Dear Editor:

Can we at least have some cheese with Robert DeKoven’s weekly whine?

The U-T reports 14 homicides in San Diego this year. None appear to be receiving intense nor constant press coverage. The Catolico murder is one of the most reported, with its sordid involvement of a U.S. Marine. That being the case, Mr. DeKoven should not lament that had the Catiloco murder been that of a woman, it would have been a constant press item. (The Laci Peterson case does come to mind, but that case also involved a ready-to-be born infant and an “all-American” type family. Its notoriety involved more than the decedent’s gender.) Since “run of the mill” murders are neither big news items nor end up as death penalty cases, and since we don’t know whether the Catolico case is a “run of the mill” murder, let’s wait and see before wailing about the disparate treatment of murdered gays.

Mr. DeKoven surmises about “the problems a D.A. faces prosecuting gay hate murders” and how the defendant in the Catolico case will appear in court as a clean-cut Marine and how the case will be so trite as “the victim made a pass and [the defendant] acted in self-defense.” It’s insulting to San Diego jurors to blithely suggest their inability to reach a fair verdict regardless of the victim or perpetrator’s sexual orientation or to presume that any legally justifiable mitigation offered by the defendant cannot be separated by a jury from sexual orientation. It’s shocking that a law professor would suggest such a cynical and pessimistic view of justice.

What was important news for the gay community, and which Mr. DeKoven did share amidst his “poor, poor pitiful gay” rhetoric, is that a California appellate court has upheld a trial judge’s refusal to allow a jury to consider the crime of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder in a case where someone called someone else a faggot. Being called a faggot is not enough to justify “losing it”. Even it was true that the defendant was so enraged by that epithet that he couldn’t control himself, an ordinary person of average disposition would have been able to control himself. Courts decide who’s an “ordinary person” and what’s “average disposition.” I predicted in my letter to the editor on January 12, 2006 that the gay panic defense will soon be an anachronism (belonging to another age). Although the gay panic defense involves more than being called a name, getting rid of the “he called me a faggot” defense is a good beginning. I’m confident that future court cases will extinguish any absurd notion that a defendant can mitigate murder with the excuse of being overcome by heat of passion in the context of homosexual epithets or overtures.

Let’s see what happens in the Hardy case. Let’s not get into premature exasperation. Not too many years ago, you’d have thought that a man wearing a clerical collar would be an unbeatable defendant in a child molesting case.

Jim Raymond

Dear Editor:

Want ad: Looking for gays with no penises, who are kid friendly, acceptable and willing to pander to the moderate middle for acceptance. Straight acting only. P.S. no queens, leather daddies need apply. For more information contact the San Diego GLBT Center.

This is the message I understood in Dolores Jacobs’ piece about the challenges of running the Center. Clearly, San Diego diversity, in all its forms, is more about talking the talk and less about walking the walk. Ms. Jacobs’ comments are so in line with today’s political realities: to achieve your goals you must be acceptable to suburban women swing voters: how sad.

I think what is happening at the Center is a natural consequence of the introduction of children into the mix. I am a suburban gay Dad of a teenager and I have experienced this many times in my years of child rearing. The message has been clear: places that have children are no place for male attitudes, genitalia (in any of its forms: biological texts, arts, etc.) or males in general.

How quickly we forget gay history and remember who were the ones who started the movement. They were the ones who couldn’t or wouldn’t hide their gayness. The drag queens, the butches and the others. How easy it would be to dismiss them in favor of a cute four-year-old toddler. After all isn’t that what suburban women can identify with?

Kirk Arthur

Dear Editor:

I was disturbed to read Dr. Delores Jacobs defense of the action taken by The Center to eliminate non-sexual images of the male body from its property. She never addressed the issue at all - rather she spoke only in the most vague terms of everyone having to compromise and we’re all part of a big tent subject to scrutiny and blah blah blah - nothing.

You should not be proud to publish such a non-response to an issue of real substance. You let her white wash the issue into pablum.

I noted in the same issue of the paper that The Center is supporting something called Dance of the 7 Veils - the Fourth Annual Women’s Night. The advertisement clearly indicates that the event will be sexually lurid. Guests are even encouraged to dress in sexually suggestive costume themselves. What? Women can be sexually expressive under the aegis of The Center, but even the non-sexual depiction of the male body must be banned. Sounds like radical lesbian self-involvement to me. Men = Bad. Women = Good.

Mark Rice