Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 14:49:27 -0700 (PDT) From: "David J. Edmondson" THE QUILL Queer Individual Liberty Letter, Vol. 1, No. 2, April, 1993 A publication of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty GLIL, NAT'L LIBERTARIANS PLAN EVENTS FOR MARCH ON WASHINGTON WEEKEND GLIL and Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns (LGLC), a national Libertarian organization, has the following events planned for the March on Washington weekend, April 24-25. Saturday, April 24: Libertarian brunch and hospitality suite at the home of H. Beard, 1747 S St. NW, time TBA. RSVP to Mr. Beard at 202-483-1311. LGLC will have the following events at the Channel Inn, 650 Water St., S.W., near 7th St. and Maine Ave., S.W. LGLC business meeting, 4:30-6:00. Cocktail hour, 6:00-7:00. Fundraising dinner, 7:00-9:00; David Boaz will speak on "One, Two, Three, What Are We Marching For?" Those wishing to attend the dinner should send a check for $30.00 to LGLC, PO Box 447, Chelsea MI 48118-0447, and specify their choice of fish, beef, or chicken. Sunday, April 25: The day of the March. LGLC and GLIL will have a joint marching contingent and a joint literature table. Persons marching with LGLC should meet at 9:00 at the hotel; we will leave from there to the March. VA. LIBERTARIANS MEET, BLAST SODOMY LAWS Convention Also Criticizes Gun Control, Urges Medicinal Marijuana Legalization The Libertarian Party of Virginia elected John S. Buckley of Vienna, a former Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, to be the state party chair at the party's biennial convention in February in Arlington. Delegates to the state convention also elected Richard Sincere, outgoing state chair and a 1991 candidate for Arlington County Treasurer, as vice chair; James Lark of Charlottesville as secretary; and Jack Scheible of Alexandria as treasurer. Mr. Buckley and Mr. Sincere are both members of GLIL. The 39-year-old Buckley, a graduate of the University of Virginia with a law degree from the College of William and Mary, represented Fairfax County in the House of Delegates in the early 1980's and served eight years on the State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. "It's tough to build a third political party," said Buckley, "but I believe the Libertarians are the best hope to renew the Virginia tradition of individual liberty and limited government -- the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Mason that is the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights." Noting that the Libertar ian Party of Virginia plans to run candidates across the state in 1993, Buckley added, "I expect we'll see several three-way races for the General Assembly this November." In keeping with a political philosophy that challenges orthodox notions of what is liberal and conservative, the Virginia Libertarians also passed resolutions affirming the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and criticizing the gun control measures passed by the General Assembly this year, calling for the repeal of Virginia's sodomy (or "crimes against nature") law, and urging the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. The text of the sodomy resolution is reprinted below. Speakers at the Libertarian Party of Virginia State Convention included Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits; Patricia Farnan, an education expert from the American Legislative Exchange Council; local radio talk-show host Brian Wilson of WRC- AM; and Jim Hudson, Georgia Libertarian Party Chair. As a Senate candidate in 1992, Mr. Hudson gained three percent of the vote, triggering a runoff election in which Republican challenger Paul Coverdell unseated incumbent Democrat Wyche Fowler. The Libertarian Party is America's third largest political party. It has run presidential candidates in each election since 1972 and has elected more than two hundred of its members to state and local offices. RESOLUTION ON SODOMY REPEAL by the Libertarian Party of Virginia State Convention, February 27, 1993 Whereas nothing is more sacrosanct than what Justice Louis Brandeis once called "the right to be left alone;" Whereas Virginia and 23 other states and the District of Columbia, continue to have as part of their legal code prohibitions against "crimes against nature," commonly known as sodomy; Whereas these laws are frequently used to justify persecution and repression of lesbians and gay men, including the exclusion of these people from service in the U.S. armed forces; Whereas the sodomy law in Virginia applies equally to homosexuals and heterosexuals and equally to married and unmarried citizens, making a substantial majority of adult Virginians presumed felons; Whereas government has no business regulating what consenting adults do in their intimate relations and has no right to interfere in such intimate relations; Be it resolved by the Libertarian Party of Virginia, meeting in convention on the 27th day of February, 1993, in the County of Arlington: We urge that the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia repeal those sections of the criminal code known as the "crimes against nature" law; We urge that prior to such action by the General Assembly, the Attorney General of Virginia order that the sodomy law cease to be enforced, following the logic of an earlier ruling by the Attorney General that Virginia's unique and archaic law prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages to gay people is unconstitutional and unenforceable; We urge local Virginia law enforcement agencies to stop using taxpayers' money to enforce the sodomy law; We urge that any persons currently imprisoned under the sodomy law be released and that all persons, living or dead, ever convicted under the statute be granted a pardon by the Governor, effective immediately; Be it further resolved that copies of this resolution be sent to the Governor and Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia; the Majority and Minority Leader of the Senate of Virginia, and the Speaker of the House of Delegates; to Virginians for Justice, Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, and other interested organizations; and to Virginia Liberty, LP News, and other appropriate print and broadcast media outlets. MICHEL FOUCAULT: DESPITE HIS POLITICS, ONE OF US Marti Martinson Most, if not all, of my associates in GLIL are far more eloquent in espousing the principles of Classical Liberalism than I am. I suppose my conversion to the Libertarian Party first came about due to my contrarian nature. After reading tracts such as _The Law_ by Bastiat and _For a New Liberty_ by Rothbard, pure reason became my motivation to stay "market liberal." This reason, this truth, is what I hope to impart through this article on Michel Foucault. Michel Foucault -- far from a Libertarian -- was deeply concerned with the notion of power. Hence, he is appropriate for this newsletter. French elitists on all sides could never define him: The left thought he was a technocrat; the right accused him of being a Marxist; and those in power feared him to be an anarchist. Yet he was not concerned with being categorized. His concern was with the relationship between power and knowledge. The foundation of his work was in his three modes of object- ification. These allowed him to study how people become subjects of power, not why. The structure of power was evident through (1) division, (2) classification, and (3) subjectification. Mode 3, subjectification, is a passive process, while the first two are active. Hospitals, amazingly, are examples of objectification. Patients are divided from the rest of society in spatial terms, are classified by degree of condition, and are subjectified by giving in to the power of the doctor. (See _The Birth of the Clinic_.) Even prisons and asylums take on evil dimensions under his microscope. Sex -- you knew I would get there -- was not an inquiry into various modes of copulation, nor was it scientific or theological. It was taken to be a singular historic event, another study of power, a mode of behavior where one understood that he could be the ruler as well as the subject. (See _The Use of Pleasure_.) Paul Rabinow has stated that the focus of Foucault's work was this warning: The greatest threat to mankind is the mixing of social sciences and social practices. In no other example was this made more clear than _patria potestas_, the right of a Roman father to dispose of the lives of his family and slaves. Support for such horror arises from tradition, influence, and spirit. (See _The Archaeology of Knowledge_.) While discipline and authority have replaced such blatant tyranny, our bodies and minds are still policed as state property instead of one man's property. Foucault's most chilling statement is from his magnum opus, _The Order of Things_: Man is governed by language, labor, and life; it is possible to have access to him only through them -- as though it is they that possess the truth . . . . All these reveal him as a face doomed to be erased in the course of history. Michel Foucault, the greatest gay intellect of this century, died of AIDS in 1984. UPCOMING GLIL EVENTS Wednesday, April 21: Showing of the right-wing video _The Gay Agenda_, followed by a panel discussion on what image we should project to the heterosexual world. The Sumner School, 17th and M streets, N.W., 7:00 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, April 24-25: March on Washington. See article above. Tuesday, May 4: Libertarian happy hour. Trumpets, 17th and Q streets, N.W., 6:30-8:00 p.m. There will be no other events in May. Tuesday, June 1: Libertarian happy hour. Trumpets, 17th and Q streets, N.W., 6:30-8:00 p.m. June (date TBA; please check next issue): Debate on the effect of drug price controls on persons living with AIDS. Questions about GLIL? Call 703-920-4023. WHAT IS _THE QUILL_? _The Quill: Queer Individual Liberty Letter_ is the bimonthly newsletter of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL). It is intended to include news of the organization, policy essays, and other articles of interest to lesbian, gay, and bisexual libertari ans. We welcome articles and letters to the editor. You may send submissions for the June issue through May 15 to GLIL, PO Box 65743, Washington DC 20035-5743. Also, please ask about submis sion by disk, e-mail, modem-to-modem transmission, or fax. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please write to GLIL at the address given above. If you would prefer to receive _The Quill_ by fax, please so indicate. While we do not currently charge for _The Quill_, we should appreciate a contribu tion to help cover the costs of printing and mailing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dave Edmondson ghoti@netcom.com, 72020.600@compuserve.com, dave.edmondson@glib.org "Exalted Master, you told us that the world would end yesterday." "My child, it did end yesterday, but you're too sinful to notice."