|
Friday, July 18, 2008
To the Editors: Re: “D.C. gay groups losing their clout” (op-ed by Peter Rosenstein, July 11)
Peter Rosenstein once again attacks GLAA’s candidate questionnaire, as he has done since we first gave one of his favored candidates a less-than-perfect score. Now he urges candidates not to respond to us. We humbly suggest that getting candidates on the record on various issues is only a problem for those who put candidates’ interests ahead of the community’s.
Rosenstein was upset two years ago when Democratic mayoral candidate Linda Cropp earned a +9.5 in GLAA’s primary ratings while Adrian Fenty earned a +8.5 (though GLAA regarded both as very good ratings). Rosenstein’s scorn for anyone who does anything but applaud his preferred candidate should have moderated by now, considering Fenty’s string of broken promises, including his failure to consult our community on the selection of the police chief and his flip-flop to support religious school vouchers. We can document these things precisely because GLAA got Fenty on the record with our questionnaire.
Rosenstein thinks prostitution should be debated publicly, and agrees with GLAA on the issue, but objects to our raising it or asking candidates about it. We raised it because of our concern about the increased risk of substance abuse, physical and mental abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases faced by homeless gay youth and trans women who are forced by circumstances into survival sex.
In any case, it is unclear why including one edgy question among 19 renders the questionnaire worthless and GLAA irrelevant. Nor is it clear why an advocacy group should be attacked and dismissed unless it sticks to safe issues that everyone agrees upon.
Uncomfortable discussions have served our community well enough in years past, whether the issue was needle exchange, Boy Scouts, the military or marriage. Behind each of those uncomfortable discussions are far more uncomfortable lives. Speaking up for them is more important to us than reassuring the comfortable and well connected.
As to who has clout, the record can speak for itself.
RICK ROSENDALL
Washington
Editors’ note: The writer is vice president for political affairs of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance.
To the Editors: Re: “Diva worship” (guest editorial by James Kirchick, July 4)
I have been reading with interest the various views of Hillary Clinton in the Washington Blade.
What fascinates me is the apparent difficulty those opposed to her are having letting her go. It is with irony that I say to them: She lost, get over it.
The obsession with her becoming Sen. Barack Obama’s running mate reached new lows with James Kirchick’s guest editorial. First, only a self-impressed gay journalist would use other self-impressed gay journalists’ opinions of Hilary Clinton to mean that those of us out in the real world follow said opinions.
God forbid we can actually think for ourselves. Nowhere is that more evident than when Kirchick calls the support for Sen. Clinton “shallow.” Excuse me? Did he suddenly forget the superficial treatment he gave in the previous two-thirds of his piece? Who cares if she is a diva or not? If he actually spoke to people like my friends and me, he’d find that we actually supported her (and many are now supporting Obama) for very substantive reasons (as he acknowledges earlier).
Who are these “legions of gay men” who hold her in diva status? But Kirchick shows his hand when he says we like her because of her femininity! What?! Where has he been? She is reviled for her failure to show her (so-called) feminine side. She is criticized for being too aggressive (i.e., like a man), not vulnerable enough (i.e., not like a woman), or being held accountable for her husband’s mistakes (i.e., she has no true identity of her own).
So now if we support her, we’re maniacal diva worshippers who are only succumbing to gay stereotypes? Give me a break. Mr. Kirchick, deal with your mother issues, deal with your heterosexism, or your envy, or whatever Hilary Clinton evokes in you. But please, don’t ever assume you speak for me or know my motivations for supporting Hillary Clinton.
But since you seem to not want to let her go please deal with your obsession with her and leave the cultural criticism to those who actually make sense.
CHRISTOPHER VAUGHAN, Ph.D.
Washington
|
 |
