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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Turning the other cheek
Message-ID: <345@l5.uucp>
Date: Tue, 17-Dec-85 03:39:46 EST
Article-I.D.: l5.345
Posted: Tue Dec 17 03:39:46 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Dec-85 05:42:31 EST
References: <116@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 28

I have a real problem thinking about people who would beat someone else
to death.  Basically, I have trouble believing that they are human
beings.  I mean, they have the right number of limbs and are shaped
into the right shape, but there is something crucial missing. I treat
them as dangerous wild animals.

I have dozens of Gay friends in Toronto.  I don't want any of them to
get killed.  There is no question in my mind that 5, 10 or 100 years
in prison couldn't in any way recompensate me for my friends.  Prison
as punishment, therefore, is not what I am interested in.  I want those
murderers locked up, and I want them locked up until it is absolutely
clear that they are not going to go out and murder anybody else.  And
if it is never clear, then I *never* want them let out.

I find it very sad that they are dangerous animals.  But I will find it
a lot sadder if I discover that in 8 years a friend of mine is killed by
one of these punks upon their release from prison.  Or if I find that
*anyone* is killed by them.  Homophobia did not make these people kill
a man, though it may have determined that a Gay man was killed rather
than a Black man or a Jew or any other person that it has been
convenient to hate in the past.  Something very seriously wrong in
those people caused them to *kill* someone.  And I am not sure that it
is clear that you can have something that wrong with you and still be
human - or that having lost it you can ever regain it.
-- 
Laura Creighton		
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa