Scott Tucker
To Tim Miller, Holly Hughes, and other citizens:
The Gores, Al and Tipper both, became Born Again in 1977, the same year which heralded national crusades against queers. Of course they have a right to bring their real ideas and values into the public realm, where can all take a good close look. Tipper went on to crusade against dirty music, and even testified at Congressional show trials against American pop culture. Tipper, a cofounder of Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), did not veto the PMRC's demanded ban on songs concerning violence and suicide--forbidden topics included "fornication, sadomasochism, incest, homosexuality, bestiality and necrophilia." Her husband recently said on the Oprah Winfrey Show, "She was early and she was right." Al also boasts in this very campaign season of his efforts to clean up "cultural pollution" from the environment. So we can't pretend "That was then, this is now."
How soon we forget-though it does seem odd that Tim Miller and Holly Hughes, themselves artists and targets of political vice squads, should suffer such a drastic and convenient lapse in memory just in time for the election. And (lest we forget) Gore joined with his unanimous colleagues in supporting a Jesse Helms bill directed against the National Endowment for the Arts during an especially virulent outbreak of hysteria against queers in public culture.
In 1980 Gore voted for an amendment prohibiting the Legal Services Corporation from assisting gay people who were fighting to defend their rights. Gore further backed three anti-gay measures proposed by Jesse Helms. In August 1986, he voted to allow insurance companies to discriminate against HIV positive people in the District of Columbia. Since Tim is rightfully concerned about immigration issues, he will remember-- won't he?-- that Gore voted for a Helms amendment requiring HIV testing for immigrants. In August 1988 Gore voted for a Helms amendment to the "Fair Housing Bill" that eliminated protection from housing discrimination for transvestites. Liberal Democrats can't defend such a record, so they've decided to lose the evidence as they bring their candidate to the court of judgment on November 7.
When Bill Bradley debated Al Gore in Harlem, Bradley read out a letter Gore wrote to a constituent in 1984: "It is my deep personal conviction that abortion is wrong." A conviction with consequences-in the same year, Gore was one of seventy four Democrats who voted to restrict federal funding for women's health care and abortion. Shameful? Certainly. But we are supposed to believe that Gore has been Born Again as a defender of women's health and reproductive rights.
If abortion and the courts are truly the reason some liberal Democrats are voting for Gore, then consider the fact that Clinton and Gore demolished welfare entitlements to our poorest citizens on a bipartisan basis. Clinton signed many minimum guarantees to poor women and mothers away, rolling back their rights many decades-since before the New Deal, to be precise. Are NOW and NARAL only defending the abortion rights of middle class and wealth women, or are they willing to join the bipartisan class war on the poor?
Gore the environmentalist collaborated in the strip-mining of Appalachia and of an area bordering one of Tennesse's best loved public parks. He laments the arms race, but rides the MX missile like a Strangelovian cowboy. Gore the civil libertarian collaborates in bipartisan attempts to erode the Bill of Rights and freedom of information online. Al and Tipper toked ardently in their own youths, but now wish to hammer marijuana users with the war on drugs. Indeed, to advance the war on drugs in Colombia, the Clinton-Gore administration just signed over 1.3 billion dollars worth of technical and military support to the regime in Colombia. That, too, does not pass the lips of Gore or his supporters as we gather to vote.
I helped establish a needle exchange in Philadelphia to keep drug users alive, and I smoked marijuana during an AIDS- related illness to gain back my appetite and control nausea. Marinol, the legal synthesized drug, is not a good substitute for many folks because it lingers too long in the system-- for folks who don't enjoy being stoned hours on end, it disrupts work and life. In recent months, Clinton and Gore have moved even more harshly against the reform of drug laws and the provision of marijuana to the ill. A vote for Nader is not only a vote against an anti-democratic electoral system- it is also a vote against a war on drugs which is hitting the poor and people of color very hard. Bipartisan support for the death penalty and high-tech prisons is grotesque. Here, too, Al Gore holds high a banner of disgrace.
Tim's confidence that Gore would lead a fight to extend immigration rights to queer spouses is naive. Clinton learned a lesson in political hard-ball that Gore has certainly not forgotten. Anyone who believes that a President Gore- dealing with a strong GOP in Congress, empowered at best with the slimmest of mandates-would take on any controversial issues early in his term [if ever] -- has been inhaling too much.
Decent citizens may decide to vote for Gore in an indecent and anti-democratic electoral system. But be honest about your candidate's political record.
Scott Tucker ============================================= Thomas Scott Tucker [<mailto:tstucker at bellatlantic.net>tstucker at bellatlantic.net] 1916 Lombard St. Philadelphia, PA 19146 ==============================================