Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

How unexpected and wonderful to read the intellectually superior editorials and columns in The Guide. Which means that I agree with them, of course.

Do you recognize that your politics can be classified as Libertarian? If not, please visit the web sites of the Libertarian Party (lp.org), the Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org), the International Society for Individual Liberty (isil.org) and the FreeStateProject.org.

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I wanted to specifically comment on a line in the March 2004 editorial about the prosecution of Matthew Limon for having sex with another boy: "Indeed, five jurors said that they would have ignored the law and voted not to convict had they known how unjust the sentence was going to be. Voting to ignore a law is called jury nullification and was used frequently before the Civil War to exonerate people accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act. Eventually, the law was repealed since juries stopped convicting people of helping slaves to escape slavery. This is another example of how the people can take back control of their lives from a government which increasingly limits their freedoms.

I urge you to urge your readers to register and vote Libertarian. By doing so, we will be sending a message to our government: We want freedom.

Nick Kyriazi
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Thanks for your kind words. How to best protect civil liberties and maximize meaningful freedom for people is a daunting political challenge. Libertarians' commitment to freedom of expression and personal autonomy issues is appreciated, but it is hard to imagine much good emerging from unchecked corporate capitalism. Libertarians could realize their dream of ultra-small government if multi-national corporations were to succeed in their drive to 'privatize' governmental functions. But who then protects us from utterly unaccountable robber barons? A prerequisite to enduring liberty is freedom, or relative freedom, from authoritarianism of all kinds. A strong government, warts and all, is needed to counter and contain a corporate culture wherein power inevitably coalesces and corrupts.

Jury nullification has a checkered history. During the civil rights struggle in the Jim Crow South, monochromatic juries routinely 'nullified' laws against killing Negroes and 'Negro-lovers,' hardly a noble example of 'how the people can take back control of their lives'.... Still, independent juries were intended as a last check on prosecutorial zealotry; any juror faced with upholding today's insane drug and sex laws and their Draconian mandatory prison terms should indeed consider his or her obligation to a higher, Constitutional standard of justice.

Some one might tell

Having just read your Failure to Fondle [April 2003] I say that any boy who is asking any adult, including their priest, to get intimate with them needs to get help. Whether it is "not good" for the child to be sexually rejected by priests is irrelevant.

And any parent who complains that adults are not taking a sexual interest in their child also needs to get help, serious help. They should be grateful that an adult doesn't take advantage of their child's problem. Let's say an adult gets involved intimately with a child, what's going to happen down the road? Will it benefit him or hurt him for the rest of his life? The boy as an adult could, if he got mad, start telling what happened-- then it will ruin the adult's life forever.

via the Internet

More on Luna

I just read Among Gay Friends in the January 2004 issue. I would like to get in contact with the writer, Michael Luna.

D.P.
Amsterdam

Catch up with Michael Luna at his web site www.mitchelllunanyc.com.

Correction: May's page 5 cover credit should have noted that the humpy Jake was from Sidekicks, in Austin, and that his pic was snapped by Matt Mathrani.