Dear Editor:

It’s ironic I am writing this just before I leave home to march in this year’s Pride Parade. Thanks to Right-wing anti-Queer “ex-Gay” activist James Hartline’s revelation that two of this year’s over 1,000 Pride volunteers had criminal records for sex with underage partners – and most of the community’s abject caving to his demand that they be removed – I have rarely been less proud of my community than I am right now.

I don’t condone child sexual abuse, but I also don’t condone the bizarre hysteria surrounding this particular crime. The individuals involved in the current scandal were properly arrested, convicted and sentenced for their actions, and have paid their debt to society. As long as they don’t re-offend, they have a right to live their lives in peace and dignity just like anybody else. I think any attempts to punish them further, especially through the private vigilantism facilitated and encouraged by “Megan’s Law,” are immoral.

At least the Pride board tried to do the right thing in standing by their staff members and volunteers. Indeed, for most ex-convicts, it’s considered a sign of rehabilitation, not a danger to society, when they offer to do volunteer work in the community. If the hysteria over having child sex offenders on the premises of the Pride Festival as volunteers is based on the idea that their mere existence on the grounds constitutes a threat to the children in attendance, aren’t those kids equally at risk from people who’ve paid for admission? Is the next step to vet the audience and require all of us to prove we’re not child sex offenders before we can get in?

Have we collectively forgotten that until 30 years ago in California – just two years ago throughout much of the U.S. – ALL of us were sex offenders? Have we forgotten the rioters at Stonewall were sex criminals – street hustlers and drag queens? In this community’s current pursuit of “respectability” we’ve adopted an increasingly prissy and Puritanical attitude towards our own sexuality – as if sex is the reason the radical religious Right hates us and if we can only make it go away and present ourselves like any other Americans, willing to get married, be monogamous, live in the suburbs with 2.6 children and fight, kill and die for American imperialism we’ll be accepted as equals.

I don’t want James Hartline, the San Diego Police Department, entertainers and politicians determining who should and should not be involved in my community’s celebration of itself. This year they came for the former child sex abusers; next year they’ll come for the Leatherpeople, and the year after it will be the drag queens or some other group within our community whose very existence offends some straight politician or police department whose acceptance our leaders are so desperately trying to court. Then we might as well hire James Hartline to run the Pride events and turn them into a festival celebrating reparative therapy.

Sincerely yours,

Mark Gabrish Conlan

Dear Editor:

While I was lining my birdcage with the July 28 edition of the Gay and Lesbian Times, I noticed a sprawling advertisement claiming that the HIV virus doesn’t cause AIDS. It took a great deal of nerve for you to publish such a dangerous lie, in effect helping to kill off the very community you claim to serve. Is the GLT so hard up for cash that the need for a few hundred bucks of advertising revenue overrides your responsibility to readers, not to mention good taste?

Marc Rouse

Dear Editor:

This letter is in response to a restaurant review that appeared in Nicole’s July 14th column. Gemelli, which by the way is the correct spelling, is far from the perfect gay supporting establishment that you expounded on at great length. How can someone who has only owned an obscure pizza shop, for a short time many years ago, be the “King and Queen of Italian Cuisine”. Vince and JoJo Busalacchi do not deserve this title.

I have known Vince and JoJo for many years and find them to be, at the very least, homophobic. I have met gay neighbors of theirs who have said their lives were a living hell complete with homophobic comments yelled and lies and rumors spread around the neighborhood by them. All they are concerned about is the success of their fledgling business adventure and using the success of another family member’s business to further them along. They are not true supporters of our community and nothing will make me think differently about that.

I am a gay man and have been an employee of two of the most successful restaurateurs in San Diego for eighteen years. Their names are Joe and Lisa Busalacchi. They have always been supportive of my life style and our community. They are the owners of Busalacchi’s, a Hillcrest icon, and three other very successful restaurants in San Diego. Joe and Lisa are the true king and queen of Italian eateries.

Nicole, you need to dig a little deeper when indorsing business owners who are just desperate to get our business and give credit where credit is due.

Gary Poirier

Dear Editor:

In his recent column Nicole Murray-Ramirez states that Jerry Sanders leads Donna Frye on a one-on one bases in “every poll”. I, personally, have not seen these polls, and ask Mr. Murray-Ramirez to please state his source of information.

I also wonder about the criterion for endorsement by the GLBT Vote 2005. I find it difficult to understand why this GLBT organization, which I think is lead by Mr. Murray-Ramirez, would endorse Mr. Sanders who supports the Boy Scouts being in Balboa Park and is wishy-washy and wavering on our issue of Marriage Equality. I find it no surprise that DA Bonnie Dumanis would endorse Mr. Sanders. She is a staunch Republican. Mr. Tierney of the Coronado City Council is also a Republican and no real advocate of Civil Rights.

Donna Frye continues to support all of our issues 100%. She is also the most experienced and qualified to be Mayor of our City. I have difficultly understanding why we would want an “outsider” as mayor. I want someone there who really knows what she is doing. I certainly wouldn’t want a waiter doing my tooth extraction.

There is a lot more to Donna Frye than her “look”. Perhaps Mr. Murray-Ramirez hasn’t noticed.

Gloria Johnson

Dear Editor:

I would suggest that Brent Montejo do his homework before sending a letter to the GL Times suggesting I “twist[ed] statistics” in my San Diego Union Tribune Op-Ed on gays and crystal meth, or my subsequent letter to the Times. The data contained in both pieces came from published local, state and federal health statistics and published peer review journals on the impact of methamphetamine use and the spread of STDs and HIV among gay and bisexual men. While Mr. Montejo is entitled to his opinion, he is not entitled to make false claims suggesting I have misrepresented facts.

Additionally, Mr. Montejo’s claim that publishing letters like these “serves to denigrate the reputation of all gay people and promote hostility to toward the gay community” is absurd. After all, a reader of any gay publication including the GL Times must wade through countless ads with partially dressed men promoting circuit parties, drag shows, bath houses, escort services, web sites and clubs. I reject Mr. Montejo suggestion that letters or opinion pieces raising important issues that confront our community somehow “promotes hostility” or is “denigrating to all gay people.”

Finally, I have buried dozens of friends from the HIV/AIDS epidemic and have spent my professional life working to help countless others dealing with HIV and drug addiction issues in San Diego and nationally. To use an old Act Up phrase, Silence = Death; and I refuse to be silent. I would suggest that if Mr. Montejo “is tired of reading my alarmist letters” he find other things to do with his time.

Steven B. Johnson

Dear Editor:

Log Cabin Republican Matthew Veritas Tsien of Fort Lauderdale writes (7/21) that the gay community, utilizing the “usual slanderous liberal ideology”, has accused George Bush of lying to go to war in Iraq. Tsien reports that these accusations have been proven false.

In response I would like to make the following points:

1. First of all, I am proud to consider myself a liberal. The dictionary defines liberal as: “Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others.”

2. Has Mr. Tsien been living in a cave for the past few months? Has he not heard of the Downing Street memo? The Memo transcribed during Tony Blair’s meeting in July 2002 – eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 paints a picture of Bush intent on invasion and looking for ways to justify it.

3. Tsien also writes: “If government officials are corrupt, or dishonest, then the loser must have been worse, or the Democrats would have been in the majority.” This statement (along with others in Tsien’s letter) makes no sense whatsoever.

4. The 7/21 letter is Tsien’s latest in a series printed in the Gay & Lesbian Times. Perhaps Mr. Tsien should write letters to a paper closer to home rather than bore San Diego readers with his nonsensical drivel.

Sincerely,

Mason McCleary

Dear Editor:

I have wrestled with whether city government would be better run like a business in order to restore our beloved San Diego to its rightful place as Americas’ finest city. In the end, I concluded that many aspects of city government could benefit from more business like management. The problem is that too many lose sight that government is a nonprofit organization and the purpose of government inherently precludes strictly running it as a business.

We, the citizens, empower government to take in money and disperse it to service the current and future needs for basic services such as defense, health, education, public transportation, roads, other infrastructure etc. etc. In return, we that fund government expect it to maintain an income flow in a responsible and equitable manner to serve the greatest numbers in the most efficient ways. We expect them to do so in a manner that leaves something in our wallets to meet our individual, personal and financial goals and live out our lives according to our lawful beliefs and wishes. There is nothing in that expectation which authorizes those we trust to raid the treasury to further their own political or financial goals and certainly not their personal beliefs. Yet that seems to be the norm these days.

In order for government to be of the people, by the people and for the people, it is our civic responsibility to hold to the grind stone the noses of those that we elect to serve us, justly reward those that do and reject those that do not. Finally it is in our best interests to punish those who break the laws intended to ensure the best interests of the populace takes priority over the best interests of any individuals.

When will we as citizens take on our share of the responsibility for the outrage which has overtaken our beloved San Diego? We let it happen through selfishness, negligence, greed and unreasonable expectations. We have lost faith in government because we have lost faith in ourselves. Shame on us.

Willam E. Kelly