NAMBLA, Humor and the Media

An essay examining popular cultural references to NAMBLA and how the media distorts our message by Peter Herman

November 20, 2011

An Open Response to LGBT Misconceptions

We respond to South Florida Gay News' perfunctory dismissal of intergenerational relationships. (more)

NOTICE: It has recently come to our attention that one or more persons are using the word NAMBLA as part of an identifier on Twitter. We want to make it perfectly clear that our organization does not participate in any on-line social media, has never done so, and never will. Anyone using our name should be reported to the site for a violation of their terms-of-service.



Gay Marriage

- an opinion piece by Peter Herman



Reluctant congratulations may be in order for the beneficiaries of New York State's gay marriage bill. Though marriage is not everybody's thing, one can understand the aspirations of those who long for social acceptance and for the open recognition of their love and choice of partners. I say reluctant because it is quite clear that a good segment of the gay community had to be co-opted by government to achieve their current but tenuous degree of acceptance and, now, the dubious privilege of attaching the word "marriage" to civil unions that would otherwise have had all the same privileges and responsibilities.



In aping the heterosexual lifestyle ("We're just like everybody else except for our choice of partners.") much of the gay leadership has cast overboard those they felt to be a liability. They would also disown, were they alive today, the likes of Allan Ginsberg, Oscar Wilde, Socrates and many other such luminaries and icons of civilization. Even if we do not agree with the assimilationist aspirations of those seeking gay marriages, we can admire the steadfastness of those who struggled to achieve their goal. Were they only to grant the same tolerance for the love that does dare to speak its name, the same love celebrated in the art and poetry of many cultures, the love between man and boy that was once synonymous with forbidden homosexuality.



The opponents of gay marriages, including hypocrites in the Catholic Church, claimed to know what is natural and what the word of their variously characterized gods is. These naysayers are certainly entitled to their opinions but they fail to grasp that these are far from universal.



For those who would deny the expression of mutually felt love and affection, we say believe what you will but do not invent harm where there is none.