On Richardson and DOMA

I was in attendance at the GLBT forum in L.A. on which you reported in the Aug. 15 issue of CFP. I believe there is one significant error in that article relating to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. According to your article, Gov. Richardson expressed his opposition to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In fact, Gov. Richardson was asked to explain his vote in 1996 in favor of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and stated that he voted for the legislation because it was better to have this legislation pass than a constitutional amendment. Gov. Richardson’s answer is untruthful at best because in 1996, there was never any discussion of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage. That amendment first was conceived in 2002—six years after Gov. Richardson’s vote in favor of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Gov. Richardson still owes the GLBT community a proper response as to why he voted in favor of the single most homophobic piece of federal legislation ever enacted into law.

Michael Bauer

Chicago

On the rodeo

The gay rodeo is an event that involves abusing and frightening animals in the name of entertainment. The Queer Caucus of Mercy For Animals believes that like the oppression of gay people, the rodeo is unacceptable cruelty against the vulnerable that our community should work to end.

Recent undercover investigations at rodeo events have uncovered “cowboys” violently beating animals with metal rods on the head, face and back, maliciously using electric prods on animals confined in chutes and pens and tormenting animals in chutes by punching them in the face, kicking them with spurred boots, and banging their tails against the metal bars. Additionally, “calf roping,” a standard event in rodeos, is a violent activity that involves chasing frightened baby animals, lassoing them around their fragile necks while running at speeds up to 25 miles per hour, jerking them to a halt, then slamming their bodies to the ground. Oftentimes these inhumane events result in baby calves suffering from broken backs and torn ligaments.

The rodeo is often simply a detour on the road to the slaughterhouse in these animals’ short and miserable lives. Dr. C.G. Haber, a veterinarian who worked for 30 years as a meat inspector in slaughterhouses, saw scores of animals discarded from rodeos and sent to slaughter. He described them as “so extensively bruised that the only areas in which the skin was attached (to the flesh) were the head, neck, leg, and belly. …I have seen animals with six to eight ribs broken from the spine and at times, puncturing the lungs. I have seen as much as two to three gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin.”

Let’s face it: The rodeo is a form of violence masquerading as entertainment. The entire rodeo environment encourages spectators and rodeo participants alike to be insensitive to animal suffering and accept the abusive treatment of animal “performers.”

Gay rodeos are not progress for our community, but rather, along with all other rodeo events, they are a step back for all of humanity. It’s time our community stops condoning animal cruelty. Readers can learn more about how they can help animals by visiting RodeoAbuse.com.

Nathan Runkle

Executive Director, Mercy For Animals

Chicago

On ‘hetero’ Market Days

How is it that Market Days has become a “family event” (i.e. a heteronormative one rather than an LGBT one)? We should all be infuriated: the event’s executive director scolded one of the LGBT businesses there this year, claiming that the event is a “family event” and thus a T-shirt that reads “I fuck on the first date” shouldn’t be on display there.

Irrespective of your opinions on such a shirt, I think it’s safe to say that all of us should aggressively take issue with anyone, including the event’s organizer no less, who claims that Market Days is a heteronormative, family event. It’s perhaps the preeminent LGBT event of the summer in Chicago, certainly outshining Pride in the number of out-of-town visitors who come to participate.

Yes, Market Days is Boystown’s neighborhood festival. Yes, heterosexual families with children do live in Boystown, and they’re certainly welcome to attend, participate, and enjoy it, just like everyone else. However, the event shouldn’t be changed to accommodate prudish sensibilities/values that conflict with well-established aspects of LGBT subculture (and explicit expressions of sexuality and humor are quite established as such). After all, Market Days is the neighborhood festival of a well-known LGBT neighborhood. We should not be forced to assimilate to prudish, heteronormative values in our own neighborhood, should we?

This is why it’s all the more disturbing and infuriating that the executive director of the Northalsted Area Merchant Association, which organizes Market Days, would make such an appeal to heteronormative values. Does she know who she works for? After such an egregious castigation of an LGBT business, NAMA should fire her. If not, then NAMA has some serious explaining to do. Has NAMA strayed from its roots?

Perhaps this is just a symptom of the cycle of urban gentrification. Many LGBT people have moved from Boystown to other neighborhoods. Nevertheless, with The Center on Halsted, Howard Brown, and all the numerous other LGBT businesses and organizations in Boystown, I don’t feel we should give up the neighborhood so easily. NAMA needs to apologize. Anything less is tantamount to a symbolic surrender of our neighborhood to heteronormative prudes.

Xenophon P. Kalathas

Chicago