Good for Me, But Not for Thee? Paula Martinac, who writes a syndicated column appearing in a number of lesbigay newspapers, may be a writer whose generally on the left, but she scores some excellent points in her Apirl 17 offering, which (in it's Planet Out incarnation) is titled Changing Channels on GLAAD. Taking aim at some of more doctrinaire lockstep thinking on the part of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and others, she declares that "there's sometimes a creepy, doctrinaire undercurrent in the lesbian and gay movement of which GLAAD is only one example." How so? Well, there was GLAAD's attempt to get sponsors to boycott gay-unfriendly radio (and, briefly, TV) personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, while at the same time criticizing the religious right's efforts to pressure sponsors to stop supporting gay-positive shows. Martinac suggests, not unreasonably, that if you practice the tactic of turing up the heat on sponsors so they'll drop their ads from shows you don't like, then you lose the moral authority to criticize the same tactic when used against gay-themed programming. Better to argue, rather than attempt to silence. Now there's a novel thought.
Martinac also lights into the group "Queers Against 'Queer as Folk,'" which is seeking the cancellation of the popular Showtime series. The group's leader says "We want this show to go away because its portrayals of gay people are 'dangerous.'" Funny, but I think the religious rightists over at the American Family Association are on the same team. Now there's an alliance!
The Case to Overturn "Hardwick"? Just days after the death of Byron "Whizzer" White, the former U.S. Supreme Court justice who penned the infamous "Hardwick" decision upholding laws criminalizing same-sex relations (see item below), Lambda Legal Defense announced it is taking a new "sodomy law" case back to the Supremes, in an attempt to make right what was once done wrong. The new case, "Lawrence and Garner v. Texas," involves two Houston men convicted of violating the Texas "Homosexual Conduct" Law by having consensual sex in the privacy of one man's home. Just as "Plessy v. Ferguson," which upheld segregated public schools, was upturned by "Brown v. Board of Education," it's high time the High Court recognized its error and mended its ways. Hears hoping this is the case to do it.