* Original: AREA.... GLAAD * Original: FROM.... Greg Hullender * Original: TO...... All * Forwarded by...... Maximus-CBCS v1.02 at 1:204/501.0 This week, the San Francisco Chronicle and the TV station it owns, KRON-TV (4, NBC) conducted a campaign against NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association). This involved a great deal of sensational TV coverage, including footage of the NAMBLA meeting recorded with a hidden camera. The point was repeatedly made that NAMBLA was meeting in the public library, and that children use the library too. Channel 4 gave every indication that they didn't mean to be attacking the gay/lesbian community by doing this, but they were amazed that we weren't willing to join them in condemning NAMBLA. GLAAD was the only gay/lesbian organization in the Bay Area that was actually willing to speak to KRON about it, and they aired an interview with me on Thursday night at 6PM and 11PM. From this 45 minute interview, they excerpted two sound bites, which left the impression that although most gays and lesbians strongly disapproved of NAMBLA, gay and lesbian leaders weren't willing to publicly condemn a g/l organization, no matter what. While this is all true, it only represents part of the truth. CNN was going to do a piece on this story this morning, but they cancelled it at the last minute. Because it's still on my mind, and because it's an important issue, here is what I had planned to tell them: Gays and Lesbians are just as disgusted by pedophilia as anyone else. Almost everyone has an instinct to protect small children, so pedophilia upsets all of us. Because we are so often falsely accused of being pedophiles, perhaps it bothers us more than it does most people. And those ARE false accusations [present first page of evidence]. The FBI instructions to law enforcement officers investigating crimes against children include several pages of detailed instructions on "how to identify pedophiles," but nowhere do they suggest looking for gays or lesbians. The State of Florida department of law enforcement guidelines explicitly say that the idea that homosexuals are child molesters is "a myth." Dr. Nicholas Groth's study of over 300 incarcerated child molesters didn't turn up a single child molester who self-identified as gay. Nevertheless, pedophilia discussions almost always focus on men with boys and imply "this is something gays do." [Display a brochure from a national child abuse organization.] Note that although the text in this brochure tells you that the overwhelming majority of molested children are little girls, all the pictures are of a little boy. Note that in the midst of all the pedophilia coverage this week [display stack of clippings] the Chronicle ran two stories about heterosexual pedophiles, and treated both of them very positively. [Show clipping of XuXu and Roman Polanski.] These people had sex with 12 and 13 year olds, yet the Chron brushes it off as unimportant. XuXu actually has a job working with children, but they still don't care, because it's not "same-sex pedophilia." Note that these people are extreme even by NAMBLA's standards, since most of NAMBLA's members aren't interested in anyone under 14. And the Chron didn't just discover this issue; they ran a full-page article on NAMBLA on February 18, 1990. NAMBLA draws a lot of attention because it identifies itself as a gay/lesbian organization, but the FBI report lists 11 diferent pedophile oraganizations, most of which we've never heard of. Perhaps that's because the media isn't interested in the issue if it doesn't reflect badly on the gay and lesbian community. This issue isn't about pedophilia at all; the local press clearly doesn't care about pedophilia. This is about homophobia. If there were an organization of gay/lesbian bank robbers, we wouldn't support bank robbery, but if the police decided to focus on gay bank robbers and the press indicated that it thought straight bank robbers were kind of neat and wondered why we didn't join them in condemning the gay ones, our reaction would be the same. Finally, there is the freedom of speech issue. Even organizations we don't like have the right to meet, discuss their views, etc. without fear of harrassment. Is KRON going to put hidden cameras in AA meetings as part of a campaign against alcoholism next? --- Maximus-CBCS v1.02 * Origin: PCBL_BBS San Mateo, CA (415) 572-9563 (1:204/501)