From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Gayspace
Date: 28 Jul 1992 12:39:16 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

Yes, I see that I have walked into a minefield.

In article <ROBERTL.92Jul28023505@luciano.Stanford.EDU>,
robertl@luciano.Stanford.EDU (Robert Lodenkamper) writes:
| In article <l79i1qINNlv2@mizar.usc.edu> 
| adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson) writes:
| > In article <1992Jul28.014856.4343@macc.wisc.edu> 
| > anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
| >
| > > To play the Devil's advocate, what's so different about the
| > > OCA putting up a monument on city property in Springfield,
| > > Oregon, then, if political clout alone is enough to ratify
| > > such a step?
| 
| > Political clout alone does not justify anything.  
| > [...]  It's all very well and good to have a just cause
| > -- and that is precisely what the monument will point out -- but
| > without clout, without power, where are we?
| 
| Worse off than we'd be without it, of course.  However, there are
| several things to keep in mind.  One is that we can't win in a direct
| power struggle.  

In some places we *can* win.  And when we can, we must.

|                  The second is that even the small amount of political
| power we have can be misused.  

Well, yes, but this is a truism.  Or do you think this applies
specifically to us?

|                                The third is that what political power
| we have is essential if we are to make progress.  Naturally, these
| tend to be contradictory, just to make life interesting.

I'm not sure that I see how they're *contradictory*, but yes, they 
should be kept in mind.

| > The OCA may have clout in benighted townships, but they
| > most certainly are not interested in furthering the cause
| > of liberty, in promoting tolerance, in bettering this 
| > world for anyone but their fellow-travellers.
| 
| They say the same things about us.  They claim we are nothing more
| than yet another special interest group, with no higher purpose in
| mind than fighting for a bigger share of the pie.  They are wrong.
| They *must* be wrong about this.

Yes, they are wrong about this.  I think it enlightening to contrast 
our fight -- which is for the extension of civil liberties, for 
tolerance, for making this a better place for *everyone* to live 
in -- with theirs, which is for repression, for prohibitions, for
circumscribing how people may live their lives.  I really do see this
as a fight between good and evil.
 
| BTW, why "benighted townships."  Surely there are family and friends
| who cannot or will not leave these places.  Are they to be written off
| because the opposition is too strong?

Is Springfield, Oregon *not* "in a state of intellectual, moral,
or social darkness"?  And who said anything about abandoning family
and friends to the forces of evil?  Injustice should be fought
wherever it's encountered.

Now we come to the tricky part.  In a fit of irritation, I suggested 
that homophobes are welcome to leave West Hollywood if they don't 
like the fact that the city government is responsive to the needs 
and concerns of a vast number of its citizens.  Jess called me on it, 
and I responded that I wasn't concerned if I sounded like I was bigoted
against homophobes.

Jess replied:
| > >Well, perhaps you should be.  How can you have such a
| > >callous disregard for the results of bigotry as to feign
| > >being unconcerned at the same time as you complain about
| > >being discriminated against?  Being unconcerned about it is
| > >to have no moral stature at all.  You're surely not that
| > >much of a cynic nor a nihilist, Arne.
| 
| > I will not cmpromise when it comes to gl issues.  Quite simply,
| > in fact, there *is* no compromise.
| 
| Who said anything about compromise?  My point (and, I think, one of
| Jess's) is simply that our demands for rights are not based on the
| meagre political power we have in a few isolated cities (even though
| that power is necessary for progress to occur).  Our demands are based
| on the ethical absolute that invidious discrimination is wrong.

I couldn't agree more with you here.  But I think you misunderstood
me about compromise.  By refusing to compromise, I mean that I will 
not let homophobes set the terms of the debate.  I do not and will 
not accept the homophobic premise that AB 101, say, would have afforded 
us special rights or privileges.  In this instance, I do not and will 
not accept the homophobic premise that the attention my city government 
pays to gl issues is unseemly or wrong.  The city government is doing 
what city governments *should* do: it's responding appropriately to 
the needs and concerns of a huge number of its citizens.  There are
two other large groups in the city: senior citizens and Russian Jewish
emigres.  They, too, receive much attention from the city (senior 
nutrition centers, special vans to transport the elderly, city services
available in Russian, Yom Kippur as a city holiday, a monument erected
*on* *city* *property* to the memory of Soviet Jews killed in the 
Holocaust, etc.), but I have yet to hear any complaints about it 
from anyone.  Nor should there be any complaints about it.  I refuse
to accept the homophobic premise that attending to the needs of senior
citizens is any different from attending to the needs of gay men and
lesbians.

| So only a hypocrite would complain about discrimination against us and
| then spout this "West Hollywood aka Queertown --- love it or leave it"
| bilge.  
| 
| Avoiding hypocrisy is hardly a compromise.

What can I tell you?  Is it irrational of me to want to fight homophobes
tooth and nail?  What would you have me do?  Turn the other cheek?
Let them exclude me -- us -- from the body politic?

| > There is nothing to argue about; phobes have no position worth
| > listening to.  [...]  Nothing is being taken *away* from said
| > homophobes -- their protest is that we exist and that the city
| > treats us like human beings.  I say "fuck you" to the phobes and I
| > invite them to leave town on the next available bus.
| 
| Callous.  Maybe, just maybe, some of the phobes deserve that.  

Oh, but there are some phobes who are really pretty nice?  Phobes
you can do business with?


|                                                                 But
| what about those of us who are family and who cannot or will not live
| in such areas as West Hollywood.  You've just said "fuck you all" to
| us as well.  Your vicious, amoral, power-based argument cuts both ways
| very nicely indeed, and quite literally gives our enemies a license to
| kill (just as long as they don't do it in West Hollywood).  Thanks.

Fine, you can live in your dream world where nice things always happen 
to nice people and where the justice of an argument alone is enough.  
Maybe I'm too cynical for my own good, but I firmly believe that the 
justice of an argument counts for nothing without some power to back
it up.  Don't forget that I just lived through the riots here which 
were, in some sense, an explosion of rage by people who had legitimate
grievances but no power to make anyone listen to them.

--Arne