From: junikka@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Jari Junikka)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: IS OUTING ETHICAL?
Date: 17 Apr 92 19:23:05 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin Dept. of Mathematics

farenebt@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Big Bri) writes:

>I think the subject says it all. Personally, I think it's very unethical
>for gays to out other gays. I think that gays have a right to privacy. If
>they want to tell the world of their sexual orientation, they have the
>right to do so. But they also have the right to keep it quiet if they
>prefer. I think it's selfish of some gay activist groups to violate some
>homosexuals right to privacy for their selfish purposes. NOTE: I am
>not a homophobe and I do not think any less of homosexuals than of hetero
>sexuals. I think they have the same rights as everyone else, including
>the right to privacy. You may not respect their decision to keep it quiet,
>but you should respect their right to do so.

Two quotations from Queers Read This:
   
   Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the 
   freedom to be public, to just be who we are.  It means everyday 
   fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry 
   of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred.  (We have been 
   carefully taught to hate ourselves.)  And now of course it means 
   fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using 
   AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth.  Being queer means 
   leading a different sort of life.  It's not about the mainstream, 
   profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated.  
   It's not about executive directors, privilege and elitism.  It's 
   about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it's about 
   gender-fuck and secrets, what's beneath the belt and deep inside 
   the heart; it's about the night.  Being queer is "grass roots" 
   because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, 
   every heart and ass and dick is a world of pleasure waiting to 
   be explored.  Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility.
   We are an army because we have to be.  We are an army because 
   we are so powerful.  (We have so much to fight for; we are the 
   most precious of endangered species.)  And we are an army of 
   lovers because it is we who know what love is.  Desire and lust, 
   too.  We invented them.  We come out of the closet, face the 
   rejection of society, face firing squads, just to love each other!  
   Every time we fuck, we win.  We must fight for ourselves (no one 
   else is going to do it) and if in that process we bring greater 
   freedom to the world at large then great.  (We've given so much 
   to that world:  democracy, all the arts, the concepts of love, 
   philosophy and the soul, to name just a few gifts from our 
   ancient Greek Dykes, Fags.)  Let's make every space a Lesbian 
   and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexual geography.  
   A city of yearning and then total satisfaction.  A city and 
   a country where we can be safe and free and more.  We must look 
   at our lives and see what's best in them, see what is queer and 
   what is straight and let that straight chaff fall away!  Remember 
   there is so, so little time.  And I want to be a lover of each 
   and every one of you.  Next year, we march naked.
   

and 

   I hate straight people who think they have anything intelligent 
   to say about "outing."  I hate straight people who think stories 
   about themselves are "universal" but stories about us are only 
   about homosexuality.  I hate straight recording artists who 
   make their careers off of queer people, then attack us, then 
   act hurt when we get angry and then deny having wronged us 
   rather than apologize for it.  I hate straight people who say, 
   "I don't see why you feel the need to wear those buttons and 
   t-shirts.  I don't go around telling the whole world I'm straight."
   
   I hate that in twelve years of public education I was never 
   taught about queer people.  I hate that I grew up thinking I was 
   the only queer in the world, and I hate even more that most queer 
   kids still grow up the same way.  I hate that I was tormented by 
   other kids for being a faggot, but more that I was taught to
   feel ashamed for being the object of their cruelty, taught to 
   feel it was my fault.  I hate that the Supreme Court of this 
   country says it's okay to criminalize me because of how I make 
   love.  I hate that so many straight people are so concerned about 
   my goddamned sex life.  I hate that so many twisted straight 
   people become parents, while I have to fight like hell to be 
   allowed to be a father.  I hate straights.