"Jane, You Ignorant Slut"*

* The title was taken from an old Saturday Night Live routine involving Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd.  It was structured like the "Point, Counterpoint" interchange between Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick of 60 Minutes.  Curtin would do her routine, following which Aykroyd would give his response.  He always began "Jane, you ignorant slut."


Letter to the Editor from Jerome Hurtak, Biscayne Times, October, 2014:

The Grave Matter of My Conscience

In Elliot Pilshaw’s letter, under the headline “Genteel Homophobia in Miami Shores” (September 2014), he asked who called Mayor Herta Holly to convince her to vote against the resolution in favor of gay marriage.

Mr. Pilshaw, I for one called. I called Mayor Holly, Councilman Hunt Davis, and Councilman Jim McCoy because I am opposed to changing marriage to include homosexual relationships.

I believe that human sexuality is life-affirming and sacred because its natural object is the creation of human life. That is why human sexuality must be treated with respect and dignity by officially sanctioning it within a life commitment called marriage.

It is also the reason why my faith teaches that marriage is not just a contract, it is a sacrament. A homosexual relationship denies the natural object of human sexuality and therefore is neither life-affirming nor natural.

The sanctity of marriage has been accepted for thousands of years across cultures and religions. Marriage was not created by a government, wise man, or religion. It is an institution that existed before governments, and would exist if there were no governments. It has existed despite governmental persecution and humanity’s worst inclinations. It is not a scheme to obtain a government benefit.

The same cannot be said for homosexual marriage. Historically, homosexual marriage never existed as an institution -- even in cultures that accepted and supported homosexuality. Even today, when every media outlet bangs a relentless drumbeat in favor of homosexual marriage, it has lost whenever the issue was on the ballot -- even in liberal states. Homosexual marriage is a political artifice that has been and will be used to attack and silence anyone who believes homosexuality to be intrinsically sinful.

Because the proponents of homosexual marriage can’t win at the ballot box, they have to try and force it on the public with the help of poorly informed and in some cases prejudiced judges. And as part of their strategy, they use municipalities like Miami Shores to puff up their stature and indirectly influence judges by passing resolutions supporting homosexual marriage.

For about the past 15 years, proponents of gay rights have run candidates in Miami Shores. Financed, supported, and selected by outside organizations like SAVE Dade, they run campaigns, never mentioning their intent to push for resolutions supporting gay-rights causes except to their own gay-rights organizations.

Then, once they are in office, they wait for an opportune time, like the middle of summer, when many of our residents are out of town, and with minimal publicity they try to sneak through their resolution. Their primary interest is pushing their gay-rights agenda.

Vice Mayor Jesse Walters and Councilwoman Ivonne Ledesma have demonstrated that they place their gay-rights agenda ahead of the interests of our community. They use their office to further their gay-rights agenda, and God help anyone who gets in their way.

They will happily destroy the Mayor’s Ball, a fundraiser that supports dozens of community organizations, because they didn’t get their way on a nonbinding gay-marriage resolution that has nothing to do with the business of Miami Shores.

They disrespect the right of Shores residents to speak their conscience by labeling anyone who disagrees with them an “extremist” and guilty of “hate speech.”

To Mr. Pilshaw, Mr. Walters, and Ms. Ledesma I say: You are dividing and damaging this community with your political games and accusatory rhetoric. I ask you, when did it become hate speech to say that marriage and the creation of life are sacred?

To my Shores neighbors, I say it is time to stop the divisiveness. Tell the village council to stop playing politics. Tell them to attend to Miami Shores business and nothing more.

Tell council members that it is not appropriate to use their office to pass resolutions representing community support for causes that are not within their jurisdiction and which they don’t know are supported by the community, especially on issues that are a grave matter of conscience for many of our citizens.

Jerome Hurtak
Miami Shores

My letter in reply, sent to the BT:

Mr Hurtak,

I don't believe in "god."  I do, however, believe in marriage.  And whether I believed in "god" or not, I would believe that people should be allowed to marry each other, because that's the commitment they want to make to each other.  Even if they didn't want to have children, and even if they couldn't. Because I don't believe in "god," or the idea that the purpose of marriage is procreation, I also don't expect people who are married to crank out as many children as they can, to satisfy some imagined species-promoting aim.

Further, I believe that what I believe is none of your business, and it should not control or even influence your behavior.  You don't even need to know what I believe.  The fact that I don't believe in "god" should not mean that you can't go to church, and it certainly doesn't mean that I insist that you have a secular wedding, because the pronouncements of religious clerics don't count.  (How could they count?  They're made in the name of something that doesn't exist.) 

As you can probably well imagine, I also believe that what you believe is none of my business, either, and it should not control or even influence my behavior.  Not only do I not need to know what you believe, I'm happier not knowing.

And you're quite right to mention what "[your] faith teaches."  That's exactly what it is: your faith.  It isn't my faith, and it isn't the faith of a lot of other people.  Have you ever heard anyone say "It's a free country?"  It is for you, and it is for the rest of us.

So discuss your feelings about homosexuality with your religious friends.  Don't spew them in the Biscayne Times.  Your religious friends are interested to hear them.  The rest of us are not.

I am not, by the way, a homosexual person myself.  Not that that's any of your business, either.

I do agree with you, however, about one other thing: the non-binding Resolution had "nothing to do with the business of Miami Shores."  It had only to do with the mutual respect and decency of the people who live there.

                                                                                                                                               Fred Jonas

                                                                                                                                          Biscayne Park