Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 14:04:32 -0700 From: Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Subject: GLAADAlert 06.27.97 GLAADALERT June 27, 1997 The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation NOTE: Due to the July 4th holiday, next week's GLAADAlert will be shortened and sent on July 3rd. Contents: 1. Sega and PlanetWeb Have Anti-Gay PlanetView (Sega of America, Inc. (interactive entertainment company), PlanetWeb (Web browser company), PlanetView (online service)) 2. Hateful Dade Is Here Again (Miami Herald (newspaper)) 3. HBO Gets Drop Dead Gorgeous (HBO (television cable channel), Steve Moore's Drop Dead Gorgeous (A Tragicomedy): The Power of HIV Positive Thinking (television special)) 4. Alabama Hurt By Radical Anti-Gay Views, Says New York Times (New York Times (newspaper)) 5. WSJ's Fab Take on Di and Drag (The Wall Street Journal (newspaper)) 6. Eddie Griffin Attacking Lesbians Is No Laughing Matter (HBO (television cable channel), Eddie Griffin (stand up comedian), HBO Comedy Hour (television comedy show)) 7. A Bust Before It Began: The Southern Baptist Boycott Media Round-up (Newsday (newspaper), Wall Street Journal (newspaper), Cal Thomas (syndicated columnist), San Francisco Chronicle (newspaper), US News & World Report (magazine), New York Post (newspaper)) 1. Sega and PlanetWeb Have Anti-Gay PlanetView A new Sega Saturn game console offers access to the Web through the PlanetWeb browser, which has an anti-gay content filter called PlanetView. It allows for content filtering of such categories as advertising, bulletin boards, cartoon violence, file transfer, games, nudity, speech/content, politics, religion, sex, text, violence and "alternative lifestyles." "Alternative lifestyles," has three filter levels: "1) Mention of alt.lifestyle: Impartial references to homosexuality, bisexuality, transvestites and transgender issues or lifestyles. 2) Approval of alt.lifestyle: Acceptance or approval of alternative lifestyles. 3) Ads for alt.lifestyles: Promotes alternative lifestyles or attempts to recruit the viewer into that lifestyle." GLAAD contacted Ken Soohoo, the founder of PlanetWeb, to explain that by providing the filter, PlanetWeb sent a message to parents that there is something implicitly wrong with being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. GLAAD also took issue with referring to our community as "alternative lifestyles" and the claim that gay people "recruit." Soohoo replied, "We are a business that caters to a very conservative clientele. Some parents don't want their children accessing information about homosexuality." Soohoo said it was not the intention of PlanetWeb to use anti-gay language and suggested GLAAD reword the language of the filter. GLAAD Interactive Media Director Loren Javier explained, "PlanetWeb is basically asking us to name our own discrimination." Javier then approached Dan Stevens from Sega of America, who said, "We don't put options to block content because we feel that the content is bad or wrong. We hope parents will opt not to use the content filters. However, our overall philosophy is to offer choice. Parents, who make up a large part of the consumer market for our product, expressed the need for a filter that blocks gay content." When asked if Sega would support a content filter that blocked information about race and "approval" of the "lifestyles" of people of color, Stevens side-stepped, saying homosexuality was "controversial" and that people could just as easily block religious or political sites. "We would hope that parents would discuss the issues that their children would like to access," he told GLAAD. While giving parents the option to choose what filters are used, neither PlanetWeb nor Sega of America have taken into account the closeted child of anti-gay parents and the particular way oppression hits gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, who often use the Internet as an early lifeline to information and community. A child could far more easily "discuss the issues" of blocked religion or politics with their parents than ask to access information about sexual orientation. Sega compounds the isolation of these children. At the same time, by singling out homosexuality, Sega and PlanetWeb presume discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is somehow more acceptable than race-based discrimination. Whether or not the market will bear certain types of intolerance, the companies allow themselves to become the vehicle for blocking an entire community. Of all the Internet filtering software on the market, only one other outright blocks gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender sites, and that company is owned by a member of the hate group Focus on the Family. Urge PlanetWeb and Sega to join other companies and comply with industry standards against hate. Contact: Ken Soohoo, Founder and Vice President of Engineering, PlanetWeb, Inc., 1390 Villa Street, Mountain View, CA 94041, fax: 415.903.7002, e-mail: soohoo@planetweb.com; Bernie Stolar, COO, Sega of America, Inc., 150 Shoreline Drive, Redwood City, California 94065, e-mail: webmaster@sega.com. 2. Hateful Dade Is Here Again In a tongue-in-cheek column in the June 19 Miami Herald, Carl Hiaasen laments the Metro-Dade County Commission's recent vote against an anti-discrimination law on the basis of sexual orientation. "On behalf of God-fearing heterosexuals everywhere, I'd like to thank the commission for snuffing out another dangerous gay-rights ordinance," he says. "[The 7-5 vote] might have been even closer if several hundred members of the local Christian Coalition hadn't shown up to pray, sing hymns and wave their Bible. Some of the protesters were actually speaking in tongues." The commissioners killed the ordinance on its first reading, "which saved everybody the inconvenience of having to listen to both sides," Hiaasen notes. "What a breath of fresh air, in this age of tedious 'political correctness.' Finally we've got some politicians who aren't afraid to stand up for a little intolerance....Dade County is blessed with at least seven public servants who believe in old-fashioned values, who remember a time when 'discrimination' wasn't such a naughty word." After musing whether anything has changed since a similar ordinance was so famously repealed 20 years ago, he speculates on how many lesbians and gay men will be willing to support a county that continually rejects equal rights for them: "Money isn't everything. Surely there'll be other tourists to fill the hotel rooms left empty by the ones we're running off; also builders and investors and tycoons. You know, the good kind. Heterosexuals." Please thank the Miami Herald for satirizing the small-mindedness of a county commission held hostage by anti-gay interests. Contact: Saundra Keyes, Managing Editor, Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132-1693, fax: 305.376.5287, e-mail: heralded@aol.com. 3. HBO Gets Drop Dead Gorgeous Stand-up comedian Steve Moore's Drop Dead Gorgeous (A Tragicomedy): The Power of H.I.V. Positive Thinking recently premiered on HBO. The one hour special highlights the life of the HIV positive comedian as he tells stories of his life in Danville, Virginia, his days on the comedy circuit, and his struggles with AIDS and HIV. Flashing from recreations of his life, interviews with his parents Wilma and Skeets, and Moore in front of a live audience, the special explores an issue that many would rather forget or keep hidden. "Drop Dead Gorgeous" is another example of exemplary original programming from the cable network. Other examples include The Celluliod Closet, Why Am I Gay? and the upcoming Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End. Please thank HBO for their commitment to the production of quality programming that so positively touches the lives of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people. Contact: Sheila Nevins, Senior VP of Documentary and Family Programming, Home Box Office, 1100 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036-6737, fax: 212.512.1000, feedback forum: http://www.hbo.com/feedback.html. 4. Alabama Hurt By Radical Anti-Gay Views, Says New York Times A June 24 New York Times article explains how more than just gay Alabamans have been hurt by Birmingham television station ABC 33/40's manager, Jerry Heilman, blacking out the history-making Ellen episode. "From a Governor who threatened to mobilize the Alabama National Guard to defend a homemade plaque of the Ten Commandments in a Gadsen courtroom to the Birmingham television station that refused to broadcast Ellen, Alabama has been fertile territory for often mean-spirited humor...on late-night cable, network talk shows, in national newspapers, on CNN, in editorial cartoons, even on National Public Radio," the article says. "Sooner or later, the state pays a price for all the fun-poking, says Wayne Flint, and author and professor of history at Auburn University. 'What do the chief executive officers of corporations think?' said Flint. Will anyone, he and others here wonder, want to bring technical, high-paying jobs to an area that is ridiculed so often?" The bigotry and censorship of Heilman is becoming part of an unfortunate popular concept of Alabama as intolerant and backwards, and as the Times highlights, this can turn businesses away from locating in the state, tourists from visiting and make the state fodder for very public ridicule in the media. Heilman does a disservice to all Alabamans by contributing to that unfair perception of its citizenry. Please thank the New York Times for an insightful article about how hate doesn't pay, and hurts far more than its targeted group. Contact: Eugene L. Roberts Jr., Managing Editor, New York Times, 229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036-3959, fax: 212.556.3690, e-mail: letters@nytimes.com. 5. WSJ's Fab Take on Di and Drag Following a recent Newsweek blurb about rumors that drag queens would bid for Princess Diana's cast-offs during a Christie's auction, the Wall Street Journal went straight to the source. "Princess Diana, relax. RuPaul won't be bidding on your sari-style ball dress. The Lady Bunny does not have designs on your ballerina-length strapless," the June 24 article begins. "In fact, it's tough to find a self-respecting drag queen who would. 'Those horrible things with those bold stripes and polka dots look like something that JonBenet's parents would pick out,' sniffs Lypsinka, the drag performer." The article also says prices are far too high ("'Our girls can't afford this,' grouses Marlena, a former empress of San Francisco's Imperial Court, a not-for-profit group that raises money for AIDS-related charities."), and that drag queens are generally much bigger than Di. Besides, "'What fun are her clothes for drag queens, really?' asks director John Waters, something of an expert on the species. 'Any kind of drag queen that would seriously buy Princess Di's clothes is not my kind of drag queen. They're straight,'" the article notes. GLAAD Board Member Charles Ching, a.k.a. Coco LaChine, told the reporter, "'It's a lot of the older stuff. I'm not sure when I can get myself over there...Do you know if there's any jewelry collection?'" Please thank the Wall Street Journal for a fun and judgment-free look at fabulous drag queens. Contact: Paul E. Steiger, Managing Editor, Wall Street Journal, 200 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10281, fax: 212.416.2658. 6. Eddie Griffin Attacking Lesbians Is No Laughing Matter In HBO Comedy Hour: Eddie Griffin: Voodoo Child, which has been airing on the cable network the entire month, Griffin attacks lesbians with vulgar and mean-spirited language. About forty minutes into the show, Griffin segues from a discussion about the problems of gang violence with some young African-American men to what he sees as "problems" for young black women: "A lot of young women are becoming dykes-it's becoming rampant," he says. "What the f--k do you [lesbians] get out of it? She ain't doing nothing a man can't do. We'll munch that motherf--ker down, and then we'll slide some d-ck in-you're getting the bonus plan." He adds, "Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the feminine ones...Bring your friend along. It's them bulldagging motherf--kers that get on my nerves. Them nutty bitches, always talking about 'I can do anything a man can do.' No you can't!" Griffin, who also stars in Malcom and Eddie on UPN and will be appearing in the upcoming films Comic and the Con and Gunpoint, reveals a shocking animosity towards lesbians in this special and displays his own profound ignorance by suggesting that being lesbian is "nothing a good man can't fix." By adding fuel to that hateful stereotype, Griffin helps create an atmosphere of violence towards lesbians, which leads to both verbal harassment and sexual assault. Tell Griffin and his producers that he needs to clean up his anti-lesbian act. Hate is never funny. Contact: Robert Lee, George Jackson and Doug McHenry, Executive Producers and Eddie Griffin, Writer, Eddie Griffin: Voodoo Child, Home Box Office, 2049 Century Park East, Los Angeles, CA 90067. 7. A Bust Before It Began: The Southern Baptist Boycott Media Round-up While the Southern Baptist Convention's attempted boycott of Disney stumbles just out of the starting gate by wide reports of many of their own faith refusing to adhere to the call for intolerance by their leaders, media around the country is sounding off with their own views. By targeting Disney and subsidiaries in part because of domestic partnership benefits for same-sex partners of employees, allowing an unofficial "Gay Day" at its theme park and inclusive representation within its programming, many in the media feel church leaders are out of step with the country. The following are some of the best (and worst) media comments from the week: … Columnist Marvin Kitman says in the June 23 Newsday that, "the proposed Southern Baptist boycott is un-American, unworkable, hypocritical and," linking the boycott to Dan Quayle's attack on single mom Murphy Brown, "a great publicity coup for Disney." … In the "Business World" column of the June 24 Wall Street Journal, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. says the Southern Baptists Convention "seems to think the company is participating in an unholy conspiracy [by offering domestic partner benefits] when in fact it's participating in the labor market, which means offering a competitive benefits package....Microsoft and IBM do it. Are Baptists going to renounce the information age while going cold turkey on Sports Illustrated, People and CNN?" … In the June 24 edition of his syndicated column, anti-gay writer Cal Thomas compares the Southern Baptists leadership to "the young man standing in front of the tank in Tienman Square," comparing the stance against a company offering equal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation to "America's founders [who] risked their lives and fortunes, but because they stood for principle against seemingly impossible odds, none lost his sacred honor." … The June 21 San Francisco Chronicle editorial dubbed the Southern Baptist Convention's move "A Boycott Out of Fantasyland," saying "long-term relationships, trips to Disneyland, tame prime-time comedy. Is this the 'gay lifestyle' that so threatens civilization?" … Former Clinton advisor David Gergen opines in the June 30 US News & World Report, "The Baptist leaders seem off the mark. Instead of promoting gay lifestyles, Disney is recognizing and accepting human differences. Respect, not disdain, seems in order." Contact: … Anthony Marro, Editor, Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Road, Melville, NY 11747, fax: 516.843.2953, e-mail: letters@newsday.com. … Eugene L. Roberts Jr., Managing Editor, New York Times, 229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036-3959, fax: 212.556.3690, e-mail: letters@nytimes.com. … Cal Thomas and Steve Christensen, General Manager, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, 218 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, fax: 213.237.4992. … Daniel Rosenheim, Managing Editor, San Francisco Chronicle, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-2988, fax: 415.512.8196, e-mail: chronletters@sfgate.com. … Peter W. Bernstein, Executive Editor, U.S. News & World Report, 2400 N. St., NW, Washington, DC 20037-1196, fax: 202.955.2049, e-mail: 71154.1006@compuserve.com. … Marc Kalech, Managing Editor, New York Post, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036-8790, fax: 212.930.8540, e-mail: newyorkpost@delphi.com. Erratum: In "L.A. Radio Hog Contest Is Hateful Hogwash" (6/13/97 GLAADAlert) Harley Davidson Motor Company was cited as a sponsor of a Los Angeles radio contest with an anti-gay commercial on KLSX-FM 97. While a Harley-Davidson motorcycle is being given away, the company has no affiliation with the station. GLAAD regrets any confusion this may have caused. The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD is the lesbian and gay news bureau and the only national lesbian and gay multimedia watchdog organization. GLAAD promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation as a means of challenging 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), 202.986.1360 (Washington, DC) or 415.861.2244 (San Francisco). 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 "GLAAD" and "Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation" are registered trademarks of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) glaad@glaad.org TO REPORT DEFAMATION IN THE MEDIA - Call GLAAD's Alertline at 1.800.GAY.MEDIA or go to the GLAAD Web Site at www.glaad.org and report through our Alertline Online. 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