Dear Editor:

In a recent commentary Dr. Delores Jacobs, CEO of the Center describes an expanded LGBT community that now includes political moderates, seniors, parents and people of faith as well as a group she does not name but mysteriously defines by their “private” or “insider only” behavior. The point Dr. Jacobs seems to be making is that our community is “Center Stage” so for our own sake it is time some of us stopped doing things that cast us all in an “unflattering”, “sensational” and “easily demonized” light.

I have personally experienced the Center’s approach to this fledgling philosophy. I am co-curator of a serious exhibition about gay male identity that the Center sponsored from early 2005 until 6 weeks ago. Upon getting involved they cautiously but clearly approved the inclusion of non-erotic male nudity. However, a year later, when Center staff saw one of the few images involving nakedness (a piece that satirizes gay men’s preoccupation with nudity!) they walked away without any conversation, simply saying our goals were no longer aligned. As a result our PR material became incorrect, a reception was gutted and the participating gay artists felt strangely ashamed.

Even though our exhibition is aimed at adults, (like art events the straight world over!) the inclusion of nudity/sexual expression anywhere in our community is now apparently so offensive (so “insider only”) that it would be better for the Center to wreck havoc upon a year of planning than defend their involvement for what it was should the need arise, i.e.: casually supporting a segment of their constituency involved in a lawful, balanced, cultural event.

How the Center undermined our exhibition is troubling (are all their relationships handled so insensitively?) but their rationale for doing so has more disturbing implications if it is indicative of the trend forecast in Dr. Jacob’s column. I don’t intend to get married, serve in the military, find God or adopt a child but I am still part of this community and I don’t want a person with a vastly different lifestyle dictating what is and what is not now acceptable behavior in the LGBT big tent: Gay Bingo? Yes! Leather Pride? No! Rainbow Flags? Yes! Drag Queens? No!

In her commentary Dr. Jacobs suggests that issues of “expansion,” “inclusion” and “visibility” are being faced in many communities. Good! My GLT photo column aims to introduce under-represented LGBT people into the overtly sexy, boy-biased image pool. I don’t want to tell “sexy boys” to get off the stage. I want to bring others onto it: older, religious veterans included. Doesn’t this approach to inclusion define us!? And are we so precariously placed that any anti-gay condemnation will undermine all that we have achieved thus far?

Whatever the Center does I would urge everyone to keep an eye on this new philosophy as it might ultimately affect us all as one “insider event” after another gets driven underground: Community Theatre? Yes! Naked Boys Singing? No! Humor? Yes! Sexual innuendo? No! You get the picture.

Andrew Printer

Beyond the Surface, co-curator

Dear Editor:

“Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others.” Most Americans would agree with that quip by Winston Churchill. But democracy is not a panacea. How well it works depends on its context. In Iraq, Moslem conservatism has made this fledgling democracy an accomplice to the methodical extermination of gays and lesbians. This extermination is being carried out by the well-armed Badr Corps, a Shia military arm, backed by Iran, and trained and commanded by former Iraqi army officers. They look to the Iraqi Constitution, virtually written by the US Ambassador to Iraq and his associates for their authority. Based on Sharia law, it mandates death for homosexuals. But not just any death, as an anti-gay fatwa written by Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, courted by the US Government as an agent of stability, proclaims: “people involved” in homosexuality “should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”

The militants entrap gay men via Internet chat rooms, arrange a date to beat the victim to death. Gay men are also arrested, bound, blindfolded, shot in the back of the head then discarded. When gay people go to the American authorities for help they are ignored, treated with contempt or a target for humor. Doug Ireland has documented these murders on the Internet site Gaycitynews.com. But for some reason the news media have not taken up this story although they recently gave front page coverage to a death sentence-later rescinded-pronounced when an Afghan Moslem man converted to Christianity.

Imagine the furor that would be justifiably created if Christians as a group were being similarly targeted by the Sadr Corps., or Jews, or people of color.

The American authorities in Iraq must confront these policies of extermination, and provide security for gay and lesbian Iraqi citizens. We can no longer look the other way to placate the faction in control of the Government in Iraq. The US Government should also modify immigration policies to allow members of this sexual minority to gain sanctuary in the US. I want to believe that the US Government and the media are ignoring this terrible situation out of ignorance, not because of homophobia. Their future actions will provide an answer to this question.

Charles Pratt