Dear Editor:

Rob DeKoven just doesn’t get it. He makes a good case that the four firefighters who are suing San Diego over their forced participation in the 2007 Pride Parade are being used by a Right-wing legal establishment “to advance an anti-Gay agenda.” Nonetheless – though I strongly support Mike Aguirre and appreciate that he is doing his job in defending the city against this suit – I believe, as I did when this story broke and said publicly, that the firefighters are right and the city is wrong.

The bottom line is that the firefighters were forced, as a condition of continued employment, to lend their bodies towards a cause (LGBT equality) in which they do not believe. They were treated, not as citizens of a democratic nation with a right to their own points of view on controversial issues, but the way people are treated in dictatorships when they are herded into giant stadia and forced to listen to and applaud the latest pronouncements of the dictator.

The guarantees of the First Amendment do not simply say that I have a right to speak my own truth; they also say that I have a right NOT to speak if I don’t want to, and that if I work for the government I should not be forced, as a condition of my employment, to be put on display on behalf of a cause I oppose. The Pride events are not some neutral community “happening.” As much as their original spirit has been weakened over the years by the frantic commercialism that now envelops them, they are still explicitly political events designed to advance the cause of LGBT equality.

That’s how we were able to keep Roger Hedgecock’s “Normal People” out of them in 1994 – and that’s why it was wrong for firefighters who don’t agree with that cause to be forced to participate in a parade held to support it. As a matter of basic honesty and morality, we must grant other people the same rights of political freedom and expression we claim for ourselves.

Mark Gabrish Conlan, Publisher of Zengers magazine

Dear Editor:

Preaching and moralizing seldom has much effect, even when it comes from our own, and has a sound basis. Those of us who sounded the early alarms on safe sex and AIDS were derided as Cassandras (of course, in the myth, Cassandra turned out to be RIGHT). Voter registration drives and membership drives for The Center were met with outright hostility. The general attitude was, “let us party on the weekends and stay in the closet the rest of the time and LEAVE US ALONE.” Calls to political activism in the 1970s elicited comments like “politics makes my d**k soft.” One still hears that, and similar comments. Sadly, there will probably still be up to 25 percent of GLBT people who will vote their portfolios and the Republican ticket, despite the shambles to which the country has been reduced after eight years of Republican misrule. I have two words for you: SUPREME COURT. I do admit to being somewhat surprised at the reaction of some people at Southern Decadence to the Gustav crisis, since that is heavily (though not

exclusively) a “leather/bear” event. In the past, the leathermen and the bears, along with the “drag” community and the lesbians, have been the first to step up when help of any kind was needed. I hope that such empty-headed party-goers-at-any-cost are in the minority.

But after 50-plus years in the GLBT community, nothing much surprises me anymore

Bud Clark

Dear Editor:

Brian van de Mark did a terrific fourth of September article on the gay college experience. However I am rather disappointed that a rather significant section of GLBT college students were overlooked.

We, the GLBT & Allied staff, faculty, and students were not covered in this article. Mesa College, for example, has a thriving student organization, City College is organizing one, and Southwestern next, but where are we? SDSU, UCSD, and USD were covered; but what about the other districts?

There is some controversy involved on our humble campuses at the moment. San Diego City College administrators have issues with how we present our name.

I am Jason Frye and I am the president of the Fellowship of Associated Gay Students & Straight Allies at City, Mesa, and our umbrella community organization F.A.G.S. & Straight Allies. The Community Colleges are important just like the larger Universities in town; we are usually overlooked though.

Unlike UCSD and SDSU, the community colleges face greater challenges to existing (i.e. Higher turnover, lowered student involvement, etc) but we do our best to offer the kind of experience that our members would receive at their four-year transfer destinations.

We have fewer resources but still get by, occasionally receiving financial support from community organizations like San Diego’s Foundation for change who awarded us a generous grant this year.

Community College GLBTQIA students should not be overlooked because we are on smaller campuses, please consider us the next time that you guys cover the larger schools, and it may be a great article for an upcoming issue, We are doing a community health and reproductive health fair this semester.

Thank you for your consideration, and please don’t overlook us in the future

Jason Frye