If you think

How sweet it is, when whirlwinds roil great ocean,
To watch, from the land, the danger of another,
Not that to see some other person suffer
Brings great enjoyment, but the sweetness lies
In watching evils you yourself are free from.
How sweet, again, to see the clash of battle
Across the plains, yourself immune to danger.

Lucretius
The way things are
Book II P. 52

True Story of Personal Experience with Homophobia

Anonymous Male Speaker: “Hey Timoteo, you stupid-mother-fucker! I heard you’re a fucking-faggot! We don’t like faggots around here, so you better be watching your back, you little bitch – We’ll fucking kill you!

Chorus of Young Men: “FAGGOT!”

While attending Fort Lewis College in 1996 the above message was left in my voice mail. Around this same time, I recall a night out at a local bar in downtown Durango.

As I stood and watched a game of pool, minding my own business and drinking a beer, a young white man caught my attention; at first I did not hear what he said because the dance music drowned out his words. It was clear by his facial expression that he was being aggressive, pressed lips, a wrinkled brow, and pushed out chest made me alert to the danger.

I leaned forward and said, “What?” To this, the young man, shouted, “Are you looking at me? Don’t be looking at me faggot!”

The sad truth is that this was not the first time I had these words aimed at me. My life has been scared with instances of verbal and physical assault for being gay. As well, when I served as a volunteer with the Colorado Anti-Violence Project I witnessed on more then one occasion the horrific beating of men who were assaulted because the perpetrator believed he was gay. Under this kind of pressure, either you get good at hiding or you develop keen survival skills.

I put a serious look on my face, staring him in the eyes I said back to the young man, “Nope, not interested!” and looked away.

As I watched him in the mirror, I turned my beer bottle into a weapon and prepared for the next move. The young man was fuming with rage but he would not look away. We were both fortunate, his friend, who had been by his side, managed to talk him down, and walked him away into the dark end of the bar. I stood long enough to send the message that I was not being chased off, finished my beer, and went home.

The point of this story, homophobia has very real consequences that cannot be sanitized away.

4 University Students Charged In Homophobic Attack

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: January 18, 2006 - 9:00 pm ET

(Madison, Wisconsin) Four university of students have been arrested following the vandalizing of a college dormitory at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Campus police were called to a student's room at Ogg Hall after the student was awakened by someone yelling, "All faggots should die" and "I hate fucking faggots."

The student, whose name has not been made public, went to the door of his dorm room to find "I hate fucking faggots. Die," written on the dry erase board on the outside of his door.

There also was saliva dripped down the door, according to the Madison Capital Times newspaper.

The victim pursued several men who were fleeing down a hallway and followed them up a stairwell where he confronted three students. When the victim tried to prevent the trio from leaving before police got there he pushed him aside and the assailants fled.

When campus police did arrive they questioned a student, identified as Michael D. Riha, 19, who was having a party in a room not far from the victims.

After denying any knowledge of the vandalism, Riha admitted pointing out victim's door to another student, Benjamin T. Chamberlain, 19.

Chamberlain and two students from other schools - Caleb M. Moore, 18, from Auburn University, and Kevin R. Cochacki, 18, from Purdue - were later arrested.

Chamberlain later admitted that all four men tore pictures from the victim's door and he said he wrote the message on the victim's door, the Capital Times reports.

"OK, I tore down a picture," he reportedly told a campus police officer. "I was showing off and saw a picture of two guys kissing. I'm conservative and had a problem with it. Why does the photo have to be displayed in public? Keep it to yourself."

The men allegedly returned to the victim's door three times to deface it. "We were drunk and thought it was funny," Chamberlain reportedly said.

All four men were charged with disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property as hate crimes. Riha also faces a charge of obstructing an officer.

©365Gay.com 2006

St. John Reconsiders Modern Epistomology

Tea Room Trade

How ethical is this study?

A researcher was interested in the men who participated in sexual activity in a public place, that is, their personal characteristics and the nature of the sexual activity. His first step was to engage in observation of such activity in a public restroom in a park within a large city; these places were known as "tearooms." The general pattern was for the men to drive to the park, enter the public restroom, and engage in the desired behavior.

The researcher often served as what was called the "watch queen," that is, a lookout to prevent individuals who might cause trouble from interrupting the sexual activity. In general, interruptions of the activity occurred due to the presence of local teenagers or police. This activity was technically illegal when the study was done (in the 1960s), so it would have been troublesome if the police arrived on the scene.

He gathered his information on 50 sex acts (mostly oral sex) involving over 100 men. Then he obtained personal information about these individuals. He copied down their license plate numbers, went to the police and, giving a false cover story, obtained names and addresses based on the license plates, and subsequently interviewed the men. He informed them that it was part of a marketing research project.

Analysis of responses to the interview revealed that "when the characteristics of the participants were compared with those of typical males from the same urban area, no striking differences in terms of occupations, marital status, socioeconomic characteristics, and the like were found. Aside from their participation in clandestine homosexual activity, there was little to distinguish these men from typical adult males" (Reynolds, 1982, p. 68).

---

Questions

1. What are the ethical issues that need to be considered to see if this study could be regarded as ethical?

2. What alternatives were there to the methodology used by the researcher?

3. Should this study have been done?

References

Humphreys, L. (1970). Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine.

Reynolds, P. D. (1982). Ethics and Social Science Research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

From Bill Vaughan

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.

War is just a racket...

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

Authority

Authority: the right or power to enforce rules or give order

Authority has beaten me unconscious

Authority has graded me with an “F”

Authority has denied me access

Authority has labeled me “deviant”

Authority has fired me

Authority has dismissed me from the decision making table

Authority has condemned me to hell

Authority has taken me before an ethics committee

Authority has isolated me with investigations

Authority tried to discharge me under less than honorable conditions

Authority has sold me out for more $

Authority has charged me with a crime

Authority passed judgment and marked my record

Authority has betrayed me

Why is it that I have such a strong reaction to Authority?

Who are you calling alien, pilgrim?

By JAZMIN CHAVEZ
Monday, January 23, 2006 8:25 PM MST

In the recent months, immigration seems to be in the limelight of national and local politics. However, when looking at the “illegal” immigration problem, you only hear about Latinos and Mexicans. Why are we not addressing the number of undocumented immigrants from Canada, Poland, China, Vietnam, Hungary, Holland, etc?

It seems that we are going back in time and returning to the mid-nineteenth century, when xenophobia and fear of the “other” was normal. People now forget that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, built by immigrants, and supported by the wealth and labor of immigrants.

During the mid-nineteenth century, a new political movement captured the minds and passion of the “American” public. They were labeled the “Know-Nothings” and their unifying theme was nativism and patriotism. Sound similar? Today they might be called The Minutemen. This group felt that all of society's problems were caused by immigrants and that immigrants would be the downfall of America. At the time, the greatest numbers of immigrants were from Ireland and Germany. Today the largest numbers of immigrants are from Mexico and Vietnam. Often, the public is misinformed on the real issues and they are unable to discern the truth.

I shall now try to correct some of the myths about “illegal immigrants”.

Myth #1: “Immigrants don't pay taxes”:

Fact: All immigrants pay taxes. Income, property, sales or other. Studies have shown that immigrant pay between $90 and $140 billion dollars a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Undocumented immigrants pay close to $30 billion in income taxes per year, as evident by the Social Security Administration's “suspense file”.

Myth #2: “Immigrants take jobs and opportunity away from Americans”:

Fact: The 1900s saw the largest rise in immigrants. At that time, immigrants arrived during the period of lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrants actually create more jobs for U.S. and foreign workers. In 2000, Chinese and Asian Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and almost 73,000 jobs. Immigrants are also more likely to be self-employed and start new businesses.

Myth #3: “America is being overrun by immigrants”:

Fact: No single decade has surpassed the influx of European immigrants from 1901-1910. Actually, the percentage of immigrants in the total population has decreased.

Myth #4: “Most immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy”:

Fact: U.S. Immigration laws require that new immigrants provide financial evidence that they won't be a burden, before they are allowed to enter the U.S. Immigrants are more likely to be employed, and save more of their earnings, than the native-born population. Once again, they contribute more to the U.S. economy than they receive.

Myth #5: “Immigrants come here to take Welfare”:

Fact: The ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is favorable to the U.S. economy because they help support and maintain these programs. If it weren't for immigrants, Social Security would have fallen apart much sooner than it did. Immigrant taxes total $20 to $30 million billion more than the amount of government services they receive. Many times, they are not eligible and do not apply for theses programs.

As ridiculous as some of these myths may seem, it is the same rhetoric that was used against other immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century.

The idea that hurts our community the most is that undocumented students cannot receive access to higher education because they are “illegal”. These students are considered “illegal”, even though they have lived in the United States their entire lives. But they are often the top 10 percent, valedictorians, and All-Star athletes. Yet these students are not allowed to attend an in-state institution without being seen as out-of-state or international students. Data has also shown that immigrants are twice as likely as native-borns to hold PhDs.

As we have shown, these students and their families do not put a burden on America. Please keep these facts in mind before you enter the “illegal” alien debate. Immigrants respect the law as much as native-born Americans. If we are going to focus on immigration, then the general public must understand the history of immigration in the U.S., as well as the myths. If the public doesn't pay attention to the rhetoric, then it might fall into the category of “know-nothings” - because they choose to remain ignorant and scared.

Jazmin Chavez is the President of Pi Lambda Chi Latina sorority. The mission of Pi Lambda Chi is to create a strong sisterhood and educational support network for women on college campuses through an emphasis in teaching Latino culture and history, as well as achieve community service by promoting education in the Latino community.

News: Counting gay youths who are homeless

Survey could lead to a drop-in center

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Chris Seper

Plain Dealer Reporter

An ambitious plan would document the sexual identities of young homeless people to reach a group advocates say is hidden from society.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Community Center of Greater Cleveland will coordinate some time this summer visits to homeless hangouts to offer medical referrals and to survey youths ages 14 to 24. Cuyahoga County would provide some money -- as much as $83,000.

Some advocates believe a number of Northeast Ohio's young homeless are gay, at greater risk than many other street kids, and with fewer ways to get help. Based on the new research, the center would consider running a special drop-in center for homeless gay youth.

The study would be among the first in years to examine the issue, said Craig A. Bowman, executive director of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition in Washington D.C., which represents almost 200 lesbian, gay and bisexual organizations nationwide. Research on the subject largely ended in the late 1990s when the gay community shifted its focus to gay marriage and adoptions, Bowman said.

"To me, these are our kids," said Sue Doerfer, executive director of the center. "If we're not going to watch out for them and take care of them, who is?

Street kids are elusive, even in the invisible world of the transient. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless estimates there are more than 4,000 homeless people in the region on any given day.

No one is sure how many teens are on their own. Those younger than 18 spurn shelters because they fear county foster care. Some teens subsist by flopping from one apartment to the next -- often trading sex for a place to live.

Flopping also keeps teens under the radar of organizations that define being homeless as sleeping somewhere you usually wouldn't, such as in a car or on the street.

Numbers for homeless youth and homeless gay youth vary wildly. A December study of Illinois' youth homeless by the University of Illinois at Chicago said 10 percent are either gay or questioning their sexual identity. Older studies have put the number as high as 35 percent.

Gay youths often leave home for the same reason as other teens: abuse, depression or drugs. Gay youths are also on the street because families kick them out because of their sexuality.

Advocates have tried addressing security concerns. Brian Davis, executive director for the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, recommended Cuyahoga County place transgendered individuals, who live as the opposite gender, in hotels away from regular shelters. That hasn't happened.

Doerfer says shelters such as the YMCA's Y-Haven refused an offer to train workers to handle gay residents.

Chip Joseph, executive director of Y-Haven, said there hasn't been a problem for gays at Y-Haven, where he thinks around a half-dozen of his 133 men are gay. "The numbers aren't that big and we seem to integrate gay and heterosexual populations pretty well," said Joseph.

Advocates for the homeless say the center's research project will never get an accurate count of homeless youth. Also, it will be difficult to get a real answer about sexuality from a group who, in many cases, may be deeply damaged or confused about who they are.

But Jim McCafferty, director of the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, said he is eager to reach out to homeless youths and believes this will help.

Ideally, he would like to see the gay community work with these teens and explain to them that foster care is a safer and more accepting place than the streets.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

cseper@plaind.com, 216-999-4169

24th Day

The other day, I went to El Futuro, a local Latino gay men drop-in center to watch a video. The movie was 24th Day, by Director-Tony Piccirillo

The story revolves around the relationship between Dan ( JAMES MARSDEN ) who finds himself out drinking one night were he meets Tom ( SCOTT SPEEDMAN); both end up getting drunk and decide to continue the revelry at Tom’s apartment. There everything changes suddenly: Dan realizes that he’d been there five years before ... but he does not remember anything. Tom on the other hand remembers everything from that night. Becoming uncomfortable, Dan decides he wants to leave. But this meeting was not an accident, Tom had been planning it since his wife died three weeks before in an accident after finding out that she had contracted the AIDS and that Tom, without knowing it, had transmitted it to her. Now Tom, who is not homosexual and who just has had a slip-up in his marriage, meets the only person who could have contracted it to him. Tom ties Dan and extracts blood. Dan insists that he has always practiced safe sex and he is not positive. Tom assures him that if the tests comes up positive, he will kill him.

After the viewing, we had a discussion and I was reminded of this quote from the Russian author, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, who said:

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.

A Tree in the Woods....

"I am," I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
"I am," I cried
"I am," said I
And I am lost, and I can't even say why

The other day in class, the philosophical question “if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” was raised in our discussion. I recall this question coming up once before in a class on reality I took at Fort Lewis College. I came home and googled it to refresh my memory about the discussion; unfortunately, I did not come across anything useful. There was a great deal of chatter but nothing of real substance.

When I raised the question, I was not thinking of the simplistic argument about a tree possibly hitting other tress on its way down creating vibration as it hits the ground. My focus was not on sound waves as it travels through the forest in search of acknowledgement from someone with ears to perceive the sound. Instead, I was thinking about Life and whether or not it exists even if there were no humans, anywhere to experience it.

I believe that life dose exist outside of the human experience, that we should be grateful for the experience and take a lesson from the dinosaurs, to realize that nature or our own suicidal tendencies, we can be wiped from existence. In which case, I have faith that life will find a way to manifest itself and continue to thrive even if I am not here to witness.

Social Work and Theory

I am a first year Ph.D. student attending the University of Denver, Graduate School of Social Work. I am taking a course with Professor Walter LaMendola, who is teaching SOWK 5002: Social Work and Theory.

Part of my course assignment is to create a student blog. I have to admit that I have not been one to follow blogs so this will be an interesting assignment. What I hope to cover in this assignment are those educational objectives associated with the course. This course is designed to prepare students to understand, express, and critically assess social theory from the position of a scholar in the profession of social work. Work with the social is viewed as a set of applied practices: practice is primary.

Areas of interest that will be covered are

• self
• identity
• social structure
• human action

Our required texts include:

Archer, M. S. (2000) Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Healy, K. (2005) Social Work Theories in Context. New York Palgrave Macmillan

Moya, P., Hames-Garcia, M. R. (Ed) (2000) Reclaiming Identity. Berkeley. University of California Press.

Payne, M. (2005) Modern Social Work Theory (3rd Ed) Chicago: Lyceum Books, Inc.

If you have an interest in this topic, I welcome your comments, questions, and concerns to help generate thinking about Social Work and Theory.