a few Gay-oriented stores due to slumlords wanting higher rents and condos. Well there will always be an Elite Tavern! #3. Speaking of bars, lounges and businesses, to my knowledge, the businesses have never contributed to the Pride Committee. They SHOULD! A few hundred dollars are needed (and NOT to hire a high priced "director," etc., but rather to upgrade the "floats" and decorations from crepe paper and 2x4's on trucks and trailers. #4. The bands and well done floats are to be commended. I do think 45 minutes of Dykes on Bikes is a bit much all in one contingent. They are a welcome and longtime participant, but how about dividing half in the front and half at the back? #5. Volunteer park is a great ending to the Parade and rally. Easy to organize and meet. I feel Broadway & Capitol Hill is STILL our Gay Mecca, like Castro Street in SF. OK, we have a year to plan the next one. Let's make it bigger and better, GAYLY FORWARD! In Gay Pride! Lenny Larsen COUNTER-PICKET HATE GROUPS AT SEATTLE PRIDE Dear SGN, In the letter section of the SGN of July 1, Caitlin Sullivan asked why Christian right fanatics with their messages of hate and intolerance were allowed at the Pride Parade. For a number of years these groups have attended the parade, always at the northeast corner of Pike and Broadway. Their purpose was to harass and "shame" the marchers using religion as a cover. One can't help notice the special pleasure some of them receive when conducting these activities. Why are they allowed? As long as they are peaceful - and they always have been - they have the Constitutional right to exercise their freedom of speech. This right extends to all groups including the KKK and the Nazis. The government cannot pick and choose who has this right. Freedom of expression cannot be selectively granted. It belongs to all even to hate groups. This is the price that must be paid for this freedom. We can fight back using peaceful and lawful means. In each of the last six parades, I personally have spoken to individuals of these groups. I have argued logic, fairness and theology to show that their way is the wrong way. Others have done the same. If we want to convey a message of tolerance, we can do so in next year's parade by turning their tactics against them. I suggest we station counter-pickets with our own bullhorn near them. We could out number them and drown out their hate message. Since they use religious references, we can do the same. Our signs could read: GOD LOVES HIS GAY AND LESBIAN CHILDREN THE BIBLE IS A BOOK OF LOVE NOT HATE THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO GOD HOMOPHOBES AND BIGOTS NEED YOUR PRAYERS CHRIST NEVER SAID A BAD WORD AGAINST GAYS OR LESBIANS THERE IS MORE THAN ONE RELIGION DIVERSITY IS A VIRTUE Larry Siskind Bellevue, WA CHIEF KERLIKOWSKE RESPONDS TO HATEMONGERS AT SEATTLE PRIDE [Editor's note: This week Caitlin Sullivan forwarded to the SGN the response she received from the Seattle Police Department.] Dear Ms. Sullivan: This is in response to your e-mail to the City of Seattle, dated June 27, 2005, in which you expressed your concerns about some of the language and comments from individuals protesting the recent Gay Pride Parade. Specifically, you ask why some of this language is not a "hate crime," more accurately referred to as Malicious Harassment. Thank you for this opportunity to respond to your concerns. The language you describe, while distasteful to you, does not constitute criminal activity. For a particular act to be considered Malicious Harassment, the perpetrator must have physically injured the victim, caused damage to the victim's property, or threatened the victim or placed the victim in reasonable fear of physical injury or damage to property based upon the victim's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, or sensory handicap. Additionally, the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects many types of speech that could be considered offensive, vulgar, bigoted, and insulting to many people. Because the speech is protected under the Constitution, it is not appropriate for officers to take enforcement action. Again, thank you for this opportunity to respond to your comments. Please feel free to contact Captain Tag Gleason, Violent Crimes Section commander at 684-5550, should you have further questions. Sincerely, R. Gil Kerlikowske Chief of Police Assistant Chief Linda Pierce Criminal Investigations Bureau 'REPARATIVE THERAPY' IS BRAINWASHING Dear SGN, Recently it dawned on me that there is an important fact about the so-called "ex-homosexual" that has been overlooked. None of these men (and it's usually men) are pedophiles. Now if it is true, as the right wing in this country like to insist it is - that Gay males like to go after young boys - then it stands to reason that ex-homosexuals fall into this category too. This is just one more aspect that is usually ignored in regards to a form of brainwashing. The only thing that reparative therapy does it to teach a form of self-censorship. With reparative therapy nothing is changed. If there were a real change in the sexual orientation of the guy who went through it then they'd be constantly raving about the wild sexual fantasies they have about women. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, still believes in reparative therapy. To people like Dobson, anyone who says that their heterosexuality can be changed by exposure to homosexuality is lying. Dobson feels this is the truth since he recently attacked SpongeBob SquarePants for "promoting" homosexuality. Interestingly enough, Dobson, like the rest of the rightwing in this country, has nothing to say about Spokane Mayor Jim West's secret homosexual lifestyle. Dobson's concerns over SpongeBob SquarePants must be based on his own susceptibility to homosexual influences. Dobson has emphatically said that homosexuals are made, not born - an absolute, and as you know absolutes appeal to everyone with no exceptions. Dennis Muerer Shelton, WA JOIN THE MLK UNITY PARADE Dear Friends: I am emailing you today because I need you to participate with me in the Gen. John Stanford/MLK Unity Parade, Saturday, July 16. The starting point of the parade is the intersection of 23rd Ave. S. and S. Jackson Street, heading east on Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way (MLK). The route then will take a right down MLK and head southbound and conclude at the MLK Memorial Park next to the Seattle Tennis Center. Check in for the parade starts at 9:30 a.m. at Washington Middle School on the corner of 21st and Jackson. The parade line-up will begin at 10:45, and the parade will start promptly at 12:00 noon. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday, July 16 at 10:00 a.m. Sincerely, Larry Gossett KUDOS TO THE MONORAIL - WHERE'S SOUND TRANSIT? Dear SGN, A recent public disclosure request of the Monorail authority revealed that its negotiated contract requires: "...the Contractor (a) to provide equal benefits for domestic partners of its employees and (b) to require all other Contractor-Related Entities to provide equal benefits for domestic partners of their respective employees engaged in performing Work at the Project, according to the rules, regulations and policies regarding benefits for domestic partners applied by the City." Sound Transit's response to a similar request, in its entirety, follows: "This letter acknowledges receipt of your request for copies of records showing a Sound Transit requirement for contractors and subcontractors to have domestic partnership benefits or medical benefits in their contracts. We received your request on July 12, 2005. No responsive records were located." Each of these agencies will spend billions of our dollars on their projects. Construction industry and union benefits are notoriously discriminatory. One agency tolerates this discrimination, one doesn't. Each of these agencies is governed by boards that include some members who will appear on the Seattle primary and general elections ballots this year. Ron Sims, Greg Nickels, Dwight Pelz and Richard McIver sit on the Sound Transit Board now. They're running for other offices, but their apparent indifference to discrimination against those who cannot marry is revealing. Each of these four serves in a government that has considered and adopted for itself the requirement of nondiscrimination in contractor benefits. It isn't as thought this is a new issue. Perhaps this is a matter of indifference to them; perhaps they were negligent. They want our votes - ASK THEM! Kirk W. Robbins POINT OF CORRECTION Dear SGN, [Re: "Broadway Merchants - You are the weakest link," SGN Letters to the Editor, 7/01/05.] Lee Serrano did not chair the Seattle Pride parade in 1996. That thankless honor feel to Breanna Anderson and Jeff Newcomer. 1996 will forever be known as the great NAMBLA debate. Ryan Blackhawke