AMY DISSES

What a letdown to see Amy Martin dis the band the Gossip in her "8 Days a Week" listing last week (9/16/05) by writing: "I’ve never heard of them," after giving ample description to their openers. The Gossip are a successful, queer, feminist, punk rock band, with many dedicated fans here in Portland. How offensive that an already marginalized group within the rock scene would be overlooked in our local weekly. It was bad enough that the show was scheduled on a Tuesday night, but you had to go ahead and scare people away who, if they learned about the band, may have gone to the show.

Kristen Stake, Portland

TONY DISSES, TOO

Concerning the reviews you wrote on the churches (see "The Search for Church," Sept 23), I’ve been attending Eastpointe now for several months. I read your review on Eastpointe and I disagree with practically all of it. But the main thing I wanted to comment on was when you said, "I would probably go back if they weren’t so into Jesus." The reason that the music is so good and the pastor speaks so well and the people are so happy is BECAUSE they are "so into Jesus." You should come back and visit us!

Tony Oberley, Portland

DAN DISSES AL

Al Diamon does a good job describing the landscape in the fight over the proposed gay-rights law to be voted on in the election of November 8 ("Searching for a Former Clarity," Oct 7). Diamon is probably correct that most Mainers who oppose this law view its passage as tantamount to sanctioning same-sex marriage. But I wish that, more than just pointing this out, he had gone on to rebuke the exploitation of this false perception in the campaign against gay rights.

The campaign waged by the Maine Grassroots Coalition and the Christian Civic League of Maine seems to illustrate the low depths to which American politics continually allows "leaders" (elected, self-appointed, or otherwise) to go. To defeat a law about specific and narrow protections for homosexuals in civil matters, these groups broaden the opposition’s agenda to abstraction in order to repaint it in extraneous and frightening colors. To ward off the imagined influence on society of life choices others have made about sex and domesticity, they would browbeat society with their own life choices about sex and domesticity.

A lot of ancient mythology can be used to justify discrimination. But a lot of modern political thought about how governments should protect freedom weighs against discrimination. A few puritans discomforted by diversity in Maine should not be permitted to hijack an important public debate and transform it into a story about the boogeyman. Expose these charlatan tactics.

Dan Skolnik, Esq., Portland