From: pdb059@ipl.jpl.nasa.gov (Paul Bartholomew)
Newsgroups: ca.politics
Subject: Re: "Monsters Among Us", Frontlines, November 10, 1992, PBS
Date: 19 Nov 92 10:16:30 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Image Processing Lab

In article <13246@optilink.UUCP>, cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

> You don't suppose that the continual drumbeat of support for
> child molestation by homosexuals in soc.motss has done some 
> damage to your cause?  I didn't care, one or the other, about
> this subject three years ago.  Soc.motss has really opened my
> eyes to what sick, screwed up, depraved people homosexuals are.

I've been waiting for this.  Have you noticed how Mr. Cramer's postings
have grown increasingly shrill and vituperative as he realizes the weakness
of his position and the futility of his postings?

Statement 1: "Continual drumbeat of support for child molestation"--Mr.
Cramer has presented no evidence of any such "continual" support for child
molestation in soc.motss.  He has presented no evidence at all that anyone
in soc.motss supports child molestation.  He has presented evidence that a
couple of dozen people in soc.motss support lowering and/or abolishing the
age of consent laws.

Statement 2: "Sick, screwed up, depraved people"--Mr. Cramer has presented
no evidence that homosexuals as a group are "sick, screwed up, or depraved"
(other than the simple fact that they are homosexual, which is considered
depraved by some).  He has presented a dozen or so postings from three or
four people that I consider troubling.  I would recommend counseling for
those people.  By no stretch of the imagination can those postings be con-
sidered representative of the millions of people in the gay community.

Finally, I take issue with the entire paragraph.  I have grown curious over
the past year about soc.motss.  Mr. Cramer has been saying all along what he
said in this paragraph.  I had never read soc.motss previously because I had
no particular interest in it.  I'm not gay, although I do have several gay
friends, and I had no particular desire to read a gay-oriented newsgroup.

However, Mr. Cramer got me curious, so this month, I began browsing through
soc.motss on a regular basis to see what it is they do discuss in that news-
group, and to see for myself if Mr. Cramer's characterization of the group
is accurate.  The result?  Mr. Cramer's characterization of the group is
completely inaccurate.

Is there a "continual drumbeat of support for child molestation?"  Hell, no.
During this entire month, I didn't see a single posting devoted to NAMBLA,
child molestation, sex with children and/or adolescents, nothing.

Were there "sick, screwed-up, and depraved" postings?  Once again, no.  There
were several I found mildly distasteful (e.g., some postings where men were
talking about how attractive Keanu Reeves is and hints of what they'd like to
do with him).  Since I'm not gay, these made me somewhat uncomfortable, but
there was nothing sick, screwed-up, or depraved about it.  There were only a
few postings, in the several hundred I browsed, which included any kind of
explicit sexual talk or discussion of unusual sexual practices.

Would you like to know the number one topic of discussion in soc.motss?
Politics.  You could probably transfer 70% of the discussion in soc.motss to
talk.politics without anyone noticing the difference.  Other topics included
coming out to parents, friends, and relatives; raising children as a gay
man or gay couple; discussion of reading material; gay themes and roles in
movies and television; the relative attractiveness/unattractiveness of body
hair; and, just as in every other newsgroup, flame wars.

Now, I will freely admit that Mr. Cramer has been reading soc.motss for a
far longer time than I have.  And I will also admit that the subject matter
in soc.motss is probably skewed by the recent national elections, which
would explain why political discussion is so prevalent there right now.
I'll check periodically for the next few months to determine if it ever
becomes the newsgroup that Mr. Cramer has described.  I suspect it won't.

In the meantime, I invite everyone to spend an hour or two and browse
through soc.motss.  Decide for yourself whether I'm right or Mr. Cramer
is right.

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Paul Bartholomew        |  Clayton Cramer:  "[Brian Kane] and Paul Bartholomew
                        |  are among the best examples of how screwed-up and
pdb059@ipl.jpl.nasa.gov |  emotionally disturbed homosexuals are."
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