After receiving a number of complaints following a September 26 GLAADAlert item on remarks about lesbians made by a sportscaster, KFWB-AM management apologized. On September 17, Los Angeles radio station KFWB "News 98" morning reporter Bret Lewis, after noting a female athlete had been permitted to return to competition after a suspension for using steroids (testosterone), said, "I guess that means she'll have to cancel her scheduled appearance on Ellen." After speaking with a representative from GLAAD on October 23, KFWB News Director Crys Quimby acknowledged that she understood how the ad-lib comment could be seen an offensive, and regrets any offense taken. "KFWB is very proud of its record in supporting numerous causes championed by the gay community," Quimby added, noting efforts for AmFAR and AIDS Project Los Angeles. "Bret Lewis himself has given many hours of his time to various charities which provide assistance and support the gay community." Quimby also said she had spoken personally with Lewis about the comment.

As GLAAD noted in the initial Alert item, "The reporter's off-hand remark was probably not meant to offend...but implies that taking testosterone would make a woman 'more of a man,' and thus, a lesbian....that once an athlete stopped using testosterone, she would be 'restored' to heterosexuality, and so would no longer want to be on Ellen, since it is a 'lesbian show.'" Quimby felt, "The overwhelming number of people who heard the comment seem to agree [it] was one which very well could have been taken from the sitcom itself." GLAAD has agreed to disagree on this point.

Let KFWB know that their support of the lesbian and gay community is appreciated, and encourage them to urge their personalities to be more sensitive and aware in on-air commentary to ensure that it reflects their commitment to diversity.

Contact: Crys Quimby, News Director, KFWB-AM, PO Box 4310, Los Angeles, CA 90078, fax: 212.871.4670, e-mail: quake@kfwb.groupw.wec.com.

Save 413 Hope Street!

On October 22, Fox announced it would pull 413 Hope Street off the air during the November sweeps, and a "Save 413 Hope Street" group has swung into action to ensure this move is not the death knell for this quality gay-inclusive program. The show, normally on Thursday nights at 9:00 EST/PST, features HIV-positive black gay youth Melvin (Karim Prince). Not only is Melvin one of only two openly gay non-white gay characters currently on television (the other being Spin City's Carter), his character has dignity and depth. As the group to save the show notes, the program "is a unique show created to entertain by dramatizing real-life crisis situations, [including those] our teenagers are faced with daily. Each show attempts to resolve the crisis though the counseling and solutions provided at Hope Street."

Save 413 Hope Street and GLAAD encourage people committed to quality programming that celebrates the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to write to both their local Fox affiliates encouraging them to keep running the show and to the network urging them to continue to produce and broadcast it. In addition, Save 413 Hope Street will be rallying at Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles on October 28 at 4:30 p.m.

Contact: Peter Roth, Entertainment President, FOX Broadcasting Company, P.O. Box 900, Beverly Hills, CA 90213, fax: 310.369.7363; or call the viewer hotline at 310.369.3066.

The front page of the October 18 Philadelphia Inquirer featured a lengthy and insightful article about Jacob Orosco, the 17-year-old gay youth in Salt Lake City who committed suicide last month even as he took the helm of the controversial but resilient East High School Gay/Straight Alliance.

"This time last year, Jacob Orosco's life was fuller than it had ever been," it begins, discussing his participation with the club and the battles around preserving it, dancing with other boys at the prom, and leading panels on the problems of gay youth. "'To me,' he had said, 'taking clubs from us is like putting a gun in our hands and waiting for the trigger to be pulled.' His friends recall those words with a shudder," the story says. In his last days, "he had been dealing with a new obstacle, finding $400 to buy a $1 million liability insurance policy demanded by the school before the club could resume its evening meetings. Why Orosco killed himself remains a mystery. Those who knew him are the club--which, at one point, had the state legislature talking about giving up all federal education aid rather than accept the club's existence. In fact, his efforts as one of the founders of the Alliance had seemed to help him." The article discusses the force of the Mormon church in Utah as well. "Orosco wasn't Mormon. But the church's teachings profoundly influence public policy in Utah, and the atmosphere in the schools. State law forbids Utah's public school teachers from saying anything in the classroom that would imply acceptance or advocacy of homosexuality." According to the article, "Members of Utah's gay community responded to the suicide with frustration and despair," and friends of Orosco are concerned about copycat suicides. Still, the work of the young activists continues in the wake of the tragedy, and "gay support groups hope Orosco's death will serve as a rallying pint for people to demand more tolerance, especially in schools," it says.

Please commend the Philadelphia Inquirer for such a reflective piece on Orosco and for highlighting the broader concerns of gay youth in Utah and beyond.

Contact: William Ward, Managing Editor, Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, PA 19101, fax: 215.854.4483

In a highly sensational October 22 United Press International (UPI) story, the usually reputable wire service fingers the gay community for blames in spreading use of methamphetamines to other people. "A national study calls methamphetamine abuse the most difficult addiction to treat and ranks it as California's fastest growing drug problem," it begins, noting that in 1995 San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles were the top cities nationwide for meth-related deaths. Then, out of nowhere, it states, "There are reports that in the San Francisco gay community, use of meth is related to 'marathon sex,' which is often unprotected. Its popularity in the gay community is now spreading to blue collar workers, young professionals and college students, who put meth into coffee to concoct 'biker's coffee.'"

Without providing any further context for these bizarre assertions, the otherwise important UPI story comes across of sounding like a fifties-style alarmist anti-marijuana propaganda film. While drug counselors and others have found that gay men using methamphetamines are more likely to practice unsafe sex than sober gay men, the same is likely true for heterosexuals. Straight people, however, are noticeably absent from the article until the gay meth "popularity" spread to the (presumably straight) "blue collar workers, young professionals and college students." The implicit but groundless message of the story is that promiscuous gay people are to blame for the new rise in meth use in California. Considering its normally high professional standards, UPI should be ashamed of peddling such tabloid-style sleaze.

Let UPI know that spreading the word about the dangerous rise of methamphetamine abuse in the country is good--but not at the cost of spreading falsehoods and half-truths about gay people.

Contact: Ron Colbert, Managing Editor, UPI, 1510 H St. NW #600, Washington, DC 20005-1008, fax: 202.898.8057

An article in the October 21 Chicago Tribune takes a look back at the ways that gay people in Chicago has used signals to figure out who was a "friend of Dorothy." "For decades, gays in Chicago and across the world have used slang, clothing, jewelry and mannerisms to signal their presence to each other, especially when it wasn't a safe matter to discuss," it says. "Language still conveys the message today, while piercing, hair length and clothing styles no longer are dependable cues about someone's sexual orientation." Going back to the early 1900s, when colors of clothing, such as a red tie, served as an indicator of someone "in the life," the article interviews such gay historians and sage seniors as George Chauncey, Chad Heap, Sandra Byrd and Jim Darby, the national president of the Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Veterans of America. It also discusses the real need for such signals and signs in a time when overt hostility, repression and violence against people because of their sexual orientation was far more widespread, coming from society, police and the military. Going up through the 1970s, the article also celebrates the past gathering spaces in our community, from speakeasies to drag balls, and from "lesbian house parties" to Oak Street Beach. Finally, it notes that while times have changed, the need for signals still exist. "There are still some standbys that indicate gender preference--rainbow flags, pink triangles or lambda symbols. And despite all the change, there are still gay and lesbian bars and restaurants and some gays use wristbands and other jewelry to give an indication of their interests to those who can read the cues."

This enlightening and entertaining article comes in the middle of Lesbian & Gay History Month, and serves to honor the cultural heritage we have as a community both in Chicago and around the country. It also identifies they ways in which, in a time before a national gay and lesbian movement, signs sometimes had a different meaning depending on the city.

Please commend the Chicago Tribune for an excellent historical article.

Contact: Ann Marie Lipinski, Managing Editor, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611-4003, fax: 312.222.4760, e-mail: heralded@aol.com

In the past several weeks, it seems that everyone has had something to say about ABC's hit show Ellen, the controversy surrounding ABC's double standard to place a parental advisory warning on it (and then remove it), Vice President Gore's applause for the show's encouraging America to look more closely at sexual orientation, and the joking kiss between character Ellen Morgan (DeGeneres) and her best friend Paige (Joely Fisher). From the insightful to the dreadful, here are some of the highlights of recent media commentary:

*Richard Cohen defends Vice President Gore's support of Ellen in the October 21 Washington Post, stating that the effect of Ellen, as Gore noted, is "that people will see that Ellen the perceived heterosexual was not all that different from Ellen the announced homosexual. Now this subversive stuff, the Kryptonite of bigotry. For once you realize that the object of your loathing is pretty much like you, hate becomes difficult."

*The "Winners and Losers" section of the October 20 Time calls Ellen DeGeneres a "Loser," saying "Yep, she's a prima donna. She comes out, lip locks a gal pal on air, and wants the kids to watch." James Collins in the October 27 issue complains that in the new season, "Instead of being integrated into the show, Ellen's homosexuality has become the show...Ellen is now as one-dimensional as Bewitched, where every story line, every moment, every gag relies on the same device." But how is this different from NBC's Mad About You, where every story line revolves in part around the heterosexuality of Paul and Jamie? Or Men Behaving Badly, where every gag relies on an assessment of masculinity?

*Newsweek's October 20 "Conventional Wisdom" have Ellen a "down arrow," stating, "Ellen D.: Overhyped sitcom star upset Disney doesn't see gay sex as family fare. Cool it." The October 27 issue has Jonathan Alter's article "Gore's Gay Gambit," where he states "Contrary to DeGeneres' claim of bias [by ABC in regards to the parental advisory], giving parents a chance to discuss her should with children before viewing is perfectly appropriate." Newsweek seems unable to differentiate between a comic, harmless kiss and "gay sex," though when it comes to straight people, the distinction is no doubt so obvious that "conventional wisdom" wouldn't think of addressing it.

*The October 16 Miami Herald featured a Knight-Ridder distributed commentary by Bruce Mirken entitled "Ellen is right," in which he writes, "Putting an 'adult content' warning on a show with no sex and no violence announces to the world that the network has two sets of standards: one for straights and one for gays. DeGeneres hit the nail on the head. It sends a message that the very existence of gay people is so disgusting that we have to try to protect children from it."

*National Public Radio's All Things Considered on October 22 included commentator David Shank, saying "ABC's warning is pretty offensive when you think about it. The level of heterosexual contact and suggestive bedroom innuendo that passes for standard sitcom fare these days is breathtaking. Instead of bravely going forward with their support for sexual preference equity, ABC is beating a hasty, homophobic retreat." He adds, though, that DeGeneres' claim of "censorship" is off-mark; "Whatever else you could call ABC's action, the censorship label doesn't fit at all. ABC isn't suppressing [the] content, they're broadcasting it."

*Gwen Daye Richardson, in an October 17 USA Today commentary, attacks DeGeneres for equating the advisory on Ellen solely on the grounds of sexual orientation with putting a warning on a show where black people kiss solely on the grounds of race. "But [her] analogy has one major flaw. Skin color is an immediately obvious and permanent characteristic present at birth. Homosexuality is not," Richardson states. She claims that this difference means that while black characters faced discrimination in film representations since the beginning of film, actors "like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift" weren't. "Unless they told someone they were gay, no one knew." She seems unaware of The Celluloid Closet (both the book and the film), which document the profound discrimination lesbians and gay men have faced in film representation since the beginning of Hollywood.

"Blacks have had to literally die for every small advancement; not so homosexuals," she says, apparently unaware of the rise in hate-motivated attacks in communities where ballot initiatives to protect lesbian and gay rights, the assassination of Harvey Milk, and the countless hate crimes which gay people have faced throughout this century at the hands of mobs, police and bigots. While many profound differences exist in the ways discrimination exhibits itself on the basis of race and sexual orientation, Richardson has failed to recognize the underlying commonality--small-minded hate.

*The October 19 Los Angeles Times includes an articulate defense of Ellen by columnist Robert Dawidoff, in which he says, "What really stinks is what the network is advising parents. ABC is censoring the rare show that is sexually reticent and tender. The shows that require no cautions are routinely lewd, vulgar, blatantly and exploitatively sexual as well as pointless."

*Letters to the Editor, Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-0002

*Letters to the Editor, Time, Time-Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY 10020, fax: 212.522.0323, e-mail: letters@time.com

*Letters to the Editor, Newsweek, 251 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019-6999, fax: 212.445.5068, e-mail: letters@newsweek.com

*Letters to the Editor, Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132-1693, fax: 305.376.8950, e-mail: heralded@aol.com

*All Things Considered Letters, 635 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20001-3753, e-mail: atc@npr.org

*Letters to the Editor, USA Today, 1000 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22229, fax: 703.247.3108, e-mail: editor@usatoday.com

*Letters to the Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, fax: 213.237.4712, e-mail: letters@latimes.com

The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation in the media as a means of challenging homophobia and all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity.

Contact GLAAD by e-mail at glaad@glaad.org or by phone at 213.658.6775 (Los Angeles), 212.807.1700 (New York), 415.861.2244 (San Francisco), 202.986.1360 (Washington, DC), 404.607.1204 (Atlanta) and 816.374.5927 (Kansas City)

Report defamation in the media by calling GLAAD's Toll-Free AlertLine! 1-800-GAY-MEDIA (1-800-429-6334)

Visit GLAAD's Web Site at http://www.glaad.org