letters

Off Our Backs, Jul/Aug 2004

fighting the good fight

Dear oob:

I was so pleased to see your publication in the most current issue of Ms. that I bought today. The last issue I found anywhere was when I read an announcement that you were ceasing publication. I frequently found you in Borders Books but not for the past few months. Hopefully, this means that you are back to stay.

I have been reading oob for so many years that when I read you were ceasing publication, it truly felt like an end of an era. I remember the late 60s in Cambridge, Mass., fighting to get a women's center off the ground, the extraordinary number of intelligent, more underground papers of that era that spoke to everyone and then you-speaking to us, the women of the world.

Please keep fighting the good fight that you always have. In the very near future, my employment situation will be improving significantly and you are on the top of my list to support financially. I wish I could do that today but I am not able at this time. But soon, I will rectify that.

Thank you for always speaking the truth, especially when it is not that popular or pretty.

Maryellen Churnick

a call to action

Dear oob:

I write to you from the Eskalera Karakola (Women1 s Social Center in Madrid) to inform you of our present situation and request your help.

As many of you already know, for over a year the Karakola has been promoting the purchase (or expropriation), restoration and cession of the historic building we occupy in order to be able to continue with the many activities and projects which this building houses (introduction at http://www.sindominio.net/karakola/ english_intro.htm). This campaign has led to endless meetings with representatives of the city administration and a spectrum of promises, but to date has borne no firm results.

Now, the situation has changed. The ownership of this building abandoned to ruins for 20 years has been consolidated and is beginning to move. We were supposed to be taken to trial on the 6th of May, but we managed to reach a provisional agreement with the owners on the basis of our common interest in a purchase by the city government. We are now waiting, negotiating, pressuring that is to say, the situation is extremely delicate and the survival and continuation of the project of the Eskalera Karafcola depends upon the public visibility we can generate now. (For those interested in the full story, http://www.sindominio.net/karakola/english/ SOSletter.htm).

This is where you enter the picture. We propose a few things:

1)A telephone campaign. To make the city feel the support the Karakola enjoys from all over the world, we ask all of you, as organizations or as individuals, to call:

a. Sigfrido Herraez (President of the Municipal Housing Company): (0034)91 588 33 80

b. Pilar Martinez (Head of the Department of Urban Planning): (0034) 91 588 36 44

Insisting upon the importance of the Karakola and the urgent need to seek a solution to the situation.

2) A petition. We request that you sign the letter of support for the project, as individuals or as organizations (this letter can now be signed online): www.sindominio.net/karakola/english/adhesion_eng.htm.>3) Maximum visibility. We are currently seeking the explicit support of people with public visibility: in the press, art, culture, politics, university, etc. If you have any contacts please spread the word and let us know.

4) Personal statements. This Friday we will hold a press conference and thought it would be nice to read a few personal statements from our supporters outside of Madrid. If you would like to write a few lines about why social spaces for women are important, please do!

More information on the Eskalera Karakola, its projects and its history, is available on the web page: www. sindominio.net/karakola.

Please spread the word. And thank you very much for your commitment and cooperation.

a Eskalera Karakola

marriage equality: not the end of tradition

Dear oob:

The anti-gay traditionalists are plotting to create a historical amendment to our United States' Constitution-one that would betray our nation's values by limiting individual freedom instead of expanding it. I refer to the proposal to forbid same-sex marriage. In the current political and social climate, the idea of maintaining marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman does hold sway among many people who don't consider themselves right-wingers. Look around, you surely see some people at work, in church, among your family, in school-people whose company you enjoy but who feel threatened by the notion of two women in wedded bliss. What's the deal?

The biggest threat to opposite-sex marriages seems to arise from the individuals within those generally ill-fated unions. No lesbian wife-rustlers are on the prowl; no gay thugs are plotting to sell straight grooms on the black market to men eager to wed them. No, whatever trouble the institution of marriage is in, it got there without the help of queers. What, then, about marriage equality so thoroughly terrifies the privileged heterosexuals of the world? It all comes down to gender and sexism.