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Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!rrizzo
From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Ignoring & Homophobia
Message-ID: <735@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 23-May-84 12:18:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.735
Posted: Wed May 23 12:18:22 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 24-May-84 01:53:45 EDT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 28

Have any of you who've contributed messages about gay topics to the
other "nongay" net mailing lists experienced a reaction of either
being ignored or given very little attention?

I don't have reason (yet) to believe this has happened on the net
but two things suggest it might be expected:

	--- someone last fall posted a notice to the net about
	    Boswell's book on homosexuality & Christianity & got
	    very little response;

	--- Boswell himself encountered the "ignore them; they'll
	    disappear" reaction:  Jerry Falwell has claimed on 3
	    separate occasions never to have heard of Boswell's
	    book (Boswell quipped "either the man has a very short
	    memory span or he's lying").  In fact, a journalist
	    publicly presented one of Falwell's closest aides
	    with a copy which was accepted.  The author expected
	    violent reaction to his book from evangelicals; but
	    apparently the fundies feel so fundamentally threaten-
	    ed by documented facts and texts that they can only
	    deal with it by pretending Boswell & the book don't
	    exist.  I wonder if this isn't true to a lesser ex-
	    tent of the net, except in cases where you directly
	    attack another netter's message?

					Cheers,
					Ron Rizzo