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’m enjoying Marty Davis’ Feb. 7 editorial,
“Give a Little Bit"! I’m amused by your
assumptions about your readers and your not-so-
gentle scolding of our apparent apathy to the
plight of less fortunate folks.
We all don’t live in the “Ward and June
Cleaver World” that you seem to. Not all of us
can afford the insurance for a trendy SUV, much
less the payments. Nor do we all live with the
man/woman of our dreams, with no children to
feed, and go golfing on the weekends like you
claim.
G L BT Portland is one of the most giving
communities I’ve ever lived in. T hat’s one of the
reasons I settled here.
1 guess the three or four million dollars this
community has given up for anti-gay ballot
measures isn’t enough for you. Nor is the
$20,000 we put into two floats in the Rose Fes
tival Starlight Parade to gather some much-
needed positive visibility. Perhaps those folks
who give 10 percent of their gross income to
Metropolitan Community Church of Portland
are just fixiling themselves that they’re actual
ly helping anyone.
How about those $100-a-plate fund-raising
dinners for the Lucille Hart Foundation and the
Pride PAC Garden Parties, the million or so
that the McKenzie River Foundation will give
away this year or the Audria Edwards Scholar
ships that will help some 20 worthy students get
a g(xxl education? How many hours of volunteer
time did Portland Pride 2002 entail? How about
4 II the food that has gone through Esther’s
Pantry or, for that matter, your own income
from Just Out ?
Where, exactly, do you think all that money
comes from? If your community can do all that
and manage to enjoy a round of golf as well, God
bless them for it and shame on you for trying to
make them feel bad!
The reason your kids are not going to get a
gixxl education, AIDS patients are going to suf
fer from lack of housing and medicine, and your
house is going to hum down for lack of firefight
ers and equipment is because no one making
funding decisions in Salem will have to face a
pay cut like the people they are inflicting those
cuts upon. No one making those funding cuts
will dare to tax a multinational corporation at
the same rate they tax you!
This isn’t about apathy. This is about a bloat
ed state government refusing to live within its
means and refusing to do what it can do to pro
vide those means.
It’s about a state that is throwing a tantrum,
like a spoiled child, expecting us to capitulate
because it steadfastly refuses to do what it knows
needs to he done. Personally, I think it’s time for
a gcxxJ old-fashioned spanking!
Guilt trips piss me o ff and I’ll tell you why,
Ms. Davis. They use the gtxxlness in people to
manipulate them into giving more than they
can afford and bludgeon them into undervalu
ing the contributions they already make every
day.
Shame on you (and Salem, too)! If you’re
having a personal fit of guilt about how little you
may, or may not, he giving to your community,
I’ll thank you, on behalf of loving, supportive,
civic-minded and compassionate G L B T people
in Portland, to kindly keep it to yourself!
G regory F ranklyn
Portland
know where or how we will get life-saving
medications.
Due to the magnitude of the budget shortfall,
the Medically Needy program has been shut
down. It paid almost $1,600 a month for med
ications that took me from an emaciated, 135-
pound skeleton of a man to an almost 180-
pound relatively healthy-kxiking member of the
human race.
Those of us who depend on these drugs take
many faces. We assume positions in all walks of
life.
We even might he your next-dcx>r neighbor.
We might have taught your children or raked
your lawn. We even might have years of pro
ductivity ahead of us that will lie untapped
because we now cannot afford the medications
that keep us alive.
We, as members of a civilized society, must
have a sense of civic responsibility. Thafperson-
al responsibility then must he extended to local,
state and federal governments.
I wholeheartedly agree that we must limit
government in its roles and its spending. How
ever, we must strike a balance to cover basic
human needs (vital services) in a civilized
world.
We cannot depend on charities for every
thing. It is the responsibility of the government
to make sure a certain standard of livability is
met.
Now that I have demanded things of citi
zens, I must demamttictions by our elected rep
resentatives. In my eyes our representatives are
no better than spineless jellyfish.
We elect our representatives to do nasty and
thankless jobs. We expect a lot of them.
In turn we expect them to show leadership
and courage in the face of despair. Our represen
tatives failed in numerous attempts to approve a
workable budget.
That means cutting excess spending (non-
vital services) and even raising taxes when
needed. Our representatives dropped the hall on
both accounts.
There has to be waste in the budget that can
he cut without signing death warrants for
patients around the state or reducing the
amount of class time for our students. Once that
fat has been trimmed, if taxes need to he
increased, then so he it.
But both conditions have to he met. At this
time, neither has been met.
Although Measure 28 certainly was not a
cure for Oregon’s ills, it would have floated the
state for a few months to allow our lethargic leg
islators to get hack into the swing of things and
try to come up with a bipartisan solution. The
voters didn’t even have a gtxxl idea what the
measure did but increase taxes.
No one wants their tax dollars wasted. But
we, as citizens, must he prepared to cover the
costs of an effective and just government that is
truly “of, for and by the people.”
We must demand more of our representa
tives and hold them accountable. We must be
vigilant and keep in touch with these individu
als to keep them informed and in touch with
how the public feels about important issues. We
must stand up and he counted.
R. D avid M eador
Portland
Child’s play
To the E ditor :
am deeply offended by your article “Amaz
ing G race” printed in the Jan. 3 issue of Just
Out. Covering a story about two white, pre
Trim tfie fat
sumably middle-class gay men coercing a ptx>r
To the E ditor :
woman to give up her child requires some
eh. 1 marked a sad day for the state, j exploration of the class and gender dynamics
at play.
About 18,000 Oregonians now do not
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