Submitted On: November 8, 1993

Dear Thomas,

   Here is an editorial which was written at the time of the KRON-TV
hysteria. I hope that it will balance the transcript that is now in
the QRD. I will also be sending you a statement to the press by
Eileen Scheff and my own commentary on the KRON piece. If you feel
that these are in any way inappropriate to include in the QRD please
feel free to get back to me.

In Liberation,

Roy

The following article appeared in the B.A.R. (Bay Area Reporter) 
on January 23, 1992.

Guest Opinion                                   Steve Hanson
			 
			 Shame on Us

Shame on us if our lesbian/gay voices remain silent while our NAMBLA
brothers are persecuted once again, and shame on those lesbians and
gay men who will raise their voices to condemn NAMBLA insisting that
boy lovers (and presumably the boys they love and who love them) are
not part of this thing called the lesbian/gay community.  Shame on
GLAAD especially for selling NAMBLA down the river.  For GLAAD to say
that the persecution of NAMBLA is not a gay issue is an act of
cowardice that at the very least denies the existence of gays under
the legal age of 18.

NAMBLA deserves the support of at least those San Francisco queers who
call themselves radicals or progressives, for the people in NAMBLA
represent perhaps the most radical among us.  A boy lover who acts
upon his desires lives with the day-to-day threat of very real
persecution by the state (and the media): surveillance, arrest,
imprisonment.  Boys in relationships with men risk losing their
freedom as well, being dragged through an ugly legal process that
supposedly exists to protect them.  The rest of us it seems have
forgotten, or never known, what it means for our sex to be illegal,
but it was and, of course, in many places still is.

I wouldn't expect any mainstream assimilationist gay voices to be
heard in defense of NAMBLA - too much respectability at stake - and I
don't expect the gay press to come out swinging for NAMBLA either.
After all, the group held its national conference here in November and
precious little mention of it appeared in the gay press.  The B.A.R.
ran a paragraph about the Women's Building statement that they
regretted having leased space to NAMBLA.  No dialogue appeared in the
B.A.R. about the issues around man-boy love; no insights into what
NAMBLA's purpose and goals might be.  The Sentinel ran nothing at all
(big surprise).

I attended that conference as a field research project for a City
College Gay Studies course in anthropology.  What I found there
surprised me.  The group has perhaps the most comprehensive and
well-developed philosophical and political stands, outlined within
their constitution, of any lesbian/gay group I've seen.  My
preconceptions about NAMBLA representing the predatory desires of
older men at the expense of young people were proved unfounded.  The
discussions I heard at the conference centered around the empowerment
of youth, not exploitation.  Unlike what KRON's Pete Wilson (homophobe
of the century) would have us believe, NAMBLA is not a support group
for molesters.  The people of NAMBLA that I met are more concerned
with the intellectual and emotional health and freedom of children
than any heterosexual parents I've ever known.  What NAMBLA does do is
pursue a political end to age of consent laws, and a moral ideal that
elevates children and youth beyond the status of property.

Discussions about the real issue, consent - including whether it is
even possible between an adult and a child - are discussions I have
heard only within NAMBLA.  Discussions about the liberation of youth
from an oppressive society and oppressive families are discussions I
have heard only within NAMBLA.  A sad byproduct of the assimilationist
fear of being labeled "child molesters" is that the lesbian/gay
community has largely turned its back on lesbian and gay youth.

We are so quick to buy into the morality of the straight world when it
comes to children, yet no one who considers himself or herself a
progressive or radical should accept *any* mainstream position on
*anything* without challenging it.  The most I can hope for is that
you will find out for yourselves who NAMBLA is and what they stand
for.  The lesbian/gay community should know better than to buy the
garbage the straight media feeds us - especially about ourselves.

					-Steve Hanson