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