Dear Editor:

I do enjoy a good drag show and I think drag queens make for some fun entertainment. My favorite DQ will always be Babette Schwartz. Many years ago, she made me smile again at a time when I was really down by simply approaching me with her big smile and campy wit to cheer me up. She took the time to talk to me for a little bit before she had to do a show and it was then I began to appreciate this type of entertainment. I smiled and laughed that evening and will never forget the healing effect it had on me.

This type of entertainment personification has its place and can be a lot of fun. But when it takes on an element of a self-perceived reality in the mind of the owner, another kind of problem arises. It is sort of like bringing a cartoon character from Toontown into this three- dimensional world and attempting to mix these two realities into one. Sometimes, the results are not very pretty!

Perhaps the subject matter of the frenetic ravings by Coco Lachine might be taken more seriously if it weren’t coming from a man in a dress writing a “social scene” column. Knowing when to wear the dress and when not wear the dress goes a long way towards proving one’s point on certain issues. In a previous article she dared to quote scripture. It was like having the Bible read to me by Bozo the Clown. Even though we may agree on many things, why was this type of rant printed in this type of a column? And more importantly, we had no idea where to be, who to see or what to do this last week around town because of this “Midol moment.”

She should do herself and us a favor and get back to doing what she does best. I do enjoy her humor and insights into entertainment. DQs delving into politics dressed as our harbingers of camp do no better than a community placing its most outrageous sexual proclivities on parade then expecting to be taken seriously on important social issues.

Bill Lullo

Dear Editor:

I am pleased to see that Bourbon Street, like so many other organizations, is trying to help victims of Katrina. As a Katrina survivor, I find it frustrating that there is more information in the media for volunteers and those wishing to donate than there is for those of us whose lives and homes were ruined. The victims of hurricane Katrina are not distant, faceless, souls hundreds of miles away. There are LGBT Katrina Survivors in San Diego. Let’s remember that.

Marcia Wall

Dear Editor:

I’m somewhat discomfited by the GLT’s lack of steady coverage of the second Gwen Araujo murder trial (jury deliberations in progress), and the failure of the GLT to cover the sentencing of Joe Robles’ killer. In both of these court cases, gay panic defenses were used, and in the Robles case, the killer received just a 4-year term for manslaughter.

The media doesn’t call it trans-panic, they call it gay panic:

Gay panic defenses are most often used by killers of transgender females when the killer discovers male genitalia during a sexual transaction—but it’s not limited to that kind of incident.

Gay panic defenses have not only been used in the “I was provoked to kill” defenses of the killers of transgender people, but also of gay people. An example would be Kentucky’s Joshua Cottrell using the gay panic defense to obtain a manslaughter conviction instead of a murder conviction for killing Richie Phillips.

Gay panic defenses derogate all GLBT people by indicating that sex with/by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can be a capital offense for the killed, and a crime of limited consequence for their killers.

We need to talk to our state legislators about eliminating all panic defenses—clarifying the definition of manslaughter in California so that a discovery or a disclosure of a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, race or religion can not support a finding of voluntary manslaughter. I’m not sure that legislation that will disallow all panic defenses—including gay panic defenses—has a chance to become law if the GLT and other gay and lesbian/GLBT targeted publications don’t cover relevant California stories.

Autumn Sandeen

Dear Editor:

I read Brent Montejo’s letter to the editor on your website. It was interesting to learn that there were over 400 HIV infections in San Diego county this last year with an estimated 30% of the infections related to crystal meth use. As Brent points out, this is not such a high number considering there are an estimated 300,000 gay county residents.

I remember reading Steven Johnson’s op-ed piece in the Union Tribune and I have to admit I was a little embarrassed. Johnson’s article made it seem like the majority of gay San Diegans were regular meth users who couldn’t stop themselves from having unsafe sex. I’m glad to learn that this is not the case.

However, I hate to see anyone get infected with HIV. So I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone again to use a condom EVERY time you have sex. Even if you’re in altered states, whether it be from alcohol or party favors, you can still remember to use a condom…EVERY time. Please be safe.

Josh Butterfield

Dear Editor:

Geoffrey Kors’ guest column (“LGBT Rights Poised at a Crucial Juncture,” July 26) not surprisingly ignores the extent to which his own organization’s insane and suicidal strategy around the same-sex marriage issue has brought us to that “crucial juncture.” The simple fact is that in EVERY U.S. state where the people have had a chance to vote on whether same-sex couples should have access to civil marriage, the bans on marriage have passed by overwhelming margins. They’ve passed whether the states were “red” or “blue” in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections. They’ve passed whether they JUST banned marriage or also prohibited domestic-partner and civil-union laws as well. Over and over again, the American people have made it clear they do not want same-sex couples to be given marriage rights on the same basis as opposite-sex couples.

The polls that show a three-way split in the U.S. population on this issue — 37 percent dead set against ANY legal recognition of Gay and Lesbian relationships, 25 percent favoring marriage equality and 35 percent against marriage but in favor of domestic-partner and civil-union laws — show us a way out of this dilemma, but ONLY if our community is willing to compromise and drop both the word “marriage” and the demand for it from our agenda for the foreseeable future.

California’s radical religious Right is circulating an initiative for the June 2006 ballot not only to write into the state constitution a definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman but also to repeal California’s landmark 2003 domestic partnership law and prevent state and local government from enacting ANY law recognizing mutual legal rights and responsibilities for same-sex partners. If it gets on the ballot and is presented as a referendum on same-sex marriage, it will pass by the same sweeping margin that every other anti-equality marriage initiative has passed — including the 61 to 39 percent by which Proposition 22 passed in California in March 2000.

The only way to defeat the initiative is for us to take the marriage issue off the table and turn it into a referendum on the state’s existing domestic partnership legislation. That means dropping the current marriage bill and all the litigation aimed at winning marriage rights through the back door of the courts. It means getting our friends in the legislature to put a rival state constitutional amendment on the ballot, which would define marriage in California as the union of one man and one woman but would specifically allow state and local governments to enact legal protections for same-sex couples short of marriage. Then we would be able to lay to rest the spectre of same-sex marriage and give the people of the state of California the option of upholding their traditional understanding of marriage while still preserving our existing domestic-partnership rights and rejecting the radical Right’s mean-spirited attempt to take them away.

Mark Gabrish Conlan

Editor of Zengers newsmagazine

Dear Editor:

We’ve recently heard people such as Michael Chertoff and Rick Santorum basically saying that the people in New Orleans were told to leave, and if they didn’t, they had made their own bed. The President’s mother insensitively opined that the evacuees had come from poor backgrounds and were enjoying better lives in the Houston Stadium. Supercilious Rush Limbaugh declared that the people in New Orleans should have saved some money for such a rainy day.

I’ve heard people defending the Bush family’s insensitivity to and neglect of the poor by saying that the Bushes were born rich and so don’t understand. It’s one thing for a Bush apologist such as Limbaugh to exhibit such ignorance, but in my mind it’s absolutely unethical for any political leader to not understand the plight of the poor. People from disadvantaged backgrounds often do not have credit cards, savings accounts, or cars. They don’t have people to lean on who do have these advantages. Furthermore, many have internalized society’s negative messages towards them and have grown up feeling hopeless, powerless, invisible, and unworthy. These people could not feel confident in their ability to hop in their SUV, fill it up with over $3/gallon gasoline, and drive to their second home to wait out the storm.

When one out of every 8 Americans lives in poverty (the highest rate of any industrialized nation), it is a moral and political imperative for our leaders to understand the physical and psychological environment experienced by many of the poor. Particularly since capitalism requires a lower class working for substandard wages, we at least owe the poor more than disdain. We like to think we are the greatest nation because we have a handful of the richest people in the world. Perhaps a nation’s greatness would be better measured by how well it takes care of its less advantaged.

Carol Scherbaum

Dear Editor:

I am not with any organization, I am just an American mom, living in Florida and watching in shock and horror, thinking - why wasn’t it me or Florida? On Sunday September 11, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld plans to hold the first ever America Supports You-Freedom Walk, a crass commercial attempt to bolster support for the war in Iraq, and the administration’s sinking poll numbers. The Freedom Walk will be televised, thus my idea, they already have the permits-why not show up and actually have a Freedom March? But instead of showing support for the war (I do support the troops- we are a military family), we walk for those who cannot walk for themselves, the victims of New Orleans and the rest of those hit by this disaster. I could take up much of your time telling you how meaningful this can be, Americans united for these victims, showing that we will not allow them to be forgotten as the water is slowly pumped away, leaving them dispersed and stranded in shelters across the country, that we are there, ever looking out for them, they will not be made victims again while we are watching, I would rather be able to put that time, yours and mine, towards rebuilding the spirit of those damaged by this tragedy. While the administration is hampering relief efforts with their complete ineptness, and turning away those that would assist in rebuilding the cities and towns destroyed by this tragedy, we can rebuild the human spirit. This is an opportunity for a true leader, perhaps Reverend Jackson or another from the Rainbow Push Coalition, or from seemingly nowhere, to project themselves to the stature of Dr. King. On Sunday September 11, 2005 with the television cameras rolling, for some one out there with the courage and strength, willing to take the step forward, to lead these people, this is the reason that you were born on this earth, this is the reason that you have come so far, for such a time as this.

Kelly Gutensohn

Dear Editor:

How is it possible to validate our Government’s illegal, immoral and illogical preemptive strike against a proven non threatening sovereign state? What appears to be so threatening to the crocodile tear crowd is there sense of national morality. The pro war crowd undoubtedly suffers many sleepless nights over far away governments and how they comport themselves within international law. Neverrmind our own brutal oppression and that of a host of dictatorships throughout the world. Psychologically, what makes the pro war crowds argument wholly plausible is a mandate from the fatherland. If our great patriot and esteemed leader George W. Bush had ordered an illegal occupation of Disneyland, there would surely exist his most ardent supporters. Why Iraq? There is always Yemen, Syria, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela or if we really believe in our sense of justice, we can take on the Chinese Dragon. So Sadamm Hussein was a bad man. The Shah of Iran before the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet, to name a few brutally oppressive leaders, were no alter boys yet were coddled by our government like a mother holding her baby Why do the pro-war folks have no moral consistency? Enough of the tyrants you say. Where is the mushroom cloud, weapons of mass destruction, roses and kisses, centrifuges and most importantly what happened to the coalition? The last I heard, Poland, Spain and several other countries are giving George W. Bush the jersey bounce. What about the terrorists, well, our government’s illegal preemptive strike against an otherwise contained dictator provoked and drew them into Iraq, not vice-versa. The cure is worse than the disease. What about freedom you ask? How is it possible to impose freedom to an unwanting and recalcitrant culture and society? Do we really believe our own propaganda?.Are we honestly making America safer for future generations? You must be kidding. The Great Voltaire had once said, “ The only certainty in death is the continuance of fools.” I believe it.

Daniel J. Smiechowski

Dear Editor:

I respectfully submit that San Diegans would be more honestly served by and respectfully request a series of media covered, independently sponsored, issues and solutions town hall meetings. Allow ordinary citizens to be randomly picked from each of the voting districts to ask the questions of the candidates, without advanced notice as to the questions and with the only limitation being that questions stick to issues and solutions. Let’s leave the often pointless dirty work for the media. With ease and speed, the media will bring all that into the picture for those who are addicted to the legal personal lives and records of other people.

Please, return the power of democracy back to the voters by giving them the power that is their right. Let the voters decide who is best qualified to have the honor and responsibility of leading San Diego out of its abyss without leaving them holding the bag and exposed. Media campaigns, personalities and style created and run by ad agencies and political war chests have molded and sold us the misleading images of the candidates far too often with bad results. It is time candidates once again stood up on their own two feet rise and fall from grace on the merits of their performance not the image or performance that is manufactured to sell themselves and retain their power.

William (Bill) E. Kelly

Dear Editor:

I am not with any organization, I am just an American mom, living in Florida and watching in shock and horror, thinking - why wasn’t it me or Florida? On Sunday September 11, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld plans to hold the first ever America Supports You-Freedom Walk, a crass commercial attempt to bolster support for the war in Iraq, and the administration’s sinking poll numbers. The Freedom Walk will be televised, thus my idea, they already have the permits-why not show up and actually have a Freedom March? But instead of showing support for the war (I do support the troops- we are a military family), we walk for those who cannot walk for themselves, the victims of New Orleans and the rest of those hit by this disaster. I could take up much of your time telling you how meaningful this can be, Americans united for these victims, showing that we will not allow them to be forgotten as the water is slowly pumped away, leaving them dispersed and stranded in shelters across the country, that we are there, ever looking out for them, they will not be made victims again while we are watching, I would rather be able to put that time, yours and mine, towards rebuilding the spirit of those damaged by this tragedy. While the administration is hampering relief efforts with their complete ineptness, and turning away those that would assist in rebuilding the cities and towns destroyed by this tragedy, we can rebuild the human spirit. This is an opportunity for a true leader, perhaps Reverend Jackson or another from the Rainbow Push Coalition, or from seemingly nowhere, to project themselves to the stature of Dr. King. On Sunday September 11, 2005 with the television cameras rolling, for some one out there with the courage and strength, willing to take the step forward, to lead these people, this is the reason that you were born on this earth, this is the reason that you have come so far, for such a time as this.

Kelly Gutensohn