FAC Letter to South Florida Gay News
The Florida Action Committee has written a letter to the South Florida Gay News, a local publication servicing the LGBT community.
SFGN’s recent coverage of The Pride Center’s employment of Clarence Collins, a person required to register as a sex offender, is shameful and in stark contrast to a series of commentaries by Chris Reina published in SFGN. Makes you question what happened to their sensitivity to criminal justice issues!
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Yes this is horrifying. As a gay man from South Florida I too wrote a letter…..
Sounds like a lot of Gays are forgetting the days when we were treated with such uneducated disdain and cruelty. And talk about the pot calling the kettle black – listen Queens, why don’t we make public all of our sex acts that we’ve ever committed and see how many of us survive the “Sex offender Panic” test which currently exists in the State of Florida. Sound like fun? Many of you , i repeat MANY of you would be added to the Sex Offender Registry, trust me. What we are interested in is not what he did, but the likelihood of him doing it again. How would you like to be denied a way to earn money for food based solely on an act committed decades ago? Anyone who has even a faint familiarity with Mr. Collins knows he’s about as dangerous as the guys whos are still walking into the park restroom looking for a blow job – that’s a sex crime do you know that? So unclutch your precious pearls and don’t talk unless you know what you’re talking about, cuz most of you don’t. Society has long had very nasty labels for things they didn’t understand and if any group should know that it is this group. If you really believe that we have a dangerous, horrible rapist on the lose and the Pride Center was under some kind of potential danger, then stop right now and call 911 and every lawmaker you can find. Because you are having the wrong conversation with the wrong people and all you are doing is throwing stones out of some ignorant panic. The fact is Mr. Collins would not be out, allowed to roam the streets if all your panicking were valid. But he is out in our community and he’s trying to make a living – is that ok with you?!! Or would you have be homeless, bored, hopeless, desperate roaming the streets all day and night, is that how you think communities are kept safe and former criminals are kept on the straight and narrow?? GROW UP! This is a complicated issue and you are acting the same way most others reacted in the 70’s when they found out Gays were swimming in the community pool! OMG Run!!!! Ridiculous, really.
This is what we need…reality thinking. Justice is not made right with injustice.
I was very critical of the Pride Center’s abrupt dismissal of Mr. Collins in earlier posts. However, they have been assailed by the community since then, allowing the bigots to make it an attack on gays in general. I suspect they are being defensive. Here’s a search result of articles on Clarence Collins at the newspaper: http://southfloridagaynews.com/component/search/?searchword=Clarence%20Collins&searchphrase=all&Itemid=812 Even though they dumped Mr. Collins despite no wrong doing on his part, the community’s blood thirsty attitude demands more.
Well said and deserved
Great letter! Sounds as though this paper may be exercising the ‘thermodynamic impact’…i.e. passing the heat. That is, get the focus off of one group and get it on to another. That will solve no problems for anyone.
From the “Oh, Irony” department, imagine, if you will,
the reaction of some in South Florida in the mid to late 70’s if a center catering to homosexuals installed a PL:AYGROUND!!!!!!!! Yeah.
And this year’s Anita Bryant Award goes to…………….;-)
How soon they forget.