Berkeley Daily Planet
Thursday, Sept. 5, 2002
Page 4
FORUM

Not On My Show
by Frank Moore, Berkeley

To the Editor:

I was reading your Tuesday front page story about the ACLU warning to the City Council that the proposed ordinance censoring our public access channel is unconstitutional. My mind was blown, but not by what the ACLU said. The ordinance is clearly unconstitutional. How only a few complaining people are the cause of all of this hullabaloo is troubling.

Although the fact that just two people actually complained to BTV about the two targeted shows puts the issue in a frame; it is giving the complaining people the power to limit free speech, which this ordinance does, that is unacceptable. But being the producer/host of the targeted Unlimited Possibilities and the sponsor of the targeted Susan Block Show, I knew how bad this ordinance is.

What blew my mind is what Councilmember Betty Olds says in the article. It wasn't her admitting that "protecting the children" is just an excuse to get rid of shows she doesn't like. She has been quite up front about this.

But my mind was blown when she made this outrageous statement: "When they bring a camera close to a women's crotch and try to insert a disabled man's penis into a vagina - if you don't call that bad taste, I don't know what is."

Wow! Disabled people making love is "bad taste"!? To get how offensive this statement is, substitute "black" or "gay" for "disabled" in her quote. She actually said that in Berkeley, with our large active sexy disabled community. It just shows how out of touch she is with the Berkeley community values.

And Olds must have a very active imagination. I've racked my brain. But I can't remember such a scene in my show. Sure. I'm a disabled man. Sure. There is human eroticism on my show. But what Olds describes hasn't been on my show. And as far as I know, I've been the only noticeably disabled male appearing on Block's show. Enough to say, I haven't penetrated on BTV. Only in Olds' imagination. But I do plan to show for people such as Olds, the beautiful documentary by the famous Canadian film maker Linda Feesey about people with cerebral palsy as sexual beings.

Frank Moore,
Berkeley

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