Groan! This letter to the editor appeared in Tuesday's Erie Times News:
Same-sex singles ads criticizedI am sure if your advertising department worked a little harder, it could make up the income from dropping the same- sex section of the "Singles Connection" page.
I have no problem with normal relationship searches, but "men seeking men" and "women seeking women" do not belong in a family newspaper.
You may justify these ads as possibly a desire for platonic same-sex friendships.
This would be believable if the ads did not include such phrases as "sexy," "fun and much more," "blue eyes" and many more. I am sure that those of the homosexual persuasion have other means of finding their own.
I am not anti-gay, but I am pro- don't-flaunt-it.
Dave Van Buskirk
Erie
Here is the response I sent:
This is in response to the letter to the editor criticizing same-sex singles ads from Dave Van Buskirk on July 3. To the best of my knowledge, the Erie Times News has been having equal access in the Singles Connection section for the better part of a decade. Mr. Van Buskirk seems to believe that only straight people should have the right to seek companionship. Apparently, he believes there should be different standards for different groups of people.Certainly, it is quite entirely appropriate that there should be standards for singles ads. I believe that the Times News has done a pretty fair job of this. However, this should be based upon content, and not on the gender of the person writing the ad, nor of the person being sought.
I believe that there is a relatively simple solution that Mr. Van Buskirk might wish to consider if he is not interested in same-sex personals ads: he might wish to cease reading them quite so obsessively. I am not sure if I have ever done anything more than skim the heterosexual section of the ads, but I definitely would not be able to quote any of the ads if my life depended on it. There are other sections of the newspaper that I don't happen to be personally interested in. I would not even dream of demanding that everyone else be forced to embrace my standards. There is this wonderful thing called the First Amendment that gives us all the right to express ourselves. If you aren't interested, don't read it.
Finally I find Mr. Van Buskirk's statement that simply by saying he is not anti-gay to not carry any credibility. If the relatively innocuous ads that appear in both the gay and straight sections of the singles ads count as "flaunting it," then maybe he simply needs not to read that section of the paper.
If I were to claim that I wasn't anti-Catholic, but that the people who go to the church across as the street from my house are "flaunting it," but I wouldn't expect anyone to take seriously my claim that I was not prejudiced. Furthermore, it would be very egocentric of me assert that they were going to church to somehow throw it in my face. I am not at the center of the universe, nor is Mr. Van Buskirk.
I am amused by the night in that he often even suggesting that men seeking men or women seeking women would be about platonic friendships. Sure, that might occasionally happen, but does anyone in their right mind think and something labeled a single section that would be the case very frequently? And I am so burned by the obligatory "I am not gay, so I can say whatever crap I want but I called' no bigot here', so I am like totally off the hook." nonsense.
Actually, I did have something in mind when I was writing about the content of the ads, rather than the genders involved. Years ago, and this might have been before the Times allowed gay folks equal access, there was an ad that began something like "young man seeks young woman interested in... (something, I forget what) and water sports."
At that point I thought that the singles that was either about swimming, diving and water skiing, or something else entirely. I continued reading. The ad concluded with the man saying that he was "looking forward to the golden opportunity of being showered with your warmth." Okay, I guess we were talking about the non-swimming thing there. :-) I figured that which ever person had taken the ad at the Times was somewhat clueless, and didn't get the coded references. Please note! This was a man seeking a woman! No queers involved here. :-) I still get a chuckle out of this story.
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Good for you for writing a letter in response. I read Mr. Buskirk's letter the other day and my eyes immediately started a-rollin'. Oy vey.
It seems like he wants to define "family" as much as "relationship." I mean, "family paper?" We here at Chez Piggyhawk are the "standard" definition of "family" and see nothing wrong with that element of a newspaper.
Instead of trying to dictate the advertising content, why doesn't he encourage better newswriting or more thorough reporting? I find that far more offensive than any personals.