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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 18, 2003)
4 jM St m at * aprii 18. 2003 Püout Metropolitan Community Church of the Gentle Shepherd John 10: 14-16 Rev. Harriet Barshofsky p/uriod M asiyasiet A U O ocaiúm PitcUatyu^pÂ*f The call o f nature To the E ditor : Bible Study: 9-10 am 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Sundays “ Introduction to the Bible” Sunday Services: 10:30 am -6:30 pm “You are invited to Raster Services, April 20th 10:30 am and 6:30 pm.” P ‘ ’ia¿e44¿<HiaUá*K (vit/uH it (He SS 503 $92-2677 2200 Broadway Suite F Vancouver, WA * (360) 695-1480 cam Retail Nursery - Landscape Services ( oi . bc >6T74> Gardening Workshops: Sunday Gardening Workshops April 20 1pm - “Fertilizer: What, Why, When" Join Leslie (lover, Horticulturahst at Joy Creek Nursery April 27 1pm - “High Performance Plants for the Northwest Gardener” Join Richard Haulage, Director o f the Miller Botanical Carden and the head o f the Great Plant Picks. For Information Call: 503 / 543-7474 Open daily 8am-5pm 20300 NE Watson Rd Scappoose, OR 97056 N a tio n a l C a ta lo g u e S a les - w w w .j o y c r e e k .c o m Automotive Maintenance & Repair AT ITS B E S T! • Staffed by Trained Technicians • Owner Jess Heitman a Bachelor of Science in Eng. • Troy ASE Certified B .S . in Automotive Technology instead giv«?s the front-page ink to howling? Stunning! (“Bowled Over!" April 4] A L L FO REIG N & DOM ESTIC AUTO M O BILES Q U A LIFIED , HONEST, QUICK & FAIRLY PRICED SATISFIED CUSTOM ERS T E L L THEIR FRIEND S — T H EY A L L COME BACK! (references on file) AUTO-MARINE 4230 NE SUMNER ST. 503 282-0159 - AL hile Marty Davis’ Feb. 21 commentary about gay public sex (“The Opposite Sex’’] does reflect prudish standards about what should be considered acceptable behavior, some of the angry responses in the April 4 Just Out (“Cruise Control”] do not recognize that she was asking a sincere ques tion that she did not have an answer to. Here’s a justification for public sex: Men have different sexual needs from women. Rela tively few women fantasize about sex with strangers. To fetishize sex with strangers would he evolutionarily dangerous for women because it could cause them to have lots of children they couldn’t care for with men who wouldn’t he willing to support them. To fetishize sex with strangers might he evo lutionarily advantageous for men, because a man acting on this would spread his seed far and wide. With each extra child out there, the man’s genes are passed on without much work on his part. Mainstream society says anonymous sex is wrong; therefore, we have laws to protect Amer ican conformists from stumbling on something shocking to them or having to suddenly explain gay sex to their kids on a walk in the park. W hether these laws are justifiable or not, we have them for these reasons and not because public sex can inherently he called immoral via logical reasoning. Marty’s question was simply why not take anonymous sex to the sex club or the bath house? Why do it in public? The answer is that, to many men, public sex is hot. It is the primal wild animal inside coming to the surface. It is a form of spiritual com m u nion with fellow man and nature. Imagine a tiger prowling through the jungle and stumbling on another tiger. Their eyes meet. Friend or foe? Will he attack me? I don’t know. But wouldn’t it he hot if he winked? Men cruise docks, restrcxims, parks and hush es in every part of the world daily. Every city has dozens of spots. Gay men are not going to stop having anonymous sex in public places because somebody thinks it’s immoral, because some body made a law or because some people can’t understand it. W hat turns people on doesn’t always have an explanation, nor does it need to. We never hear about the menace caused hy causing places until the police raid them. T h at’s because society does not have a huge problem with unwitting straights stumbling over heaps of male debauchery. But even if the occasional gcxxl Christian should become offended hy what he witnessed in the trails in W ashington Park at 1 a.m., would that really he such a tragedy? Gay men’s right to use a public place for sex tmmps a conformist’s right to he protected from the shcKk of unexpectedly witnessing it. People don’t need to he protected from this shock. The world would not end, hut would rather become more enlightened, if people sometimes un expectedly had to explain gay sex to their kids. T om S oppe Portland J ack D anger Portland Lib e rty starts at home To the E ditor : s we fight Saddam’s Republican Guard to get Iraqis liberty, Bush’s Supreme Court Republican guards are defending an unjust Texas sodomy law that bars oral and anal sex between two men while permitting these same acts between a man and women or animals. Texas lawyers say, despite our C onstitution’s guarantee of equal protection, heterosexual sodomy and fornication are legal “because they can lead to marriage and pnxireation.” It is unfair to single out sodomy for prosecu tion when heterosexual fornication is equally immoral and unsafe. N either should he allowed to endanger the public health. Harmless and noncommercial sodomy between consenting adults in private is not com parable to pedophilia, bigamy or adultery. Pedophiles harm children, who are unable to consent. Prohibitions of bigamy and adultery pro tect the institution of marriage, which the state sanctions for important procreative purposes. T he assertion that allowing sodomy will cause the demise of marriage and family is laughable. W hy would any heterosexuals become sodomites just to shirk their family and procreative duties? Two-thirds of all heterosexu als support laws against gay marriages. Family values are nor an endangered species. Bush wants to impose a secular government on Iraq to protect Christians from theocratic laws being enforced by the Islamic majority. He is hypocritical to defend the theocratic sodomy laws enforced hy our Judeo-Christian majority. Bush is conceivably trying to undermine the authority of the United Nations not only because of enforcement disagreements hut also human pri vacy rights. A U.N. treaty that was ratified by 149 nations, including the United States, requires pri vacy protections, which essentially bars criminal izing sodomy. The legal concepts of liberty, equal ity and privacy have global meanings. Liberty should start at home. Bush’s regime must he changed to free all Americans. A T homas K raemer Corvallis W rong rights To the E ditor : f Fred Gurr were gay, he would know that in a ruling by the Supreme Court, gay people do not enjoy equal rights under the U.S. Constitu- tion at this time (“Sick and Tired,” April 4(. This fact is what gay military personnel are fighting for and dying to uphold. I D oris D aze Portland Capitalist punishm ent Gutter ball To the E ditor : ~ ; <xi knows I love bowling as much as the next person, and Christ knows it has all the makings of a perfect lesbian pastime. You got your round objects, the holes that you slide your fingers into, sensible shoes, the whole nine yards— so what am I hitching about? Can it he that once again Marty Davis defies journalistic norms, bucks the media monopoly trends and says the hell to the war, the resis tance, the reactions, the fallout, the dead bodies, the New World Order, the Patriot A ct— and C To the E ditor .- was horrified hy John Boynton’s self-righteous letter (“Squeal Like a Pig," April 4(. He seems to confuse benevolence with law-enforced obligation. (Isn’t he the one who also said nonwhite people are less intelligent and therefore shouldn’t he allowed to reprcxluce? ("Drowning in the Gene Pool." Feb. 7] What the hell is wrong with this guy?) There is a reason the richest are contributing more money than the middle class and those below the poverty line: They have more than enough money to survive. I’m pretty certain that even after taxes, |ohn and his fellow capitalists I
