Free Monica from the Sheriff of Naughty-Ham

After seeing Monica Lewinsky being dragged through the Washington D.C. National Airport yesterday I was reminded of old Robinhood movies where the evil Sheriff of Naughty-Ham kidnapped the fair maiden......but this is not a funny movie, this is an outrageous abuse of judicial power and a violation of the separation of powers.....nobody elected Ken Star or a District Court Judge as a fourth arm of government and nobody that I know of made Henry Hyde the leader of the U.S. Senate. This treachery must come to an immediate end or it will have no end.

It is time to FREE MONICA from the evil sheriff.

Lee Mentley

January 22, 1999

Mr. Kevin O' Brian
General Manager KTVU – Channel 2
Post Office Box 22222
Oakland, CA 94623

Dear Mr. O' Brian,

I have been fortunate enough to work for your station in the past year of so as a "casual" camera operator. For the past decade or so I have also dealt with your news staff as I worked as a stringer based in San Francisco.

This long relationship resulted in a feeling of trust. This trust came not only because of knowing and feeling part of your station "family", but because I knew that when I turned on the 10 O'clock news I could trust what I heard and saw.

It is with great sadness that I write to say that that feeling of trust has been shattered. I took last night's airing of The Fox Files segment on "The gay underground" as a personal affront. I cannot imagine how anyone with gay friends, or gay employees could allow such a piece to be aired.

I have spent the past 30 years and more in a difficult struggle to gain basic human rights for myself and other gay people. Like most gay people I have lost jobs because of my sexual orientation. I have been harassed. I have been physically threatened, and I have had friends killed simply because they were gay.

Scientists tell us that a person's sexual orientation is not a chosen condition. It is set by the time the person is very young, by the time he or she is 5 or 6 years of age. To discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation makes about as much sense as discriminating against someone who is born left handed. In the past few years those of us in the gay community, as we have been working to overcome ignorance and fear among the straight majority, have come under attack by the well-organized and well funded religious right.

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive: Pen Points: Jan. 4, 1999 Pen Points: Dec. 28, 1998 Pen Points: Nov. 23, 1998 Related Sites: Fox Files GayToday does not endorse related sites.

These folks play on stereotypes and fears to justify the continuing bigotry which affects the 10% of the population who is gay. This bigotry also indirectly affects the other 90 percent of the population who are denied the positive good that those excluded 10% can bring and add to society.

We are indeed under attack now. Our legal right to raise children, the legality of our relationships, the right to hold jobs, the right to rent our homes, the right to serve our country in the military services, the right to worship God in the churches in which we were raised, even the the right to walk down the streets of our cities and towns in safety are all being challenged by right wing extremists.

The Fox Files segment in question played directly to the fears of those members of our society ignorant about what being gay really means. It portrayed gay people as "bashers" of straights, as unconcerned about the AIDS crisis, as sexually promiscuous and as AIDS carriers purposefully infecting unsuspecting others. Most of these stereotypes echo the web pages of religious right organizations.

While I agree that some in the gay community do participate in such behavior shown on the segment, these problems are not particular to our community, but are experienced by the straight community too.

Unfortunately many viewers found their fears and prejudices confirmed when these problems were shown only in the context of the gay community. Many may have missed the very brief disclaimer at the beginning of the segment where the reporter stated "Of course many gays do not behave like this."

I have never, in all the years I have been involved in the gay civil rights struggle, ever heard of "gay street gangs bashing straights." Perhaps there may be a small group of people doing that somewhere.

My experience though has been the opposite. Gay people are beaten, sometimes to death, almost daily around this country. The recent publicity surrounding Matthew Shepard's death shocked some of us. Not because it happened, but because the mainstream press covered the story. Many of my friends wondered aloud "What is so different about his death?".

I understand that KTVU does not control the content of FOX network shows. But you do control what goes out over your air. When I tune my TV it is not to FOX, but to Channel Two, just as I did for many years before KTVU became a FOX affiliate.

Frankly I cannot understand why your staff did not pull this show before it aired. Even if you do not see the gay community struggle as one for, as our enemies say, "legitimate" civil rights, have you forgotten that the San Francisco Bay area is the home to one of the largest concentrations of gays and lesbians in the country?

Gay people make up about 10 percent of the population throughout the country. In this area it must be close to double that percentage. I am perplexed as to why your station would choose to insult and alienate a sizable segment of its viewing audience.

If this happened because you were not aware of the inflammatory content of the show, perhaps I can help. Rumors started in this area a day or two before the show aired, fueled by the teasers being broadcast. They certainly caught my attention, and the attention of my friends.

If you would like me to call and alert your staff the next time I see something like this coming, I would be happy to do that for you. Please provide the name and phone number of a contact person for me to call next time before the situation gets to this point. Of course the gay people on your staff could do the same thing.

If you are willing I would like to reestablish the bond of trust I have felt toward KTVU for so many years. You can help that happen by apologizing to me and to all the gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in your broadcast market.

You can also repair the damage by producing and airing some shows in the same prime time slot that takes a look at the lives of the majority of us living the "gay life style". Perhaps if your straight viewers knew that our lives were not all that different from theirs, they wouldn't feel fear and loathing for us. I look forward to once again being a loyal viewer.

Very truly yours,

Paul Barwick
San Francisco

CC: GayToday

I won't make a speech, only predictions: 1) The only reason (for good or bad) that Clinton's presidency will be remembered is because of his impeachment. Otherwise, he would have gone down as another bland, moderately effective president. 2) Clinton will be acquitted, but censured by the Senate. 3) He will then muster his resources and actually accomplish something in his last 2 years. 4) The Republicans will suffer grievously from all this.

I see this whole matter as the political fallout from the failure of the "Republican Revolution" of 1994-96. They didn't deliver what they promised and they've covered up their abject and shocking failure by finding a minor Democratic incident to scandalize. This will finally also break the super-conservative trend in this country as a whole, which started with Reagan in 1980 and has become more radically moralistic, fundamentalist, right-wing ever since. Moderates of either party will benefit and be elected in 2000; ideologues will become pariahs.

W. D.

I just reprinted onto my website an article that came out about me in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday, January 14, 1999, the first day of the Senate Trial of President Clinton. Please contact me if you would like further information. Thank you.