Paor 4 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICIE

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N.Y. Times editors admit bias

A New York Times story on lesbian childbearing, which ran January 30, was the first story by a national paper on the subject. However, the story contained grave inaccuracies and bias, which were staunchly opposed by several national gay organizations.

As a result of immediate protest by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Lesbian Rights Project, the American Civil Liberties Union's Gay and Lesbian Rights Project and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the offensive paragraphs were retracted by the Times in an unprecedented editor's note which appeared February 3.

The article, titled "Lesbians Find The Means To Be Parents," grew out of a January 9 meeting between NGLTF Media Director Urvashi Vaid and Times reporter Gina Kolata. Kolata has written extensively on AIDS and is one of the most respected national print reporters covering AIDS issues.

She wrote a story over the next few weeks, after contacting dozens of parents, legal advocates and experts.

The story Kolata submitted to editors was not the story that appeared in the Times. Without notifying Kolata, Times editors wrote a paragraph containing negative and biased statements about lesbians and children raised by lesbian families.

The story also was rearranged to give prominence to the anti-gay views of a

BLUE NOTES

by J. Robinson

E.M. Forster Regains Popularity

E.M. Forster seems to be making a comeback with the movie versions of A Room With A View and Maurice, but the author's output also includes other rich works that should not be ignored.

Forster developed in the late Victorian era with a group of intellectuals from Cambridge called the Apostles. Almost all of the members of this group were gay, although not many of these individuals were active in the orientation. The group included such figures as Lytton Strachey, the biographer of many famous Victorians, including Queen Victoria, and Maynard Keynes, who became a famous economist.

Forster's novels show the importance the author places on close interpersonal relationships. This aspect of Forster's style was a much emphasized doctrine of the Apostles and is demonstrated in many of the relationships in Forster's works.

Forster thought intimate, intense and meaningful relationships were the only route to personal realization, self-satisfaction and, eventually, happiness, and that close relationships of this kind, both intellectual and physical, were essential

sociologist at a Catholic college and misquoted another prominent psychiatrist. No quotes were contained in the story from psychologists whose research shows that there is no harm to children raised in gay and lesbian homes. The most offensive paragraph in the story, a paragraph not written by Kolata, read: "Some clinicians, however, speculate that in the long term, girls might have difficulty in intimate relationships with men, and boys might be uncomfortable with their roles as males. If lesbian parents are openly hostile toward men, these difficulties could be worsened."

On Jan. 30, the day the article was published, NGLTF's Vaid began organizing a strong protest with the senior editorial staff of the Times.

"I contacted everyone who had been quoted in the piece, as well as fellow groups like GLAAD, ACT UP, ACLU and others to urge them to call and write the paper," Vaid said. "The quick and widespread pressure we were able to generate through a range of groups resulted in the editor's note."

The editor's note on February 3 acknowledged that the comments cited above were "added in the editing process." The note also said, “[The comments] did not fairly reflect a spectrum of views among behavioral scientists and ethicists about possible effects of being reared by lesbian parents. In the absence of evidence that hostility toward men is common among lesbian parents, the ref-

no matter what else was going on in the larger scheme of things. This approach to life can be seen in many of the major relationships in his novels.

The novels often center on intense relationships that cause the transformation of one or more characters. Maurice discovers his homosexuality through his friendship with Clive, and later finds even greater physical realization of himself through his encounter with Alec.

In A Room With A View, Lucy discovers how intense real life can be through her relationship with George, in spite of her Victorian training and inhibitions.

Forster's work also is a reflection of the period in which he lived. The late Victorian era is well represented in colorful and sometimes very humorous writing. His novels have a relationship in this sense to the writings of Jane Austen in their descriptions of social manners and attitudes.

Forster's environment is that of the upper-middle-class late Victorian Englishman, with all of its preconceived ideas, tight-laced morality and stuffiness. Often, Forster's characters are put into conflict with these restrictions through intense moments of realization, and have to grow as individuals or draw back from these new perceptions. Forster, of

erence to such hostility was unwarranted. The article should have given lesbian parents a chance to respond to concerns raised by others."

The note also addressed the misquotation attributed to psychiatrist Richard Green.

In response to a detailed four-page letter from NGLTF faxed to top Times editors February 1, Assistant Managing Editor Allan M. Siegal wrote, "My colleagues and I share your dismay at the way the story turned out. I think we have a great deal of educating to do about the process in this office, in particular about the right and duty of staff members to debate one another's suggestions and to deflect or appeal those that are untoward."

In phone conversations with Times editor Carl Lavin, of the weekend staff during whose watch the editing of Kolata's story occurred, GLAAD Executive Director Craig Davidson criticized the negative stereotyping contained in the article.

A letter by the ACLU's Nan D. Hunter also countered the biased statements of the quoted experts. Both Vaid's and Hunter's letters contained requests for a meeting with all people involved in the storya request that still is pending.

"The unprecedented nature of the editor's note indicates that the error and the protests have been taken seriously by the paper's editors," said Vaid. “While the Times is to be commended for its

course, had the perfect orientation to prepare himself for dealing with this type of self-revealing growth, a process often in conflict with common social standards and mores.

Unlike Oscar Wilde, Forster was very aware of what an openly gay orientation at that time would do to his reputation, so much of his published writings contain characters that subliminate this aspect of the writer's personality. None of Forster's homosexual works was published during his lifetime, but they were circulated within a close group of understanding friends, and publicly released only after his death.

It is interesting to note that when Forster found his true subject matter, he stopped writing works that weren't open and to the point. This gave the impression that he stopped writing in general, which was not the case. These homosexually oriented works include Maurice and several short stories, including Dr. Woolacott, The Obelisk and The Other Boat, all of which are fascinating reading.

In Maurice, Forster finally was able to deal directly with the topic that interested him the most. Maurice has to deal with the slow but progressive realization of his homosexual orientation in spite of the obstacles put in his path by society

responsiveness to just criticism, the fact that we had to go through this exercise to do damage control on what was the first major national story on this issue indicates how far we still have to go in securing fair coverage of our lives."

One effect of the story has been enormous media interest in the issue of lesbians choosing children. The two women featured in the story, San Franciscobased activists Debra Chasnoff and Kim Klausner, have been deluged with media calls from radio, TV and print reporters. Chasnoff and Klausner are the producers of a 1985 film, Choosing Children, and currently are the editor and publisher of Out/Look, a national lesbian and gay quarterly.

The Lesbian Rights Project, which pioneered much of the work on protecting the rights of gay and lesbian families, also has received a large volume of press calls. Media callers generally have been unaware of the Times retraction and have repeated them in their broadcasts or stories.

NGLTF urges all readers to write to the New York Times and register their disapproval with both the final story and the bias behind the scenes. Writers should praise the Times for its retraction, but insist that more stories be written about the gay and lesbian community. Write to Max Frankel, New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, NY 10036. ▼

and uncooperative lovers.

Clive, his first love and the person who's influence first brings Maurice's homosexuality to the surface, wants only a platonic relationship and eventually decides he was 'normal.' Then Maurice, after several sordid encounters, meets Alec Scudder. Scudder is of a different class, is very uninhibited sexually, and finally fulfills Maurice's long awaited desires, and also, perhaps subconsciously, Forster's. This meeting of the upper and lower classes through personal encounters is a trait of many Forster works.

The novel ends happily, which gives a glimmer of hope to reader's dealing with similar problems. The work is a poignant and beautifully written love story. It does not have a tremendously well developed plot, but it is very appealing in its openness and honesty with the subject matter.

Maurice was an initial experiment in the genre of the gay novel, and it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Forster had further developed this aspect of his writing style. He eventually may have achieved an even finer blend of artistic quality with gay subject matter, a combination which is found rarely, even in the state of greater literary openness.

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