Florida Agenda

Response to “Orange County Approves Same-Sex Benefits”

Every advance like this helps to get gays out of the closet.

And its hard to hate and demonize people who you know and respect. This is the real job that needs to be tackled. Once it happens all over our society marriage will be a slam dunk. Like it was in Iceland where their one house parliament voted 49 to 0 for gay marriage.
– STAN JAMES

Response to Home Mother’s day Article

I don’t really have a relationship with my mother and reading this article reminded me of how sad it is to live without even when she is alive. It was beautiful to the point of tears. Thank you so much.
– NICCI

Response to Editor’s “Friends Without Benefits”

DEAR EDITOR,
I want to compliment you on your excellent editorial – “Friends Without Benefits”. You made so many outstanding references as to how disconnected the gay community is. Gay men do seem more interested in distancing themselves from each other rather than bonding.
– KARL GERHARD

Please send all your comments and letters to editor@FloridaAgenda.com

DEAR EDITOR,

It was chilling standing with protesters being ridiculed by gay rodeo event-goers as they stood in line to pay to watch weaker creatures brutalized, as if they hadn’t been ridiculed or brutalized themselves. Suddenly in the majority, they had the power, you know? I hope as they continue to whine about how they can’t marry or adopt in Florida these men and women consider the calf they enjoyed watching get roughed up so badly she later died, in agony, of internal injuries. She’ll be shaking her head from calf Heaven, and might even forgive them.

Sincerely, CHRIS MURPHY

DEAR EDITOR,

Thank you for giving the animals a voice. I have been a veterinarian for 20 years albeit a small animal veterinarian, but no animal in a rodeo looks like they like being there. It must be terrifying and painful for them. I always ask people if they would allow that same activity with their beloved dog or child … the answer is always ‘NO’. It is time to evolve.

Sincerely,
Randall Cannon, DVM

DEAR EDITOR,

Thanks for the article on the Gay Rodeo.

Get a ticket if you can, but don’t let them know you are with the press.  Go undercover, so to speak. It might be good for you to see what happens to these animals up close; then you will see why we are so opposed to it.

Thank you!
Heather

Please send all your comments and letters to editor@FloridaAgenda.com

Dear Editor,
A correction on the name of this newspaper to the ‘Florida Republican Agenda’ might be overdue.

The Opinion Page is constantly given to organizations such as the Log Cabin Republicans, Broward County Young Republicans and the Sunshine Republicans.

In the latest article to appear, “Papa, Can You Hear Me?”, we are asked to believe that somehow the daughters of Republican policy makers are making a difference when it comes to gay marriage
and other important policy issues important to GLBT Americans.

Mary Cheney and Megan McCain’s support of gay marriage is not a representation of the Republican Party as Jessica Osman, who wrote the article, would like us to believe.

Jessica fails to recognize that the Republican daddies have blocked or firmly opposed every major policy issue important to GLBT Americans.

Gay Marriage on the state level, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, adoption rights for GLBT Americans, immigration and healthcare rights for same sex  couples.

The list goes on and on.  GLBT issues continue to fall on deaf ears when it comes to the Republican Party, their platform, and the blocking of key legislation.

The Log Cabin and Sunshine Republicans can fantasize about how much has changed. Unfortunately the Republican Party’s platform has never embraced any of the core GLBT issues our community has been fighting for.

I find it offensive that this very small group of Republican activists continue to get such enormous access to our community through your newspaper’s Opinion Page.

Sincerely;
Salvatore Torre

Please send all your comments and letters to editor@FloridaAgenda.com

“FOR EVIL TO TRIUMPH, LET GOOD MEN DO NOTHING.”

I read the editorial “Confessions of an Ex-…” in the 9/30/2010 edition of Florida Agenda. During the Regan administration I was living in San Francisco. As AIDS appeared, and reached epidemic proportions, the reports in the daily press and conversations with friends became more and more personal as friends, colleagues and other people I knew kept getting sick and dying. Medical researchers in San Francisco and doctors did what they could but there was no help from Washington and no extra funding for the CDC or NIH.

Kindly ask Mr. Kecskemety if he was straight, uninformed, naive or just uninterested in what was going on at the time. During the entire Reagan administration, as friends were dying, his beloved President did absolutely nothing. Private research both here and in France were desperately looking for a cause and cure, but our President and his wealthy “kitchen cabinet” were not interested. The only gay people we saw in the White House were Nancy’s decorators and hairdressers. As a lifelong republican, maybe he can be excused for voting for Reagan the first time, but the 2nd time?

I realize that the gist of the editorial was the fact that his political direction has changed, but someone said “For evil to triumph, let good men do nothing.” He admits that he did more than do nothing. He actually voted for these anti-gay homophobic leaders. Everyone is entitled to their political beliefs, and supposedly his beliefs have changed. Personally, I’ll find other things to read besides the editorials in your publication. – JOEL COLBY

A “FORMER GAY DEMOCRAT”

I am Gay and I have spent nearly half a century as a thoughtless “liberal” gayclone, believing everything the gay ghetto and my labor union has told me. I have blamed the decimation of gay men dying of AIDS on Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Rove and Gingrich. I have dutifully voted Democratic in almost every election since John F. Kennedy. I have called for a “French Revolution” in America and preached the socialist gospel of European superiority to anybody who would listen. But I have changed! What brought about this change? In one word: Obama!

His taxpayer bailouts of the incompetent rich contradicted his beautiful rhetoric of condemning the rich when he campaigned for President. His healthcare reform is a farce and does not control costs for any age-group. His star has faded, his luster is diminished, just as millions of people have lost their homes and their employment. He blames Bush, but unemployment used to be almost half of what it is in today’s Obamaworld.

He has left us so deeply in debt that China, our primary creditor, is almost certain to become the world’s most powerful economy. Even Europe is telling Obama he is going in the wrong direction.

He implores us to vote for Democrats; and if we don’t, there will be no funding for AIDS. Yet Bush spent hundreds of millions on AIDS, as did Reagan and Gingrich. I no longer believe Gay propaganda and Gay editorial writers. I am tired of being expected to blindly follow a Democratic Party that usurps my Gayness to raise millions, only to raise my taxes and to promote bogus fear of Republicans to extort even more money from my friends and me.

During this campaign season, I have attended numerous GOP and “Gay” GOP events. None of the Republican candidates or GOP activists treated me like an alien. All of them welcomed my patriotism and my gayness. Now I realize how much “so-called progressive gay activists” lie and exaggerate about rightwing homophobia.

I am irate at how a once vibrant Florida economy has a higher unemployment rate than traditionally poor, under-developed Southern states like Louisiana, West Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi. Over one million Floridians are out of work, and that includes tens of thousand of Gay people. I am fed-up with being told that because I am Gay, I must vote Democratic! Otherwise, I will hate myself. I am tired of Gay left-wing demagoguery in South Florida.

In 2008, over one out of three Gay voters voted for John McCain in an otherwise dismal year for the GOP. They must have been on to something. I can only hope, for my country and for my unemployed friends and family that even more Gays will vote Republican in November. – PETER RYSKEWECZ

Dear Editor:

In the June 3, 2010, issue of Florida Agenda, Fred Reissner states that my letter criticizing the actions of Mayor Resnick and the City Commission of Wilton Manors was not factual in regard to Wilton Manors taking over Wilton Drive from the State of Florida.  Mr. Reissner needs to check his facts.

I emailed my letter to both the South Florida Gay News and the Florida Agenda on May 5th, 2010, after it was published that Mayor Resnick and the City Commission had decided to put the decision before the voters rather than address the issue themselves.

My letter criticizing the mayor and commission was published in the South Florida Gay News AFTER that decision was made and BEFORE the May 25th City Commission meeting during which it was announced that the City Commission had decided to repeal the ordinance that would put the decision about taking over Wilton Drive before the voters.  My letter was not published in the Florida Agenda until after the City Commission changed it’s mind about not letting the voters decide the issue. It seems Mr. Reissner is incorrect in believing that the Mayor and Commission acted out of some sort of benevolence for the residences, businesses and tourist to Wilton Manors by changing their minds instead of because of published criticism.

In his letter, Mr. Reissner chose to ignore the fact stated in my letter that in spite of several hit and runs on Wilton Drive, the City of Wilton Manors has not regularly placed any marked police patrol vehicle on busy weekend nights in the areas of the Drive where the hits and runs have taken place.

This lack of police presence definitely seems at odds with the Gay community as many Gay men and women pay property taxes which go to educate children in Broward County public schools where marked police patrol vehicles are regularly seen parked in the morning before school starts and in the afternoon when the schools let out, often times with police officers in uniform holding radar detection devices in their hands aimed at approaching vehicles, in order to try to prevent school children from being run over by speeding vehicles, yet this same type of police presence isn’t seen along Wilton Drive where several hit and runs have actually taken place.

I think the message that gets sent here is that the lives of tax paying Gay men and women don’t have the same value in Wilton Manors as school children do and since the fact stands that marked police vehicles are not regularly placed by orders of city officials in Wilton Manors in any of the areas where the hit and runs have taken place on Wilton Drive, I ask that Mr. Reissner not only check the facts about the Mayor and City Commission in Wilton Manors reversing their decision about the take over of Wilton Drive from the State, but also to check the facts about the lack of police presence along Wilton, along with the fact that Broward County has the highest incident per capita of hate crimes against Gays in the State of Florida.

Sincerely.

Richard Claycomb
PO Box 1676
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33302
richardkclaycomb@hotmail.com
954-773-4860

Fair Coverage?

Dear Mr. Maillis -

In regard to the article about Jayson Gehri – it is a great thing that he is doing, but the coverage he and his group is receiving is a bit much!! We have a ride here in Florida for the Tuesday’s Angels. This year there were six cyclists that made $40,000. This compared to 2,150 cyclists in 2009 that raised $10.5 million (in a state that already provides incredible benefits from the state, county, and city levels).

I have issues with this!! Here, Tuesday’s Angels is run by volunteers which means basically all the donations go to the source – can you say the same of these organization in California? Do the agencies in California have paid staff ? I also have to wonder how many cyclists from California come here to help our community – well none participated in the last Tuesday’s Angels bike ride.

This just disgusts me to no end!! I would hope that you and your publications would cater to our own communities.

Sincerely,

C. JASON CIDEKO

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – G FOUNDATION

Let Them Bake

Dear Letters to the Editor:

The members of the Main Street program in Wilton Manors could better serve their time joisting with windmills rather than wasting it attempting to get Empress Mayor Resnick and her court of Commissioner Jesters to lower themselves to the level of the common people and provide any sort of comfort in the form of shade trees on Wilton Drive.

The Main Street Program has been in existence for years and submitted various plans to each succeeding Emperor and Empress who have lorded it over the business owners and residents of Wilton Manors and not engaged the City in planting a single shade tree along Wilton Drive between the Drive the sidewalk to give shelter to shoppers and pedestrians from the unrelenting Florida summer sun.

Empress Resnick made sure that when she was one of the Commissioner Jesters that a new building would be constructed for her to rule from and that no shade providing trees would be planted along the front of the building, most likely as to not ruin the sport of watching speeding vehicles running over pedestrians on the Drive while no marked police vehicle is ever stationed on the Drive during busy business nights to slow down those speeding vehicles.

Empress Resnick and her Jesters know putting a vote about taking over Wilton Drive from the State and landscaping it with shade trees to the cash strapped voters of Wilton Manors will end up in defeat as only about 14% of the voters will most likely turn out as they did during the last election as the majority of registered voters seem more interested in dialing for Dick on the Internet rather than voting.

Marie Antoinette was quoted as saying, “Let Them Eat Cake,” in regard to her subjects starving with no bread to eat.

While Empress Resnick sits in her newly built airconditioned City Hall office, the motto of devoid of shade Wilton Manors seems to be, “Let Them Bake.”

RICHARD CLAYCOMB

FORT LAUDERDALE

Mr. President wake up

When you delivered your State of the Union address in January, you eloquently spoke the following words to Congress and the nation: “We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it…”

“This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It’s the right thing to do.”

At the time, we seemed to be making progress.

You committed to finally end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy once and for all, this year. Then in February, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told a congressional hearing that “we have received our orders from the Commander-in- Chief and we are moving out accordingly.” Both announcements were heartening.

However, as you know, Secretary Gates sent a letter to House Armed Services Chair Ike Skelton on April 30 which appears to indefinitely delay the possibility of moving forward with the repeal of DADT until the Pentagon completes a review of the policy.

GOV. HOWARD DEAN, MD

FOUNDER, DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA