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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!houxz!vax135!floyd!harpo!decvax!decwrl!sun!tj
From: tj@sun.uucp (Cal Thixton)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Posted as per requested...
Message-ID: <1202@sun.uucp>
Date: Mon, 4-Jun-84 12:25:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.1202
Posted: Mon Jun  4 12:25:17 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Jun-84 05:24:13 EDT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 78


   (Cal, I would like to have this posted on net.motss if you
could. My site dousn't send notes out of the building,
but we can get out with mail. If you can, Thanks.)


   I have been reading this group for about 2 months now but
have never posted to it before. There are two reasons for
tis. The first is that this site doesn't send notes off-site.
The other reason is that after reading for a while I quite
often want to flame. Due to several notes I've read recently, 
and the request for new voices, I'm going to put my 2 cents 
worth on the wire.
One of the postings which has prompted me to write this is the 
following from irish:

> Nobody seems to mind that I enjoy Rush, Beethoven, and even Journey.
> "And I'm addicted to Dallas"!  So what?!  So why should anyone care 
> about my sexual preferences?

   I find this insulting and extremely insensitive. The Sumpreme Court
refused this week to review a ruling by a Circuit Court in New Orleans
upholding the INS decission to refuse citizenship to a gay resident
alien from the UK on the grounds that he lied about having a 
psychopathic personality. Although he was never asked whether he was
homosexual, he should have know that this fact meant that he was indeed
a psychopath. The author of an article recently published in 
Psychology Today, and reprinted in major newspapers throughout the US,
states that "statistics and descriptions only confirm the belief held
by many heterosexuals that homosexuals are depraved". Public officials
in San Francisco are buisily trying to determine what form of 
behavior mod will best save homosexuals from thenselves.
   Drawing alalogies between people subjected to such opression and
people who like particular musicians and TV programs is to make
light of a very serious subject. Gayness is something that most
gay people perceive as a basic facet of ourselves for our entire
life. It is not a whimsical matter of taste, like prefering red-heads
or Sunday afternoons. I don't care what anybody's sexual preferences
are (except my lover's), but for my entire life I have been subjected
to labelling, descrimination, and negative conditioning because of
my sexual orientation. 
   Quite often I have read in this group about *sexual preference* and
gay people *choosing* to be gay. I would like to ask the heterosexuals
on the net when and how they *chose* to be straight. According to 
studies and personal experience the main thing that gay people
choose is how open to be about our orientation with ourselves
and others. Since heterosexuality is the only accepted orientation in
this society, heterosexuals have no similar experience. It is rather
shallow minded to assume out of the lack of this experience that
gay people have chosen to be *different*.

   The difference between sexual preference and sexual orientation
is a large one. Sexual orientation is the terminology currently used 
by most gay organizations, writings, and legislation. It implies not
only the understanding that gayness is an essential part of the experience
of most gay people, but it implies the same type of respect exibited by
referring to black people as black instead of colored.

   Another statement which disturbs me is the following from crane:

> I don't know why many people who contribute to this newsgroup seem to be so
> hung up about whether or not somebody is gay or bi admits it or not or
> whether or not they are told that this or this person is or is not gay or
> bi or whatever or even whether somebody is homophobic or not.

   If discussing who we are and how we [don't] fit into this society
aren't things worth discussing, I would like to know what things
gay people should discuss? Ballet and interior design?
   When I first learned about this group I was very excited at the 
prospect of hearing from gay computers users throughout UNIXland.
What I often feel after reading it is more akin to having seen 
another Sunday tour bus gawking its way through the Castro:
That I have again been subjected to the patronising liberalism
of *slumming* straights.

			Keith Keilman
			ucbvax!hpda!keilman