Dear Editor:

I would like to take a moment to respond to your important article. I feel it is about time, you ask the questions you do! I have been bi identified bisexual all of my adult life. I have walked in nearly a dozen pride parades from Ft. Lauderdale to Rome (I met Gilbert

Baker there at World Pride 2000 and he himself made no mention of there being no need for a bi pride flag). My domestic partner of 4 years is a gay man and he has accompanied me along this journey without compromising his own gay identity.

Let’s be frank, anyone who sees the rainbow flag, who has actually had some form of human contact in the last 30 years, instantly recognizes it as a “gay/lesbian icon”. Importantly, few if any see it as a “GLBT icon”. The symbolism in the rainbow flag need NOT change as those who embrace it, also embrace its meaning. Symbolism aside, I never felt represented by the rainbow flag, because I am not a gay man.

I also do not have any gender issues. Obviously any transgendered person can

be of any of the 3 sexual orientations (heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual). That would, as it ALWAYS is, a unique, private and most personal realization (subject to change in some instances).

I am proud of all those who have the courage to take part in the larger part of this “human rights” equation! We all are indeed different and we MAY walk with more than one flag, but we need to be acknowledged for who we are, not how we are perceived to be.

You mention the bi pride flag being “dual-toned”, but it is tri-colored.

Please refer to http://BiFlag.com to get the accurate and complete text of its meaning and symbolism.

I think they are essential and full of gorgeousness!

Do you feel it’s meaningful to raise bisexual and transgender community flags alongside our rainbow flag?

Absolutely. We are “GLBT People”. Our movement will be MUCH stronger as a “GLBT Movement” instead of a gay/lesbian or bisexual movement.

Is it OK for our community to resemble the United Nations and honor our separateness while at the same time standing unified?

Yes, and it is indeed about time we embrace one another and move forward instead of dividing ourselves foolishly.

If you remember one thing from this reply, please remember that bi people do not want to be called gay because we are afraid to be called gay or that it carries a stigma we cannot uphold. We do not want to be called gay because we are NOT gay, we are bi!

Michael Page

Dear Editor:

A good critique could have been made of Steve Yuhas’s op-ed against Queer Pride events in the August 1 San Diego Union-Tribune. Unfortunately, Frank Sabatini’s snotty column in your August 5 issue, filled with stereotypically catty remarks like “lose the sport coat and throw some beads around that uptight neck,” avoids dealing with the issues Yuhas raised and goes for personal attack and character assassination instead.

Sabatini scores one legitimate point: it does seem strange for Yuhas to accuse Gay and Lesbian parents who bring their children to the parade of using them “as political props to bolster their parents’ need for validation.” One would think that in Yuhas’s ideal world, his “clean” Pride event would feature Queer parents and their children as the ultimate symbol of the assimilation of the straight world’s family structures and norms he claims to want from us all.

Indeed, if there’s a case to be made against Pride as it stands today, it’s that it’s become too assimilationist and, frankly, too dull. Drag queens, men in Speedos and dykes on bikes hang on in the parade as atavistic elements hearkening back to the days when being an “out” Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgender person marked you as a member of the counterculture and an outlaw from the norms of straight society. They fit uneasily in an event with heavy-duty corporate sponsorship (all that disposable income we’re supposed to have!) and too many participants who seem to feel that if we can make ourselves seem as boring as straight people, then maybe they’ll let us marry our partners legally.

Yuhas claims that he’s shopped this column topic around to Queer publications nationwide and none of them have agreed to print it. I find that all too believable. Official Queerdom does have a major thought-control apparatus aimed at keeping debate on community issues to a minimum. Suggest that sexual orientation is determined by environment as well as by heredity — i.e., that we’re not “born Gay”; that (despite the loathsome politics of Exodus, Love in Action and other Christian “change” ministries) people who have been living a Gay or Lesbian lifestyle for years can, under certain circumstances, enter relationships with opposite-sex partners and re-identify as heterosexual; that genuine inclusion of Bisexual and Transgender people requires that we re-look at these and other assumptions of the Queer rights movement and not just stick “B” and “T” at the ends of our organizations’ names; or that AIDS is a long-term toxic condition rather than an infectious disease — and you will have a hard time getting a hearing for those views in the Queer media.

As much as I disagree with many of Yuhas’s views, I salute him as a fellow envelope-pusher in the Queer community — he from the Right, I from the Left — and I think his views deserve not only representation in your pages but also serious — not bitchy — responses.

Mark Gabrish Conlan

Dear Editor:

I read your comments this morning and found them favorable to my thought. However, since The Center has made the decision to fly their flags they error in not waving all the flags that represent the other groups in our community, ie. The Bears and The Leather Order.

We make the mistake often by not being inclusive, it is discriminatory you know.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Goldman Jacobs

Dear Editor:

I am responding to you editorial regarding flags and I must say that I tend to be in total agreement with you.

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Gilbert in SF a few years ago. He told me that the original rainbow flag had two additional stripes. One was hot pink for sexuality and the other turquoise for spirituality. As a matter of fact, Key West Florida Pride re-introduced the original flag at their event last year. When I asked Mr. Gilbert why those 2 colors were removed, he said it was very difficult to find material/cloth in those two colors at that particular time.

It was and is my understanding in speaking with Mr. Gilbert that the basis behind using the rainbow as a flag was very simple. It was ALL INCLUSIVE!! Inclusive is the key word here. As a matter of fact it was the Rev. Jesse Jackson who first used the rainbow flag to identify his all inclusive Rainbow Coalition.

Now that there are Bi-Sexual and Transgender flags flying from our center, my thoughts are why do we have to separate ourselves?

Furthermore, when town hall meetings were held in 2001 or 2002 to decide a name or a new name for San Diego Pride, the community overwhelmingly decided to leave the name San Diego Pride intact. Why the board of directors of San Diego Pride decided to override the community response by renaming their organization San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Pride is a mystery. San Diego Pride is INCLUSIVE, while San Diego Lesbian, Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride is EXCLUSIVE. Now there are Inter-sex groups and Questioning groups. So should the name be changed once again to San Diego Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex and Questioning Pride? That would be an alphabet of letters such as SDLGBTIQ Pride.

We now have Youth Pride, Ebony Pride and Latin Pride. Next on the list will be Pacific Asian Pride; Gay Parents Pride; and why not? Why do the Prides have to be separate to begin with? Aren’t we all one family of Pride regardless of the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage?

In my opinion, having separate flags as well as separate Prides will only serve to further DIVIDE OUR COMMUNITY. Keeping people and communities divided has always been the ace in the hole for our foes. The old expression “Divide and Conquer” holds as much weight today as it did 200 years ago. The same applies for the old expression “In Unity There is Strength. After all, the theme for this year’s SDLGBT Pride 30th anniversary festival was “Strength in Numbers”.

I recently met a woman who identified as a “Gay Female” as opposed to a lesbian. I thought this was very interesting because it used to be that all of us were known as Gay. Now it seems that Gay means men only and of course Lesbian as female only. I ask why?

I honor GLT for writing this editorial and allowing a forum for the community members to respond to it.

Lee Jones

Dear Editor:

A correction to one of your columnist is that Daryl Edwards did not start the Imperial Court de San Diego 33 years ago. Dee (of Santee) and Daryl started the Royal Court de San Diego 33 years ago with Tawny Tann and Omar as First Emperor and Empress of San Diego. And the SANDIES Awards (1972).

The Second year it was a Dee and Daisy production along with the SANDIES (which was started by Jan Russell in 1971 and held at the Town and Country Convention Center in the Valley.)

Then along came Nicole and started the Imperial Court. Thus proclaiming her/himself as Empress Nicole.

After the fire that destroyed most of Daisy’s business, Dee and Daisy gave the title of Royal Court de San Diego and the Sandies to Charles Vendome.

Nicole has copies of all the pictures of the ORIGINAL COURT with the producers.

It is a shame that more of the CORRECT history of the San Diego Gay life is not printed, just what some columnist want.

Dee of Santee

Dear Editor:

In the article “No position is his position” (GLT 8/12/04), regarding Mayor Murphy taking no position on the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) more troublesome to me than the Mayor taking no position on the FMA is a group referred to in the article as GLBT Vote 2004 – a group that has endorsed Mayor Murphy and claims to speak for GLBT voters.

Who/what is GLBT Vote 2004? Who makes up the membership of GLBT Vote 2004? When did GLBT Vote endorse Mayor Murphy? Why did GLBT Vote 2004 endorse Mayor Murphy?

Why isn’t GLBT Vote 2004 endorsing Lori Saldaña, the Democratic Candidate for California Assembly District 76, rather than her Republican opponent?

I’d like to know more about this group known as GLBT Vote 2004 – who they are? When do they meet to endorse candidates? What criteria do candidates have to meet to receive an endorsement? Are all candidates equally considered for an endorsement?

Instead of donating advertising space to GLBT Vote 2004, the Gay and Lesbian Times could do a story about GLBT Vote 2004 so we in the GLBT community could know the people and motives behind GLBT Vote 2004.

Robert J. Leyh