Oral Arguments

WHEN ASKED, SOCIAL conservatives insist they're disturbed by the presence of gay publications on the local newsstand. But, like pornographic magazines, they seem to read them religiously. In a memorandum sent to Minnesota legislators on January 14, Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, references the January issue of Q Monthly to support his contention that repealing the state's sodomy law is a top priority of "homosexual lobbying groups in Minnesota."

After comparing the practice to incest, bestiality, and statutory rape, he then wonders why the Minnesota AIDS Project, whose mission it is to reduce the impact of HIV and AIDS in Minnesota, would use taxpayer dollars to promote a sexual practice that "is one of the primary ways of spreading this disease." What Prichard fails to acknowledge is that oral and anal sex will be an issue this session only because the Non-Felony Enforcement Advisory Committee, a bipartisan commission established by the Legislature in 1993 to review all nonfelony criminal statutes, has already recommended the omission of outdated laws concerning fornication, adultery, and sodomy.

That conservatives such as Prichard would try to turn sodomy into a gay/straight, conservative/liberal divide comes as no surprise to MAP's policy director, Bob Tracy. By sexualizing (read: demonizing) the gay agenda, conservative advocacy groups hope to politicize the need for increased funding to battle STDs and the implementation of the 1997 HIV Awareness and Prevention Act--two of MAP's top priorities for the '98 session. "Tom Prichard doesn't understand HIV," Tracy says. "Every fact on HIV he has, he has consistently misconstrued and misinterpreted to serve his anti-homosexual agenda." Tracy also points out that those in favor of keeping sodomy on the books are the same people who, as long as it's illegal, will argue against public education concerning the practice; which is why the state Commissioner's HIV-STD Prevention Task Force supports the repeal of sodomy laws. "This isn't about public health, this is about what the Right needs to do in order to organize and make money," Tracy says.