Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site sdcrdcf.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!lmeck From: lmeck@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Loren Meck) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Boy, am I catching it..... Message-ID: <422@sdcrdcf.UUCP> Date: Thu, 28-Jul-83 19:43:51 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.422 Posted: Thu Jul 28 19:43:51 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 4-Aug-83 23:44:34 EDT Reply-To: lmeck@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Loren Meck) Organization: System Development Corporation, Santa Monica Lines: 45 From Michael Turner: "Anyone who distains(sic) 'Faggot Pride Week' is, to my mind, a queer-basher until proven innocent." Well, I disdain "Faggot Pride Week", and I'm not a queer-basher. I have had, and still have, friends who are bisexual or homosexual. I believe that all of them would agree with my disdain for celebrations of homosexuality as portrayed by "Gay Pride Week". Many, if not most, homosexuals have relationships similar to those enjoyed by heterosexuals. However, the "Gay Pride Week" parades, etc. portray and promote a homosexual "life-style" in which promiscuity and public sex are commonplace and acceptable. In this "life-style", the maxim "do your own thing and don't discriminate" substitutes for reason; in particular, public health is secondary to the presumed right of homosexuals to enjoy any desired form of sexual expression. Promiscuous anal and oral sex do a very good job of spreading diseases that society has a right to be free of. This is sufficient reason for public condemnation, not of homosexuality, but of the homosexual "life-style" as portrayed and promoted by such events as "Gay Pride Week". As if the "traditional" diseases (syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis, amoebic dysentery, etc.) weren't bad enough, now we have AIDS to contend with. Having created a public health nightmare, homosexual (and other) activists now want the rest of us to spend our money to seek a medical cure when all that is required is curtailment of promiscuity. This is another legitimate reason for societal condemnation of the "life-style" promoted by "Gay Pride Week". Finally, the correct word for those who are attracted to members of the same sex is "homosexual". I will promise not to substitute the word "faggot" when others promise not to substitute the word "gay". Those of us who are gay, but who are not homosexual, object strenuously to the attempt to promote the homosexual "life-style" by using the emotionally positive word "gay", just as you object to the denigration of homosexuals with the emotionally negative word "faggot". I'm all for a "more tolerant world" too, but the tolerance must be based on reason, not on worship of sacred cows. All of us have the right and obligation to examine societal changes rationally and critically, and to condemn those changes we perceive as harmful. Loren Meck