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Why Cutchins Can't Read

Claire Rumore and Charles Johnson, Auburn, AL

Malcolm Cutchins just won't let the Southern Girls Convention go. His recent column in this space complained about the comments supporting SGC. Apparently, he has never read anything we wrote, or for that matter anything our opponents wrote, including himself.

From his Aug. 22 column:

Neither of these published items criticized individuals. They both raised questions about the wisdom of the funding sources and about incongruities inherent in choosing such a name.

In contrast, the criticisms mostly used ad hominem tactics that all too often are typical when any criticism of the gay or lesbian lifestyle appears

...

My major point still stands – that for probably 90-plus percent of Southern girls ... their choice is to marry a member of the opposite sex and build a heterosexual marriage.

Yet here is a personal attack from Mike Fellows on July 26: Most of the program advertised as pro-woman was actually tainted with extreme lesbian militantism [sic].

And here is Cutchins himself: Those who are pushing the trans-gender lifestyle, gender-free bathrooms, reduction of the age-of-consent, and same-sex unions of varying sorts have little history of nation-building success. Just the opposite; such ideas usually are part of a nation's downhill slide.

(Notice the not-so-subtle insinuation that homosexuals are pedophiles. In reality, the vast majority of child sexual abuse is committed by straight men against young girls, and it was radical feminists in the 1980s who first drew attention to the problem of incest.)

Finally, here is Becky Robertson of Alabama Eagle Forum, on Aug. 9: Where were the people with brains at the Southern Girls Convention?

On the other hand, our published letter on Aug. 9 directly addressed the representation of lesbian and non-lesbian women at SGC:

Not all of SGC's participants were lesbians, and we dealt with issues affecting women of all sexual orientations. Not many people in Auburn would oppose the workshops we held on Internet Literacy, Screen Printing, Healing After the Assault, or Organizing for Women's Human Rights. Our critics have focused in on select few workshops because it's easy to play on anti-lesbian bigotry.

Nevertheless, we don't hesitate to defend the inclusion of lesbians and LGBT issues in our convention. Women and girls across the South come from all different sexual orientations: straight, lesbian, bisexual, asexual. Many of the Southern women who attended the convention were lesbians and we dealt with bigotry against lesbian women, because we have pledged to work for all women in the South, not just those that fit right-wing notions of what women's sexuality should be like.

And our column on July 27 dealt with University funding and where it went:

These funds are used to sponsor speakers from every perspective. Speakers on campus have included Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, UFO expert Michael Lindeman and former CIA Director William Colby. This time, the money paid the honorarium and transportation costs for our keynote speaker. Food, housing, printing costs and everything else were covered by participants.

These substantive points in our defense have been ignored rather than answered. From the start, Cutchins and other right-wing critics treated SGC and its participants with derision and misrepresentation. They just don't get it: the real problem facing feminists in the South is not condemnation, but silence and isolation. SGC was intended to help break that isolation, and we win again every time they hand us free publicity and the chance to defend SGC in community forums. Thank you, Malcolm, for handing us another victory.

Claire Rumore and Charles Johnson are student activists for Auburn Women's Organization, and helped organize the third annual Southern Girls Convention in Auburn.