Letters

September 18, 1992

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Page 3

Teen suicide shouldn't be outed

To the Editors:

I appreciated the Chronicle's effort to take the Plain Dealer to task for its lacklus-

ter coverage of local Lesbian and Gay events and issues [August 21]. I appreciated knowing, for instance, the Lesbian angle of the Euclid murder; and the accompanying editorial made me wonder how many of the PD's stories, that day, may have had a queer angle.

However, there has been at least one instance where the Plain Dealer's refusal to cover the "Gay" angle was, in my opinion, ethically and professionally justified. The "Guest Opinion," printed in that same issue of the Chronicle, attacked the Plain Dealer's refusal to "out" an allegedly (and closeted at best) Gay teen who had committed suicide. In my opinion the writers's attack on the PD, in this case, was unjustified.

Mentioned in the "Guest Opinion" was a Gay community member who was treated with extreme hostility by a Plain Dealer reporter while trying to discuss the story with him. That community member was me. I wanted to take a moment to explain my encounter with the PD, as my experience with the reporter was misinterpreted in the article.

When I called the reporter to discuss the story I was only able to speak a few short words before falling victim to a verbal tirade. The reporter's anger was the result of his wrongful assumption that I wanted to "out" the kid to the world, post-mortem, in his paper.

public outing would have contributed unneeded stress to their grieving process.

After the reporter aired his feelings and lungs I assured him that I did not call to reprimand him for his coverage, nor to ask him to "out" the kid. I told him that I did not believe in outing people against their will (informed consent is hard to get from a corpse), and that I had no desire to feed the anguish of his grieving parents. I told him that I called to encourage him to create a feature which would affirmatively address the issue of Gay and Lesbian teen suicide, and I expressed my dismay over the alarmingly high number of Gay teens who attempt suicide.

Following the completion of my speech, and after a few verbal nudges from me, the reporter referred me to the person who would be responsible for writing a feature on Lesbian and Gay teen suicide. After a lengthy conversation with this second person, I was given a verbal agreement that, at some point, a story on Lesbian and Gay teen suicide would be created.

Although I agree that the Plain Dealer tends toward the "homophobic," I appreciated its sensitivity with this tragic story. It has become my hope that their budding sensitivity, coupled with pressure and mature assistance from the gay and Lesbian community, will help the paper evolve into an ally. Like it or not, it is the only act in town, and we need it. Without the PD's regular, affirmative coverage of our community we will never be able to live "out" and free in our hometown. It is time to help the PD understand that being Gay or Lesbian is something to celebrate.

Michael Radice

Before I could reassure him that I wasn't PD is not the villain

on a queer excavation mission, he made two good points. One, that there was no hard evidence that the youth was Gay. He commented that a young man doesn't have to be Gay to love a same-sex friend deeply, and to express that love with a flower; and that being artistic does not automatically register you as a member of the Gay community. Two, that forcing the parents, who were unaware that their deceased child may have been Gay, to experience his

Tightrope

Continued from previous page

behave as if they were immortal. Most of us, including me, struggle to find some middle ground to build a life upon.

But this middle ground is the hardest to hold onto. Keeping the middle ground is an endless series of judgement calls. The man abstaining from sex can slip up, but the rules are clear in his mind. The most careless, promiscuous man might be scared enough to avoid certain people or select activities; but for the most part, he needs to make no decisions because he has set no rules for himself.

But here on the middle ground, we are increasingly bewildered. We can never draw the final demarcation between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors; we are never certain that even the tiniest risk is worth taking. And after the tiniest gamble, like deep-kissing a man on a second date, we shudder and think: if I got AIDS from that, would I still feel it was a chance worth taking? But we aren't alone in this clear hindsight: even our top experts can't draw the line. We hear "deep kissing is almost certainly safe, but...," "oral sex without orgasm is probably safe, but... "We don't want to hear "but"! We want Moses to come down with promises chiseled in stone that yes, we can still have satisfactory sex and be safe. The promises never come. And somewhere inside, we still have our

To the Editors:

I just read, again, the August editorials. One was by the Chronicle concerning the poor coverage of homosexual news in the Plain Dealer. The case in point used was the murder of Tressa Tonni by her partner/ lover Jan LaRosa. The other editorial was from Aubrey Wertheim and was more of

emotions. When we speak hypothetically, we can be firm: "I would do this, but I would never do that, because it's not safe." But our hearts still long to trust someone. We want to trust the ones we love and express ourselves without inhibition; every precaution taken in the name of safety seems a denial of that trust. And the more we love that other man, the less we want to believe that he might lie to us, that he might put our lives in jeopardy with one bad decision...that he might kill us. Yet we see and read about gay men and straight women who are dying precisely because they trusted the men they loved too much.

And so the tightrope walk continues. Whenever some new breakthrough comes, and we think we might finally escape the fear and constant feeling of being in peril, another hard fact comes that makes refuge seem more distant than ever.

And even with the hope and warmth of love, we feel all the more vulnerable. Love now comes not with the threat of betrayal, but the threat of death. Whatever absolutes life once had are gone. For gay men in 1992, AIDS has given our lives an agonizing uncertainty. Now, more than ever, we never feel completely safe.

In his 1988 book Ground Zero, Andrew Holleran wrote of gay men grappling with AIDS: "We are getting nowhere at all; we are going in circles." Never has a statement of aimless anxiety seemed more true than here in 1992.

the same. This time he used the suicide of Aaron Kittle at the gravesite of his "friend" who died a year before as the topic for his editorial.

Once again, the Chronicle is taking the attitude (along with Aubrey) that you are not a full person unless you are out to everyone, and the media is obligated to carry on in that manner. That may be their opinion, but it is not shared by everyone else. I am not defending the Plain Dealer as a wonderful paper. Nor do I care if they printed the fact that these two cases concerned homosexuals. In these cases, it is possible that it would be hurtful to the families of the deceased. But that does not seem to be important to the Chronicle or to Aubrey. They remind me of a guy I once knew who came out to his family. After that every

conversation included something in reference to his lifestyle (whether it was relevant or not). Finally the family got sick and tired of hearing about it. As we are sick and tired of the thinking that everyone and everything has to be gay or lesbian or it is not politically correct.

Aubrey commented that with the money he saves by not buying the PD he can buy the New York Times every three days. Either he is reading someone else's PD or he is showing his ignorance by complaining about a paper he doesn't even read. Let me remind Aubrey that the Times took a long time before it printed anything related to AIDS, and then did so on an inside section. The Times was also reluctant to report anything positive about our lifestyle for many years after Stonewall.

I can't say when the PD began reporting about gays and lesbians, however, I do know, since I read it daily, that they do a better than average job of reporting about gay and lesbian situations. There is not a week that has gone by that there is not a favorable article about our lifestyle. The PD also does a good job of GOP bashing in the name of gays and lesbians, minorities and the GOP's so called "family values,”

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as well as all of the other things that the GOP stands for that are too far to the right to include anyone slightly off center.

We should be commending this paper instead of condemning them. Maybe these critics should start reading before they criticize. We don't have too many friends in this world, but the PD is certainly one of them in this city.

Perhaps the Chronicle should look into its own closet. Example, in the August issue there was an article, two months late and purloined from the Washington Blade, about the Vatican getting involved in laws concerning homosexuals. This article was two months late and on the 5th page instead of the front page in bold headlines. No one seems to remember that in the U.S. there is a separation of church and state.

If Aubrey and the Chronicle want to be powerful forces in the community, worry about some really important things, like beating the Republicans across the board in November. Getting out the vote seems to be more important than ever for us. The GOP stands for everything we are not. A win for them in November could mean many steps back for lesbians and gays. Let's do something constructive instead of browbeating all of the time.

Joe. V. Columbo

The Chronicle encourages everyone to write and express their opinion. Please be brief. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. We will print your name unless you specifically ask us not to.

Address letters to the Chronicle, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland, Ohio, 44101, or fax to 216-621-5282. Include your address and phone number so we may contact you.

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