Dear Editor:

Last year when I moved here I was astonished to see that the Greater San Diego Pride board let a group of bigots and homophobic politicians dictate who could participate in the pride festival. After it was pointed out that out of over a thousand members of the pride staff and volunteers there were three registered sex offenders and after the board was told by both the police department and the FBI that having these people participate was not a problem the pride board bowed to the bigots and politicians and forced these three people to resign. Then they forced the executive director of pride to resign who I understand was doing an excellent job. With over 86,000 registered sex offenders in California and with 3.5% of the people of California living in the City of San Diego there should be over 3,000 sex offenders living here. So three sex offenders for any group of just over a thousand is about average.

If that slap in the face to all gays and lesbians was not enough the pride board has come up with another ridiculous and demeaning policy for this year’s pride celebration. Now all gays and lesbians under the age of eighteen will be refused entry into the pride festival unless each is accompanied by a parent or guardian. Now the pride board has decided to perpetuate the myth that gays and lesbians are child molesters. If they checked the statistics on the internet they would know that 90% of all child molestations are committed by family members or friends, that 75% of the victims are girls and that 95% of child molesters are men with the vast majority leading a heterosexual lifestyle. A police officer friend said that a child is much more likely to be molested at a church social or family reunion that at a gay pride festival.

Last Monday after picking up my attorney at the airport I explained the pride board’s new policy to him. He said that he would love to represent a sixteen year old girl or boy who was denied equal access to the festival.

Looking at the actions of this pride board is it any wonder that we are called sissies and pansies. These people are not the caliber of those that stood up when they saw injustice at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 and in San Francisco in 1979 after the Dan White verdict in the trial following the assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. I suggest that the members of the Greater San Diego Pride board resign and go home and cower in their own closets. Their pitiful squirming and compromising is an embarrassment to the gays and lesbians of San Diego. We are proud to be members of the LGBT community and they are not. They should save themselves the embarrassment and resign now before the gays and lesbians throw them out.

Charlie Sharples

Dear Editor:

I read with anticipation the following headline in your paper: GLBT groups issue joint statement on U.S. immigration policy (issue# 659). Other than asking for a “fair and humane” immigration policy, all I got was the usual defense of our current immigration crisis from open border liberals with the same inaccuracies and historical distorting. Nowhere do they give us what reforms they would offer in place of the mess we have now.

Take Cesar Chavez, for example. Three times they invoke his “vison” and speak of the late labor leader’s “values of liberty, dignity, fairness and justice” in the cause of reform. But little do these GLBT bozos realize that Chavez stood for just their opposites by being against illegal immigrants stealing the jobs of his farmworkers and lowering their wages to compete with his union! These gay elites were more for boycotting Coors beer than grapes picked by scabs in the 1970’s. So don’t hand us this justice jazz in 2006.

Don’t tell us Gay kids must tend public school classes in gyms and hallways because you believe in “fairness”. Surely we need reform. But their statement offers none. Instead they wince at every measure that insures that people who play by the rules and stand in line get rewarded; and rejoice when someone cuts in front of others to call it equality. Would Delores Jacobs like it if someone cut in front of her in line at her bank? I think not. Yet she has the nerve to call it “draconian” when Congress acts to halt such scams.

Nobody is for “targeting immigrants” as these gay bozos suggest. Coyotes who target our country aren’t immigrants (and these bozos know it). Our country is not for sale to them. Nor to the corrupt business owners or the mobs in the street waving foreign flags. Not for sale to the Catholic Church or to Vicente Fox or any political party. America cannot be bought and this must be made plain in policy statements that claim to represent reforms but offer only platitudes.

John Primavera

Dear Editor:

As I read the events at this years’ Gay Rodeo I felt a little bit sickened. Some of the events: “goat dressing” which involves several people catching a terrified tethered goat and trying to put “jockey shorts” him, “steer decorating” which involves tying rope to the steers’ horns, having someone yank violently on their neck while someone else “ties a ribbon on the tail”, and “calf roping” which involves chasing down a baby cow, roping them by the neck or legs and yanking them off their feet.

We, as gays and lesbians, have been persecuted, physically abused, mentally abused and denied legal rights by others simply because of who we are. As people who have been in the position of “less than equal” I think we should all remember what fear and pain feel like and try and avoid inflicting it on others. As long as the abuse of those unable to defend or protect themselves continues then it will be a long time before we can expect equality. Let’s not have this be a part of our community. Let’s raise money for our causes through activities and events that don’t cause anyone harm.

Erika Mijuskovic