Dear Editor:

I’m a member of the Pioneer Generation as we have come to be called and also the volunteer co-ordinator at the GLBT Center for Seniors With A Purpose (SWAP). I’m attempting to reach out to fellow-seniors in the various gay and lesbian social groups in San Diego. Many in our generation of Activists don’t seem to think our stories are worth hearing and I’m out to change that mindset. I too thought that way at the time of my Activism and didn’t pay close attention to chronicling much of it. But what I kept in boxes all this time has taken on cachet and provenance as I look back and I want to share one huge memory that meant a lot to me then and now.

I was a member of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus back in its infancy when we sang at Harvey Milk’s Memorial Service in 1978. We also went on a National Tour in ‘81. I kept a detailed Log, much of the printed newspaper reviews, old programs and old official t-shirts, pins and nametags as well.

Fast forward to 2003 when the word went out over the Internet that the Chorus had created an Archive. I sent them what I had kept, faded and yellow as it was. A big Alumni ingathering of old Chorus members took place in November; 80 of us joined the 210 current members for a 25 yr Commemorative Concert at the Davies Symphony Hall with 3 former conductors directing. During the weekend of activities we were invited to visit the Steve Silver Rm (who founded Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi) to see the Chorus Archives on display at the SF Public Library for the public to see.

The point I wish to make is that the importance of our history can’t be overstated for it is the legacy we are creating and passing along. For me, the Reconnect I made, all these years later, with fellow-activists in the SF Chorus, was a capstone to my life and made what I did back in the dark old days worth it all.

Tom Giles

South Park

Dear Editor,

“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.” Socrates

Yet once again Nicole has demonstrated his level of ignorance, with his comments regarding the landing on Planet Mars of the Spirit Rover. I for one stayed up late the night it landed, and was watching with great anticipation right along with the scientists at JPL. This mission had been in the planning stages since the early 80’s. Nicole seems to think that the President yesterday decided “Let’s go to Mars” and suddenly the AIDS money was spent on that? Is that not what budgets are for?

This is a technological marvel, landing a piece of scientific equipment 105-plus million miles away from the earth, within the original 6 miles projected landing space. This is like firing a gun in the air and predicting where the bullet will land within 2 feet here on earth.

I often like to read Nicole’s column just to see how he has made a fool of himself this week. Personally I feel that his one-sided, very jaded, outlook on the community is a large part of what is wrong with San Diego’s GLBT Society. Here we have a role-model like that to show us all that it is OK to take money away from the youth (the Sandies) in order to further his own agenda, or it’s OK to “stab each other in the back” in order to get ahead of someone else or to get what you need/want, or even that its OK to lie, steal, or cheat from each other just because “Do you know who I am?” This attitude sickens me, and sets a miserable precedent for generations of young gay men in San Diego. I really wish you would stop this embarrassing person who calls himself a social columnist.

Deric Stowell

San Diego

Dear Editor:

I joined the ranks of registered Republicans years ago at the urging of a friend who said we could make a difference by voting for the more moderate factions in primaries, then voting our conscience during the general election. Supposedly, this would block the arch-conservatives and right-wingers from impinging on freedoms guaranteed to all Americans under the Constitution.

While I still subscribe to this theory, Bush’s comments about the sanctity of marriage during his nationally televised campaign speech Jan. 20, gave me pause to consider reregistering as an Independent.

Let’s ask all the gay Republican clubs across the nation — no matter the party’s stance on the balance of domestic issues — how in the world can any gay person vote for politicians who could and would draft an amendment to the Constitution curtailing the rights of some of its citizens?! There is no way the Log Cabin organization can justify voting for politicians in any party that would rescind even a portion of our rights to calm the fears of the ultra-conservatives and religious fanatics.

And let’s ask ourselves as a community, that perhaps the good fight should be for the rights and privileges every other culture in America enjoys, but using a word or phrase other than the hot-button of “marriage.” Do we really want to be associated with a word that has a 50 percent failure rate among heterosexuals?

If I were in a committed relationship, I would not want to have to travel to the Northeast to legitimize it in the eyes of the law. I would not have to call it “marriage” to feel legitimate. What I would want under the law is for the relationship to be legally recognized, to receive the same tax credits and breaks as every other American couple, to adopt a child without challenge if my partner and I so desired, to visit my partner in the hospital without restraint by his family or the government and to inherit all we worked toward as a couple should he die — and vice versa.

What we really want is for all Americans to be treated as first-class citizens. So, let’s not call it “marriage.” Let’s find a way to come up with a nationwide campaign throughout the American gay community to have the same rights and privileges as every other single or coupled American.

Now is the most important time for America’s gay community leaders to work with gay and gay-friendly elected officials to come up with an ingenious plan once and for all that absolutely guarantees our equal rights and protection under the law that does not use or involve the word “marriage” which, sadly, seems to scare the hell out of the majority of Americans.

Our stubbornness and defiance to use the word “marriage” might only serve to undo 35 years of Gay liberation during a very unattractive election year.

Lee A. Schoenbart

San Diego

Dear Editor:

I don’t know why the GLT is concerned that members of the City Council are being attacked “from all across the country for making the only fair decision” to quit defending this City’s lease with the Boy Scouts of America and to pay attorney’s fees to the mean-spirited and detested ACLU. From where I sit, this City made an agreement two years ago to lease park property so that the BSA could continue serving this community. For this, it took a lot of flak from militant activists who are upset because the ethics of BSA clashed with theirs.

So now agreements mean nothing and we are to allow those newer members of the Council who stand indicted for ethics violations to hold sway! No wonder this country is up in arms when they see strip club owners held in higher esteem than kids taking an oath to be morally straight!

In conclusion, I would hope the BSA takes their appeal all the way to Washington and not concede to bad law or the kind of political cowardice that forced the Roman Catholic Church to pay billions of dollars in settlements through the nose.

John Primavera

San Diego