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Boy Love convention is protested

Boy Love Convention is protested

By Walter F. Naedele
Inquirer Staff Writer

A male homosexual organization that supports sexual relations between men and boys held its annual national meeting in Philadelphia over the weekend, despite opposition from a local coalition of youth-protection, feminist and homosexual groups.

The North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which was founded in Boston in 1978 and has a nationwide membership of only 600, was concerned about the opposition because it feared violence, not from these groups, but from anti-homosexuals.

There is a triple whammy against [the organization], Thomas Reeves, a national spokesman for Boy Love, said in a telephone interview last week. It’s homosexual, it’s about teenagers, and it’s about sex.

The coalition opposing the Philadelphia meeting, Reeves said, was simply inviting crazy people to come and attack us physically.

But a Boy Love spokesman yesterday afternoon said there had been no incidents during the two-day meeting, which attracted about 50 people to the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Center City.

Fairly secret

The meeting was fairly secret, closed to the public and unknown to some key figures in the Philadelphia homosexual community,

But sources have made documents available to The Inquirer that indicate that the Boy Love gathering outraged many both inside and outside the homosexual community.

The coalition members contend, among other things, that the Boy Love organization:

• Exploits children and adolescents, because youngsters are incapable of adequately understanding the sexual intentions of adults.

• Fulfills the worst fears of the nonhomosexual community that homosexuals are a threat to children.

• May trigger a police witch hunt against the homosexual community here.

The most outspoken representatives from the eight coalition groups are from CALM Inc. (Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers), with offices in Narberth; the Feminist Therapy Collective at 2132 Lombard St.; and Voyage House, which calls itself the state’s first shelter for runaway and homeless youths, at 311 S. Juniper St.

Several homosexual groups in Philadelphia did not join the protest.

The activists were angered at the leadership of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center for helping Boy Love find a location for what Boy Love called its national membership conference.

A Boy Love invitation circulated within the local homosexual community and addressed to interested groups & individuals in Philadelphia said the conference was for members & friends only. The public is not invited and there will be no media.

That did not lessen the anger of the opposition.

Coalition protests

On Oct. 3, at the annual board meeting of the Community Center, the coalition protested the center’s involvement in the convention, sources said. The center elected not to withdraw its cooperation with the convention. Instead, it reissued a months-old statement that it must provide a forum for the discussion of controversial issues and that this should in no way be construed as an endorsement of any particular group or point of view.

At the Oct. 3 session, a Boy Love official reportedly assured the protesters in writing that no underage youngsters would be sexually solicited at the weekend convention.

That echoed the assertion of Boy Love spokesman Reeves that we do not allow men and boys to mix in our meetings. We have scrupulously avoided those things to operate entirely within the letter of the law.

But Boy Love was founded, he added, to support men and boys who are in relations with one another, including sexual relationships. We are opposed to sexual abuse, to violence, to coercion, to prostitution, to child pornography.

Though sexual contact with youngsters below the age of consent is illegal, he said Boy Love supports such contact as well as elimination of all such laws, which vary from state to state. In Pennsylvania, for instance, sexual contact with those age 13 or under can lead to charges of rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse; sexual contact with those age 17 and under can lead to charges of corruption of the morals of a minor.

In Boston, a spokesman for Roxbury Community College confirmed that Reeves was an assistant professor in social sciences, had been there since 1976 and was on leave this year.

16-year-old spokesman

At the weekend meeting, the person elected to replace Reeves as one of three national spokesmen was William Andriette, 16, of Levittown, N.Y., a high school student in that Long Island community.

Noting that he is under the age of consent in New York state, Andriette said last night: I don’t anticipate any problem from school or police officials there.

The protest against the Boy Love convention began last month, following announcement of the convention on Philadelphia radio station WXPN (88.9 FM).

In a Sept. 16 letter to the Community Center, Rosalie G. Davies, a lawyer speaking for the board of directors of Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers, wrote that helping Boy Love set up …its national convention in October… [is]anti-woman, anti-child and anti-gay.

In a Sept. 21 letter to the center, Roberta L. Hacker, executive director for Voyage House, wrote that through its affiliation with NAMBLA, the center will support the stereotyping of lesbians and gay men as child molesters.

In a Sept. 24 letter to the center, Tacie L. Vergara of the Feminist Therapy Collective wrote that Boy Love members participate in sexual oppression by condoning the use of boy lovers to fulfill their out-of-control sexual appetites in inbalanced power relationships. The letter was written on behalf of the National Association of Social Workers, Women’s Issues Task Force of Pennsylvania.

To some Philadelphia homosexuals, the Boy Love meeting was a surprise.

Mark Segal, publisher of the biweekly newspaper Philadelphia Gay News, has been the most visible spokesman for the homosexual community here for a decade. A week before the convention, Segal said he was not aware of it or the controversy. But he was aware of Boy Love. Of all the groups inside the gay community, Segal said, even among homosexuals NAMBLA would probably be one of the least popular.

I think it’s definitely out of sync with other homosexual groups, he said. I don’t understand the organization at all. I really can’t comprehend it.

Homosexuals shun Boy Love, Segal said, because it strikes at the utmost fears of parents — that is, that homosexuals are a threat to children. In addition, he questioned the way in which Boy Love members related to youngsters.

I would think most people would like to relate to other people on their own wavelength, on the basis of shared intelligence and experience, he said. Segal said that sexual relationships between adults and youngsters, as advocated by Boy Love, lacked such sharing because of those incredible age differences.

The Gay News publisher said he believed that this held true no matter what your sexuality is. Yet Segal said he would support a Boy Love convention because I’m against any form of censorship.

So are some others.

A founder of Gay Fathers of Greater Philadelphia, who asked that his name not be used, said in an interview that the mainstream of the gay community supports this meeting. Gay Fathers, he said, is composed mostly of formerly married men who have now declared their homosexuality.

Inquirer staff writer Carol Horner also contributed to this article.

NAMBLA's Letter to the Editor

Fair coverage

To the editor:

The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) thanks The Inquirer for its fair coverage of the controversy surrounding the membership conference we recently held in Philadelphia (Boy Love convention is protested, Oct. 11).

But some clarifications are in order. Though the conference itself was closed to the press and public, NAMBLA co-sponsored a public forum on sexual freedom at the Philadelphia Ethical Society on Oct. 10 to discuss the issues raised by man-boy love. And the association concerns itself with a great deal more than men who have consensual sex with boys. NAMBLA works to give youths a say in all aspects of their adult-dominated lives.

Despite the controversy preceding our conference, the support we received from the community for our right to gather was gratifying.

WILLIAM ANDRIETTE

North American Man/Boy Love Association

New York.