TOPIC INDEX OF 49 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CAMERON 1) Paul Cameron 2) Paul Cameron CONSERVATISM 3) Conservatism DISCRIMINATION/SPECIAL RIGHTS 4) Discrimination/Special Rights 5) Discrimination/Hate Crimes 6) Special Rights 7) Special Rights 8) Special Rights ECONOMIC EFFECTS 9) High Tech Companies 10) Effect on Economy 11) Economic Consequences EDUCATION 12) Higher Education 13) Effect on Education 14) AIDS Education FAMILY VALUES 15) Family Values 16) Family Values FREEDOM 17) Freedom HOMOSEXUALS/HOMOSEXUALITY 18) Homosexuals Can Change? 19) Love 20) Morality/Approval of Homosexuality 21) Ingestion of Fecal Matter? 22) Gay Youth/Project Ten 23) Homosexuality is Not a Behavior 24) Homosexuality is Not a Lifestyle LITIGATION 25) Increased Litigation 26) Litigation MAINSTREAM 27) Mainstream Organizations Against Ballot Measure 9 MEASURE 8 28) Measure 8 Passed and No Big Deal MEDICAL 29) Medical 30) Doctor/Patient Relationship NON-COVERAGE 31) Papers That Aren't Covering the Issues OCA 32) Mabon/Parent 33) Mabon 34) Witch Hunts OCA - INTENTIONS 35) OCA Does Not Decide Intent 36) Defining the Meaning of Terms as used by the OCA 37) OCA's Intentions PATRIOTISM 38) Patriotism PEDOPHILIA 39) Pedophilia 40) Pedophilia/Abuse 41) Pedophilia 42) Pedophilia RELIGION 43) Religion 44) Christianity 45) Freedom/Separation of Church and State 46) Religion RIGHTS 47) Legal Rights 48) Federal Rights TOLERANCE 49) Tolerance 50) Tolerance 51) Tolerance/Scott Lively VAGUE LANGUAGE 52) Vague Language OREGON SPEAK OUT PROJECT EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH OF EQUITY FOUNDATION Telephone: (503) 223-4992 Montgomery Park, Suite 461 Telecopier: (503) 223-5098 2701 NW Vaughn, Portland, OR 97210 MEDIA MONITORING AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Stephen Manning, Coordinator 788-9915 This letter will explain in broad strokes the purpose of the media monitoring and research project of Oregon Speak Out Project and your possible role in it. Oregon Speak Out Project's purpose is to educate the public about lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Through education, comes social change. We need as one part of that education, media information and responses--we need concise, cohesive, coherent, accurate, and well-prepared information and responses; otherwise the information intended to be educational is treated as just propaganda. The Monitoring/Research Team is responsible for the compiling, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of educational and media information and responses. The team has established and maintains a central resource center to support the local community effort from the OSOP office in Portland. The OSOP Resource Center will be a central clearinghouse for information and will archive--both hard copies and in some cases in computer files--information pertinent to lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues. The information can be used by local communities to affirm the educational messages as well as refute the pseudo-scholarship, blatant misrepresentations and lies used against us. The Monitoring/Research Team will provide research support for speaker workshops and presentations, news releases and article writing, and most importantly for response to letters to the editor. Information can be obtained by phone, mail, e-mail, or fax, using the OSOP addresses and telephone numbers. Also some of this information is distributed on a monthly basis in Oregon in the Rural Organizing Project's Resource Packets. Similar distribution networks need to be established for Idaho and Washington. NEWSPAPERS. Newspapers are an extremely effective means of communicating with the general public. The views expressed in them exert a significant influence on public opinion. Therefore, we need to use them to educate. Each local community should establish a local monitoring/research team. The team will monitor the daily and weekly papers published in the area. The team should set its own structure and goals. Hopefully, the team will read the papers, respond where appropriate and archive locally articles that are lesbian-, gay-, and bisexual-related. Those articles/information, responses and proactive efforts that the local team believes may be useful to other communities should be forwarded to the OSOP Resources Center for central review, archiving, and redistribution to the educational network. All local communities already should have a packet of information on newspaper monitoring that includes a model set of 49 letters to the editors. An index of the letters is attached. In the packet are guidelines, strategies, and helpful tips along with sets of draft letters to help with the local educational outreach. If you do not have these materials, please contact the OSOP Resource Center, so the newspaper monitoring packet can be sent to you. The 49 drafts of letters to the editor in the newspaper monitoring packet represent the beginning of a new phase of OSOP's media education work. The letters are revisions of many of the letter used last fall in educating about the adverse impact of Ballot Measure 9. Keeping in mind that OSOP's goal is to educate people about lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, these letters are only a beginning. We are now developing new positive drafts of letters that will focus more and more on lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, their need for equal rights and their contributions to the communities in which they live. However, any drafts of letters provided to you should be adapted and personalized for local use. We welcome suggestions for additional letters that should be drafted and distributed to the network as well as letters from your community that you believe may be helpful if distributed to other newspaper monitoring teams. PERIODICALS. The Media/Research Team also will monitor selected national, regional, and local magazines and periodicals such as Time, Newsweek, People, U.S. News & World Report, and others. They will be reviewed for their depiction of lesbian, gay, and bisexual news coverage. Research information from periodicals will be archived and distributed to the educational network. Local monitoring/research teams are invited to participate and offer feedback. SUPPORT RESEARCH. Support research consists of reviewing and cataloging books, document collections, computer bulletin board services and other research sources that can be used to support the education efforts and, in turn, our local communities. The Monitoring/Research Team also will attempt to respond to specific research requests. THE FUTURE. As the Monitoring/Research Team and the Educational Network grows, it intends to monitor television and radio media as well and work with other organizations doing similar work. Please understand that your contributions and efforts are essential, greatly appreciated and highly encouraged, we cannot thank you enough for your cooperation, your diligence and the sharing of your good work. "Never doubt that a small group of concerned, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, anthropologist. OREGON SPEAK OUT PROJECT EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH OF EQUITY FOUNDATION Telephone: (503) 223-4992 Montgomery Park, Suite 461 Telecopier: (503) 223-5098 2701 NW Vaughn, Portland, OR 97210 EDUCATIONAL NETWORK RESOURCE PACKET OVERVIEW Resource packets are intended to be distributed to human dignity groups on a monthly basis. The general content of the Resource Packet is: 1. cover letter; 2. table of contents; 3. revised index of Letters to the Editor that incorporates new draft letters; 4. new draft Letter to the Editor; 5. background information/shared articles; and 6. open forum. GENERAL CONTENTS COVER LETTER: Introduction to packet; explains the general themes and purpose behind this particular packet. It titles and identifies the packet to assist in your local indexing and filing. TABLE OF CONTENTS: A topical description of the pieces in the packet. Refers to them by title, page number, and page length. REVISED INDEX OF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: This will provide an index of all letters to the editor including the original 49 letters and the new draft letters being distributed. Letters on the index will be referenced by number, original date of distribution, theme, and source. As part of the educational outreach, most of the new draft letters will be gay and lesbian-positive. The volume of new letters may vary from month to month. Many will be the outstanding letters sent to the OSOP Resource Center by the local human dignity groups. To obtain the original group of 49 letters to the editor, contact the OSOP Resource Center. NEW DRAFT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Other draft letters may respond to misinformation or anti-gay letters. These draft letters are provided to suggest education themes that may benefit your community's discussion of the issues in the local newspaper or elsewhere. BACKGROUND INFORMATION/SHARED ARTICLES: Recent newspaper or magazine articles or other information on gay, lesbian or bisexual issues that may be of interest to regional and local coalitions. OPEN FORUM: An open forum for essays on lesbian, gay and bisexual issues or personal perspectives. NOTE: The draft Letters to the Editor, background/shared articles, and open forum depend upon the back and forth communication of the network. The more information that the Resource Center receives from the regional and local coalitions, the more information the Resource Center has to distribute. If you have good educational information on lesbian, gay and bisexual issues, share it. By sending the information to OSOP, we can redistribute to the entire network by mail, fax or e-mail. Then everybody has the information. DEADLINE: Deadline for all shared information is the 25th of each month. We hope to send out our first full Resource Packet around October 15, 1993. OREGON SPEAK OUT PROJECT EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH OF EQUITY FOUNDATION Telephone: (503) 223-4992 Montgomery Park, Suite 461 Telecopier: (503) 223-5098 2701 NW Vaughn, Portland, OR 97210 September 21, 1993 INTRODUCING THE EDUCATIONAL NETWORK Welcome to the Oregon Speak Out Project Educational Network. We are excited to be working in Oregon with the Rural Organizing Project ("ROP") and other groups to support local education. We are equally excited about expanding this educational network to exchange information with our friends and colleagues in Washington, Idaho and beyond. We hope that this Educational Network and the resource packets that follow, will provide your organization with the information and resources you need to educate about equal rights for all gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Oregon Speak Out Project ("OSOP"), will coordinate an educational exchange that shares not only the OSOP speaker/outreach materials and other information, but the creativity, hard work and successes of each human dignity group in our region. While this educational information can be sent by mail, by fax machine or discussed by telephone, OSOP is most excited about the potential to send information as files attached to e-mail messages. ROP is working now to identify the fax and e-mail resources available in Oregon. OSOP, working with other groups, is attempting to identify fax and e-mail resources in Idaho and Washington. The goal of OSOP is to distribute its first educational resource packets to the Network on October 15, 1993 and to distribute additional resource packets monthly. Groups in Oregon that do not have fax machines or e-mail connections will receive the OSOP resource packet with the next mailing from ROP. Similar distribution networks need to be established for Idaho and Washinton. However, the advantages of receiving the information by e-mail are many including the ability to edit some of the information in your computer without rekeyboarding the document. We encourage you to become part of the e-mail communications network. While our first resource packet will not be available until October 15, we have included some additional explanation of the support OSOP intends to offer. Attached are: - 2 page Educational Network Resource Packet Overview. - 2 page Explanation of OSOP's Media Monitoring and Educational Research Support. - 1 page index of Draft Letters. - 3 page summary of OSOP's activities to date. If you want to receive the October 15 resource packet by fax or e-mail, you must forward a fax number and/or e-mail address to ROP or OSOP by October 8. Thank you for your participation. Sincerely, Ed Reeves Project Director