Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 06:17:02 -0400
From:         gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject:      GayNet Digest Volume 5 Issue 640

In this issue:
                    GayNet Digest Volume 5 Issue 637
                       Boy Scouts/Bank of America
               News Flash! Activists Arrested in Houston
                           Reading the Bible
                     "Billy" in "One Life to Live"
                        Another slap in the face

Please send messages for the entire list to gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU,
requests to be added or deleted to gaynet-request@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, and
personal replies directly to the other person, not the entire list.
Postings to GayNet are public communications.  If you must keep your
privacy, send your messages to gaynet-anonymous@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 92 14:27:00 PDT
From: Mike Clark <MSCMAC%UCSCVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject:      Re: GayNet Digest Volume 5 Issue 637

On Tue, 18 Aug 1992 15:28:29 -0400 you said:
>Whoever burned an American Flag at the ACT-UP demonstrations needs to
>think before they act. This kind of stuff ISN'T going to win the hearts
>and minds of the American people and is going to play into he hands of the
>Bush campaign strategists who are trying to make GLB's
>(Gays,Lesbians,Bi's) the Willie Horton of the 1992 campaign (See TIME
>Magazine article on Gays as the Willie Horton of 1992- a few weeks ago)>
>So friends, please,please,please, think before you speak. How this stuff
>plays in Peoria does make a difference. All of this is just IMHO (in my
>humble opinion), so please no flames, I'm just expressing my view. Feel
>free to express your view on the net without flame or personal attack. Thanks.
>

Actually, this same type of argument was used frequently during the
whole Vietnam war period.  I think what people forget is no, it doesn't
play well in Peoria, to begin with, but eventually Peoria wakes up and
realizes what is really going on, and then responds appropriately.  This
type of action as well as all the others, both quiet and loud, are
necessary at this stage in our history.  We need to wake people up
to what is happening.  Only when they are awake will they stop and
think and do something about the injustices/inequalities.

mike

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 20:33 GMT
From: Brian Nunes <0005066380@mcimail.com>
Subject: Boy Scouts/Bank of America

The following press release ran yesterday (Tuesday) from the
BankAmerica Corp. (Bank of America's parent company) regarding scout
donations.  I think the release speaks for itself.

( BW)(BANK-OF-AMERICA)(BAC) Boy Scouts eligible for BankAmerica
contributions

   Business/News Editors

   SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BankAmerica Corporation said today
that, as a result of a clarification of the membership policy of the
Boy Scouts of America, the organization would once again be eligible
for charitable donations.

   BankAmerica said that its understanding, based on communications
which it initiated with the national leadership of the organization,
is that the opportunity to join the Boy Scouts of America is open to
all boys who subscribe to the Scout oath and law, Cub Scout promise or
Explorer code (Exploring includes teenage girls).

   BankAmerica's contributions policies allow it to make donations
only to those organizations that provide full access and equal
opportunity to all members of the class that the organization is
designed to serve.

   Boy Scouts of America, being open to all boys, which is the classit
is designed to serve, meets the bank's contributions criteria.  The
bank said it understands the Scouting organization's requirement and
necessity to set guidelines for those qualified to serve as adult
leaders.  The Boy Scouts' eligibility for charitable contributions
from BankAmerica is determined by its policy regarding youth
membership.

   ``For over half a century, Bank of America has been a friend and
supporter of the Boy Scouts,'' said Executive Vice President Donald A.
Mullane, chairman of the BankAmerica Foundation.  ``We're pleased to
have reached this understanding that will allow that support to
continue and be consistent with the corporation's long-held belief
inequal opportunity.''

   CONTACT:  Bank of America Corporate Public Relations

          Peter Magnani, 415/953-2418
          John Keane, 415/622-2773
=======
Pretty two-faced, wouldn't you say?  But now you know who to contact.
I think the important question is why the bank ``understands'' the
BSA's ``requirement and necessity to set guidelines for those
qualified to serve as adult leaders,'' and why these guidelines
involve sexual orientation.

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
--Brian A. Nunes--                     | ``True, people do
INTERNET: 0005066380@MCIMail.com       |   go both ways''
MCI Mail: 506-6380 / savoirfaire       |   -- The Scarecrow
VOX:    213-656-9117                   |   THE WIZARD OF OZ
USPS:   8206 DeLongpre Ave. #10,       |   (c) MCMXXXIX
        West Hollywood, CA  90046-3726 |   by MGM

------------------------------

Subject: News Flash! Activists Arrested in Houston
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 21:23:27 -0400
From: Ron Buckmire <buckmr@rpi.edu>

Seen around the net...

        Meanwhile in Houston... police arrested seven AIDS activists who
interrupted a speech by Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell. Falwell
was speaking to delegates at a hotel before tonight's session at the G-
O-P convention. The activists were sitting among the Virginia delegation
when one of them sounded an air horn. They then jumped up from their
seats and chanted quote... ``Every seven minutes somebody dies of AIDS.''
Police scuffled with the protesters... who were members of Queer Nation
and Act Up.



- -
RON BUCKMIRE, 11 Colvin Circle, Troy, NY 12180-3735.  ``D.C. in 1993!''
uunet!rpi.edu!buckmr||buckmr@rpitsmts.bitnet||buckmr@rpi.edu||+1 518 276 8910
"I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care
what the facts are." -- George Herbert Walker Bush, President of the USA.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Aug 1992 10:15:44 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dede le Demon <RMILLER@carleton.edu>
Subject: Reading the Bible
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT

"Homophobic? Re-read your bible", by Rev. Peter J. Gomes
New York Times, 17 August 1992, Op-Ed section

[Peter J. Gomes, an American Baptist minister, is professor of
Christian morals at Harvard.]

Opposition to gays' civil rights has become one of the most visible
symbols of American civic conflict this year, and religion has become
the weapon of choice. The army of the discontented, eager for clear
villains and simple solutions and ready for a crusade in which
political self-interest and social anxiety can be cloaked in
morality, has found hatred of homosexuality to be the last
respectable prejudice of the century.

Ballot initiatives in Oregon and Maine would deny homosexuals the
protection of civil rights laws. The Pentagon has steadfastly refused
to allow gays into the armed forces. Vice President Dan Quayle is
crusading for "traditional family values". And Pat Buchanan, who is
scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention this evening
[Aug 17], regards homosexuality as the litmus test of moral purity.

Nothing has illuminated this crusade more effectively than a work of
fiction, "The Drowning of Stephan Jones", by Bette Greene. Preparing
for her novel, Ms Greene interviewed more than 400 young men
incarcerated for gay-bashing, and scrutinized their case studies. In
an interview published in "The Boston Globe" this spring, she said
she found that gay-bashers generally saw nothing wrong in what they
did, and, more often than not, said their religious leaders and
traditions sanctioned their behavior. One convicted teen-age
gay-basher told her that the pastor of his church had said,
"Homosexuals represent the devil, Satan", and that the Rev. Jerry
Falwell had echoed that charge.

Christians opposed to political and social equality for homosexuals
nearly always appeal to the moral injunctions of the Bible, claiming
that Scripture is very clear on the matter and citing verses that
support their opinion. They accuse others of perverting and
distorting texts contrary to their "clear" meaning. They do not,
however, necessarily see quite as clear a meaning in biblical
passages on economic conduct, the burdens of wealth and the sin of
greed.

Nine biblical citations are customarily invoked as relating to
homosexuality. Four (Deuteronomy 23:17, I Kings 14:24, I Kings 22:46
and II Kings 23:7 ) simply forbid prostitution, by men and women.

Two others (Leviticus 18:19-23 and Leviticus 20:10-16) are part of
what biblical scholars call the Holiness Code. The code explicitly
bans homosexual acts. But it also prohibits eating raw meat, planting
two different kinds of seed in the same field and wearing garments
with two different kinds of yarn. Tattoos, adultery and sexual
intercourse during a woman's menstrual period are similarly outlawed.

There is no mention of homosexuality in the four Gospels of the New
Testament. The moral teachings of Jesus are not concerned with the
subject.

Three reference from St. Paul are frequently cited (Romans 1:26-2:1,
I Corinthans 6:9-11 and I Timothy 1:10). But St. Paul was concerned
with homosexuality only because in Greco-Roman culture it represented
a secular sensuality that was contrary to his Jewish-Christian
spiritual idealism. He was against lust and sensuality in anyone,
including heterosexuals. To say that homosexuality is bad because
homosexuals are tempted to do morally doubtful things is to say that
heterosexuality is bad because heterosexuals are likewise tempted.
For St. Paul, anyone who puts his or her interest ahead of God's is
condemned, a verdict that falls equally upon everyone.

And lest we forget Sodom and Gomorrah, recall that the story is not
about sexual perversion and homosexual practice. It is about
inhospitality, according to Luke 10:10-13, and failure to care for
the poor, according to Ezekiel 16:49-50: "Behold, this was the
iniquity of they sister Sodom, pride, fullness of breadm and
abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did
she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy". To suggest that Sodom
and Gomorrah is about homosexual sex is an analysis of about as much
worth as suggesting that the story of Jonah and the whale is a
treatise on fishing.

Part of the problem is a question of interpretation. Fundamentalists
and literalists, the storm troopers of the religious right, are
terrified  that Scripture, "wrongly interpreted", may separate them
from their values. That fear stems from their own recognition that
their "values" are not derived from Scripture, as they publicly
claim.

Indeed, it is through the lens of their own prejudices and personal
values that they "read" Scripture and cloak their own views in its
authority. We all interpret Scripture: make no mistake. And no one
truly is a literalist, despite the pious temptation. The questions
are, by what principle of interpretation do we proceed, and by what
means do re reconcile "what it meant then" to "what it means now".

These matters are far to important to be left to scholars and
seminarians alone. Our ability to judge ourselves and others rests on
our ability to interpret Scripture intelligently. The right use of
the Bible, an exercise as old as the church itself, means that we
confront our prejudices rather than merely confirm them.

For Christians, the principle by which Scripture is read is nothing
less than an appreciation of the work and will of God as revealed in
that of Jesus. To recover a liberating and inclusive Christ is to be
freed from the semantic bondage that makes us curators of a dead
culture rather than creatures of a new creation.

Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept
ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such
intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political
power to destroy what it cannot convert.

It is dangerous, especially in America, because it is anti-democratic
and is suspicious of "the other", in whatever form that "other" might
appear. To maintain itself, fundamentalism must always define "the
other" as deviant.

But the chief reason that fundamentalism is dangerous is that, at the
hands of the Rev. Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and hundreds
of lesser-known but equally worrisome clerics, preachers and pundits,
it uses Scripture to encourage ordinarily good people to act upon
their fears rather than their virtues.

Fortunately, those who speak for the religious right do not speak for
all American Christians, and the Bible is not theirs alone to
interpret. The same Bible that the advocates of slavery used to
protect their wicked self-interests is the Bible that inspired slaces
to revolt and their liberators to action.

The same Bible that the predecessors of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson
used to keep white churches white is the source of the inspiration of
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the social reformation of the
1960s.

The same Bible that anti-feminists used to keep women silent in the
churches is the Bible that preaches liberation to captives and says
that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free.

And the same Bible that on the basis of an archaic social code of
ancient Israel and a tortured reading of Paul is used to condemn all
homosexuals and homosexual behavior includes metaphors of redemption,
renewal, inclusion and love - principles that invite homosexuals to
accept their freedom and responsibility in Christ and demands that
their fellow Christians accept them as well.

The political piety of the fundamentalist religious right must not be
exercised at the expense of our precious freedoms. And in this summer
of our discontent, one of the most precious freedoms for which we
must all fight is freedom from this last prejudice.
                 ------Here Endeth the Reading--------

    Rick Miller
    Carleton College Library
    Northfield, MN 55057
    rmiller@carleton.edu
   =======================================================================
   * Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious *
   * that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an  *
   * occasional bleak truth?                                             *
   *                           - Calvin                                  *
   =======================================================================

------------------------------

From: Greg Pratt <aragon@lachesis.acm.rpi.edu>
Subject: Re: "Billy" in "One Life to Live"
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 23:40:11 EDT

Andrew Werling writes:
> Further, I'm wondering (as I've missed quite a bit of GayNet recently) if
> anyone knows anything about the actor who plays Billy.  I'm wondering if
> he is worried about the stigma that may or may not be placed on him due to
> his playing a gay role.  I'm also wondering if he's out as "really gay."

The actor you are referring to, Ryan Phillippe, is a 17-year-old Delaware
native.  His statements in interviews to date would seem to indicate he is
quite heterosexual.  These same interviews revealed that Phillippe was (and
still is somewhat) concerned about the possible effect the role would have on
his personal life, specifically in terms of what people might begin to think
of him (or his sexuality) because he chose to play a gay character.
Ironically, it was his strong sense of religious faith that convinced him to
take the part.  He has stated that when he was told by the psychiatric
consultant on the set about the astoundingly high figures for gay teen
suicide, he felt a certain sense of moral obligation.

-
Gregory Pratt                               "The problem with the gene pool
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute            is that there is no lifeguard."
Association for Computing Machinery                             --- unknown

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 23:21:09 -0500
From: See Crawlsbad Caverns <lisowski@kestrel.inhs.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Another slap in the face

Gays and lesbians received another slap in the face during Wednesday's
"family values night" coverage of the Republican National Convention.
Only this time it didn't come from another mad-dog Buchananite but from
our "friend" Bill Clinton.  In a segment that was recorded earlier in the
day and aired after Marilyn Quayle's speech, Tom Brockaw asked Clinton
how the people in Hope, Arkansas feel about his support of the rights of
gays and Lesbians to get married and adopt children.  He said that was a
Republican distortion of his position.  He only opposes discrimination in
jobs and supports gays and Lesbians in the military.  He made it very clear
he has not said anything about marriage or adoption.  This was clearly an
insult to gays and Lesbians who wish to have their relationships viewed as
legitimate families--and this on family values night.

Slick Willy destroyed in this life-long gay Democrat whatever good feelings
that Bob Hattoy, Barnie Frank, and Gerry Studds generated within the past
few weeks.

Ed Lisowski

------------------------------

End of GayNet Digest
********************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU