News clips: Royal Bank of Scotland - Father Bruce Ritter - Suicide in Sissy Boys

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From Chicago's Outlines
A Scottish gay youth group was denied an account at The Royal Bank of Scotland. A bank manager told the young fags and dykes that the group "could be in breach of the law" and that the bank could be aiding and abetting an under-age person who has taken part in an illegal act. After threat of boycotts, the bank reversed its stand, claiming that the opinions were of an individual employee and certainly did not represent bank policy. [...]

Ritter's reprieve
It seems that anti-porn and anti-man/boy love crusader Father Bruce Ritter, who was booted out of Covenant House last year amidst allegations of - you guessed it - sex with boys, is off the civil-suit hook. A judge has thrown out a suit by a 31-year-old man who claimed that the Good Hypocritical, Self-Repressed Father allegedly made sexual advances to him when he was 14 and a resident of Ritter's Covenant House shelter for street kids. Ritter denies the events occurred. The judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on the charge, and that that should affect the status of the civil suit. I can only applaud the judge's sense, but only wish that the good fortune could have accrued to someone more deserving than that holier-than-thou ped. Ritter, by the way, has gone off to India to work with a Catholic order. No word whether he will be tending young 'uns.

Suicide in Sissy Boys
The June, 1991 issue of Pediatrics reports that boys with effeminate mannerisms who had homosexual experiences at an early age were most likely to attempt suicide. The study's lead researcher, Gary Remafedi, says the findings suggest that the earlier a boy acknowledges his homosexuality, the more likely he is to be unable to cope with it. (Could it be, perhaps, that the younger the boy, the harder it is for parents, teachers, and peers - not the boy himself - to accept and cope with it?) "They're very isolated socially and cognitively, and they don't have a lot of information or role models." says Liz Houeseman, director of Chicago's Horizons Community Youth Services. Liz doubtless has a graduate degree in social work for gobbledygook phrases like "cognitive isolation" to run out of her mouth.

The Chicago gay paper Windy City Times says (June 13, 1991) that the study's release has renewed calls from gay and lesbian organizations for more programs to help queer youth embrace their sexuality. As of yet, NAMBLA has not gotten any of those calls. Robert Bray of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force says that "immediate government intervention" is needed, including funding for such organizations as Horizons.

Of course, no one is suggesting that youth actually be integrated into the gay community; all the lesbian and gay political establishment seems to fight for is more money for the very few gay groups in big cities that support youth services. These programs attract such a miniscule number of the nation's gay youth as to be completely inadequate in addressing the problems the study illustrates. Boy-lovers, by contrast, are everywhere.

source: 'News Clips'; Nambla Bulletin, vol. 12, no. 7; September 1991