From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Gayspace
Date: 28 Jul 1992 16:19:01 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <ROBERTL.92Jul28142016@luciano.Stanford.EDU> 
robertl@luciano.Stanford.EDU (Robert Lodenkamper) writes:
| In article <l7b8j4INN31o@mizar.usc.edu> 
| adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson) writes:
[...]
| > ... 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.
|
| Yet you seem willing to engage them on their turf and play by their
| rules.  You also take a position later on that is equivalent to the
| claim that ethical considerations are irrelevant.

I really don't know how you managed to read that into what I've
written.  I say that I refuse to let homophobes set the terms of
the debate, that I refuse to let them define who I am and what I'm 
about.  That's engaging them on *their* turf?  I've written that 
ethical considerations ALONE are irrelevant in the rough and tumble 
of the real world.  I've also written that political power ALONE
does not justify anything.  I assumed it was clear from what I've
written that I think we have both: a just argument and some modicum 
of power.

| > 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.[...]
|
| I agree that in this case the actions taken by the city seem
| appropriate.  But the above actions are quite different from the "love
| it or leave it" rhetoric you've used.

How often do I have to repeat that I was tired and cranky or that
I was irritated when I wrote that?

| Also, this business of "responding to the needs and concerns of a huge
| number of its citizens" is troublesome.  What about those citizens who
| don't fall into one of the three political power blocks?  I agree that
| in fact the government will be less responsive to their needs.  Do you
| think that this is right?  Or are questions of right and wrong
| irrelevant in the political arena?

A city government can't be responsive to everyone's needs all the 
time.  Should the city provide translators for every conceivable
language that a citizen might speak?  I think not.  It should
provide such services when the number of people who speak a 
particular language reaches a certain critical mass.  So, services
in West Hollywood are available in Russian and Spanish, but not
in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Armenian, all three of which I hear almost
every day on the streets of West Hollywood but not as frequently
as I hear Russian and Spanish. 

It's also appropriate that the city formally recognizes holidays
important to many people in the city (Yom Kippur, Gay Pride Day),
but not others which are celebrated by far fewer people (Canada Day, 
Bastille Day). 

| >>> 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?
|
| Phobes that have committed no crime meriting banishment.  Or is this
| impossible? 

If a homophobe is out there actively fighting against gay men
and lesbians, then I'll fight back.

[...]
| > 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.
|
| Then there really is no difference between our arguments and the
| arguments of our enemies that is not due to the different power
| levels of the respective groups?  How can you possibly believe that?

I don't believe it.  I never said it.  I have said -- three, four
times now -- that THE JUSTICE OF AN ARGUMENT ALONE COUNTS FOR 
NOTHING if what you want to do is effect some political change.
What is needed is a just argument AND political power.

| You say earlier that we are involved in a fight between good and evil,
| which is true to a certain extent.  But here you deny the existence of
| good and evil --- there is merely power.  

You just don't get it, do you?  Look at Bowers v. Hardwick.  Who had
the just argument?  Who had the power?  Who won?  Look at AB 101.
Who had the just argument?  Who had the power?  Who won?

| > 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.
|
| And here there is an appeal to justice for the powerless.  If there is
| no justice, if there are no ideals, if the only good is power, then
| the powerless deserve what they get.

I'd like for you to show me where exactly I wrote that there is
not justice, that there are no ideals, that the only good is power.

| Somehow I don't think that is what you mean, even though it is
| basically what you've said.

I don't mean it and I haven't written it.

--Arne