From: pfohl@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Anne Pfohl)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: why call it hate?
Date: 12 Nov 92 15:18:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

I'm paraphrasing here, so excuse me, Mark Harrison, if I get any 
of the "facts" wrong in terms of what you posted:

You stated that Measure 9 only required that homosexuality not be 
ENCOURAGED in schools, and that you felt that sex education 
should only teach the facts - ENCOURAGING neither hetero- nor 
homosexuality.  You state that's all Measure 9 in Oregon 
required, or, at least, that's how I read it.

Baloney.

Measure 9 required that not only should no mention of 
homosexuality be made in schools, but that, if it were mentioned 
in schools as part of, say, sex education, children should be 
taught that homosexuality is wrong, perverse, abnormal and 
immoral.

It's in there - read the text.

Proponents of Measure 9, who will not, by the way, slink off into 
the night and never be heard from again, but rather will fight 
again to have their hatred and fear passed into law, went even 
further with their desire to control education.  In a news 
conference, an educator in Oregon spoke about teaching a class on 
the poet Walt Whitman.  He said that, as a normal course of the 
study of this great literary figure, Whitman's love of men 
usually cropped up in the classroom.  OCA leaders suggested that 
maybe Whitman and his writings could be removed from the 
cirriculum, so that the subject might not come up.

One of the greatest American poets in history was gay, so let's 
axe him out of the cirriculum.  And while you're at it, cut out 
Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Somerset Maugham, Tennessee 
Williams, Virginia Wolfe, Emily Dickinson, Colette, George 
Sand...

You say schools should not promote heterosexuality.  Perhaps I am 
dating myself, but, why, when I was in high school, were there 
classes teaching girls about wedding planning and other 
heterosexual rites of passage?

You say teach the facts - well, facts include that there is a 
healthy, creative, tax paying, law abiding, intelligent, 
contributing portion of the population who are born gay.  That's 
a fact.  We exist.  Why should there be laws voted into 
legislation that not only promote discrimination against us, but, 
in their very wording, call us perverse and abnormal?  Why do you 
think that's a good thing?

It's very easy to shrink back and say, "I'm not going to tell you 
why because then you'll flame me".  Very safe, Mark.  That, to 
me, says you don't have to take responsibility for your actions.

As long as you vote for legislation that damns my way of life, 
denies me equal (not "special", I only want the same as you have 
- the right to work, to live, to own property, to be free) rights 
I will continue to call on you to be accountable.  Why shouldn't 
I have the same protection under the laws of state and country 
that you have?  Why don't I deserve the same rights as any other 
person in this country?

By voting "yes" on Measure 9, you effectively said I, as a 
lesbian, and the gays and lesbians in Oregon, do not deserve 
those rights, and that's wrong.

Anne H. Pfohl				"Now, Mr. Clinton, it's 
pfohl.offsys@osmail.buffalo.edu		 time to keep those 
pfohl@ubvmsb.buffalo.edu		 promises..."