Posted on 01/10/2005 9:11:06 AM PST by Ellesu
Professor says bill would force department to repeat productions:
To Stephen Tyler Davis, the monologue of character Paul in "A Chorus Line" was pivotal.
Davis - an aspiring actor, playwright and director from Huntsville - played the character in a UA theater department production of the play last fall, and he said he wanted to convey it perfectly. In the monologue, Paul discusses the sexual abuse he endured as a child and his homosexuality.
"It was just a real part of a person," said Davis, a UA sophomore majoring in theater. "It was a lot on my shoulders, and I wanted to communicate that.
"But with this bill, it completely squeezes the art of it."
Davis is among those in the theater department worried about a House bill prefiled by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, for next month's legislative session that would prohibit the use of public funds for activities that "sanction, recognize, foster or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of the state."
HB30, if it were to become law, would prohibit use of public facilities for performances of plays with gay characters, such as "A Chorus Line," in addition to works by gay authors such as Oscar Wilde. Books written by gay authors or books that have gay characters, as well as textbooks referencing homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle, would also be banned from state-funded schools and libraries.
Peder Melhuse, a UA associate theater professor, said he has little fear the bill will ever become law. But "if it did go through, I would certainly go out of my way to choose and vote for [productions] that went right in the face of the law," he said.
According to HB30, public employees convicted of defying the ban would face the penalties of a Class A misdemeanor under state criminal code: a maximum $2,000 fine and at most a one-year jail sentence.
Melhuse said the bill's broad ban would severely limit theater department productions, and not just plays with overtly gay themes, characters or authors, he said, but those that deal with topics like AIDS as well.
"We would be down to repeating the same family-oriented play each year," Melhuse said. "We would probably have to repeat [a play] at least once or twice each year."
The bill asserts that the ban is not a prior restraint on speech prohibited under the First Amendment. According to HB30, the bill "shall apply only to state agencies, public schools, public libraries and public colleges and universities in the use of public funds and public facilities."
HB30 also provides that its sections can be severed so that if one part of the bill were to be declared unconstitutional, others would not be affected. It also references state laws making sodomy and "sexual misconduct" illegal.
In its June 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a Texas law criminalizing private, consensual gay sex unconstitutional. The court found that individuals' private sexual decisions were protected under the 14th Amendment's due process clause.
Efforts to reach Allen last week were unsuccessful, but in a statement released last month he defends the bill as fiscally responsible and touted it as a counter effort to those who have tried to remove religious activities and symbols in publicly funded schools and buildings.
"My argument is the same," Allen said in the statement. "Plays glamorizing homosexuality, books advocating gay and lesbian activities, public financial support for activities organized by homosexuals have created an undue influence on the children in our schools."
Allen also says in the statement that nationwide efforts to ban gay marriage, which he has spearheaded in Alabama, would be futile "unless [the state] stops supporting programs that encourage homosexuality."
Davis said that while the bill helps him lose hope in Alabama, he said he believes a large part of the state is fighting against the ban.
"I think that a lot of the state really appreciates art," he said. "They really appreciate theater and novels. People read."
But if the bill becomes law, Davis said he thinks it would undercut the reason he came to the Capstone: to absorb an unlimited, diverse collection of knowledge.
"I would definitely be appalled and wouldn't go to school here anymore - or in this state," Davis said. "But let's hope it doesn't come to that."
From what I gather, what Allen wants to cut public funding from is not any reference to homosexuality (and the "cross dressing" in Shakespeare isn't exactly like the kind of "cross dressing" promoted by homosexuals), but literature/texts and so on that actively promote it. Propaganda and cultural depravity.
And why should the tax dollars of the citizens of AL (and all of ours, as it may include fed dollars as well) fund "gay" crap that we and they don't want to fund?
The gov't spends way, way, way too much money anyway.
And if the public libraries are closed, so much the better. Let there be private libraries - people can pay a little to rent books, or so much a year, and people and organizations can donate money and books. Librarians are almost of them leftist ideologues anyway, and fight like the devil for the right of children to see porn on library computers.
Yup. Mass is losing population, especially families. Real ones. And tax payers. Let the rest of them ferment in their own bile.
But, as you say, poor kids.
Public libraries are not what I would consider pork spending. Porn on library computers is a side issue that's easily dealt with. The loss of public libraries would be devestating to many kids and a complete break from an ages old great American tradition. Fundamental disagreement there.
I assume it is homosexual activists that term HB30 the "Gay book ban" bill? I think you are overreacting -anything unjust etcetera will be open to review, challenge and voter scrutiny... I favor stomping out homosexual agenda a high priority....
Porn on libraries is not easily dealt with; quite the contrary. THere's been threads about it on FR several times. Leftist librarians defend the right of people to view porn on library computers to the death.
There are small towns that have local private libraries funded privately and quite cheap, could have sliding rates for low income. That way there's local control.
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