Women's Focus; Women's Focus; Anti-Obscenity Bill; Part 2

Just as of the reverse opinion, but the thing that I've, and pointing out is that quite often the legislature acts, in the hope that we can improve some situation. During the last session I carried the governor's DWI bill. We made the laws a lot tougher on DWI. We don't know for a fact that there will be fewer drunken drivers with tougher DWI laws, but we can hope that it will have an impact, and there will be fewer DWIs. Fewer people killed because of drunken drivers, injured, property damage, etc. And that's my sense with this bill. We're not going beyond with this bill, but the Supreme Court will support. And it is quite possible that we will improve family life. We will reduce to a degree child abuse, abuse of women. And so I think that it is worth action on the part of the legislature to make that effort. How do you expect this to improve family life?

It's been indicated, in fact, we had a couple of women appear before the task force this summer. In fact, one woman, it was very distressing for her, but she believed quite clearly that because of her husband's viewing of these airbrushed, composite females in these magazines, that she was having to compete with something or someone she could not compete with. And she believed very deeply that the quality of her sex life with her husband had deteriorated. And there was more than one person that came with that idea, so that this pornography, even soft core, which we're not attempting to regulate, in fact, had an impact on their family life. And that woman could have told her husband to get it out of the house. I mean, I guess my problem with this bill is that Ms. Thompson seems to have good motives to do this, but I don't want Ms. Thompson, or a police officer, or any of the legislators up in my bedroom.

And that's what this does, especially with the sexual aid part of this bill. They come into the bedroom and tell us what we can and cannot do. They say, we can have pornography in our bedroom, but we can't buy it. We can have sex ways in our bedroom, but we can't acquire them. And it is a gross infringement on people's right to do what they want in the privacy of their own bedroom. No, well, you keep talking about the Supreme Court, both of you do. And in regard to what you just said, Ms. McGinn, I want to ask you, wasn't there a case about two years ago in Georgia? I think I can't remember the name of it, Hardwick. I think it had to do with a gay male couple who was engaged in some activity, and the police came in, busted this guy, went all the way to the Supreme Court, Supreme Court said, no, you're not protected. Now, he hasn't the Supreme Court already made certain rulings that make certain behavior, et cetera, like that. One would consider private. I mean, even with the whole thing with Roe v. Wade, the threat of that being overturned, that's wrong, aren't those invasions that the Supreme Court is already upholding that it's

okay to regulate certain behavior? And I think the Supreme Court is wrong in those decisions. And it is a very conservative court. The rulings over the last ten years have been to limit these kind of things, but that is not what the framers of the Bill of Rights intended. They intended to have a free flow of ideas rather than limiting that. And because the Supreme Court, and I think, as you know, that the decision in Georgia came down probably because these people were homosexuals and some people, I believe including the members of the Supreme Court, felt that was deviant behavior, and inappropriately so. And that's my concern with this kind of bill, is that a community in New Mexico who feels that homosexuality is wrong may target and go after homosexuals and films and movies and things that show homosexual behavior and get rid of all of that and target and focus a certain group because their community feels it's wrong. And that's a real problem.

I think the idea of the framers of the Constitution knowing that there could be color photographs and videotapes that would depict the kinds of things that we have available now, that they could have envisioned that those things were going to be available or a foot or moving through our communities. There's no psychic, wonderful enough back then to have even, if someone had suggested that, they thought they were crazy. So I think saying that the framers of the Constitution didn't speak to this issue is not logical in this instance because I think they could know, they could not begin to envision what would be movies, et cetera, what would be out. Back then you had to have drawn a picture of something, it's pretty hard to draw a picture like the videotapes that we've got now. Well, I've seen art, some of the art from the 18th century and it's pretty titillating stuff, especially when you consider the times and also, it is, it's 200 years ago and you have a situation where slavery was acceptable.

Most of the framers of our Constitution own slaves are so-called founding fathers, women were nowhere to be found among that. How does that interface at the 20th century? Well, I really can't react to that. I only think that when you, some of these things, for example, people, what's going on in our prison system today and the things that we have to provide relative to the Duran consent decree, when the framers said no cruel and unusual punishment, they were talking about flogging into the square and being put in people in stocks. So I think you have to be aware of the time that these people lived and what was going on at that time to process some of the words that they used. But also, think about it this way, let me be devil's advocate for a minute here, and we didn't have airplanes then, we didn't have federal aviation administration either. I mean, there were a lot of things that could not be considered at that time just because

technological advances were different, but wasn't the human psyche basically the same? I mean, the reproductive urge, the erotic urges that a human being has, it doesn't seem that we would have a population we do now if there wasn't this element to our psyche all throughout our existence. I'm just saying that the impact of a movie or a video, or these kind of pictures that we can have now, is not the same. I don't think you can equate those drawings that you're referring to that were titillating to some of the hardcore, violent, obscene things that we have now. I think there's a real difference between those two. I think it's kind of apples and oranges. Except that in Ben Franklin's time, and I picked Ben Franklin as a particular example who frequented many body houses both in France and here. They had live sex acts, they had all the kinds of things that are trying to be prohibited by this bill.

It wasn't just drawings. In fact, there were places you could go to watch those kinds of things. Pornography was there then, and it's here now, and the urges are the same. Well, haven't we grown up a little by then? By now? We have the vote, blacks and Indians have the vote. All our people of color in this country, hopefully, by now have the vote and are exercising it. We don't have, at least, official apartheid in this country anymore. I mean, haven't we grown up a little and has, in our consciousness, expanded a bit more that we maybe we can consider, how are we going to deal with morality and acceptable standards of morality? I don't think anybody should legislate what is an acceptable standard of morality. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, that we should not be legislating what is moral, because you get five people in a room, and they're all going to have different views on what is moral and what is not. We're going to be running out of time very shortly, so I'm going to ask each of you for maybe a closing statement of some kind.

Well, I sure appreciate this opportunity. There's a great deal of confusion, I think, about this bill. And I think we've made it very clear that what we're doing is constitutional. That concern's been raised a lot about people relative to this bill. And I hope that folks will avail themselves of the opportunity to come to the legislature. Here's a debate, react to their representatives and senators on their opinions about this bill. Because it is a big step for the state, I think a positive one but a big step, and the public should have input. So I thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for being with us. Ready me again? Yeah. My point is that we shouldn't attack the First Amendment because there's something we don't like. There are many alternatives to this particular bill. One significant alternative is to have civil proceedings rather than criminal sanctions. That is, that if someone thought something was obscene, they could bring a civil action, and that would not be a prior restraint. But then the courts could determine an advance if that was obscene, and then could put an

injunction against it. That's the least restrictive means if you want to do something about this, not filing criminal charges against somebody. And I would urge people to go to the legislature as well to find out what the legislature's trying to do to your own right and to make sure you're entitled and keep your right to view what you want to view and do what you want to do in your own bedroom. I want to thank Representative Mary Thompson from Las Cruces, who is the sponsor of House Bill 118 now in front of the state legislature, otherwise known as the anti obscenity bill. She's been with us this morning discussing her bill with Randy McGinn, who is a former prosecutor and now in private practice with criminal defense. Thank you both very much for being here and have a good drive back to Santa Fe, Ms. Thompson. It's not snowy, so it's not snowy, so okay. Thank you both very much. We're tuned to listen our supported KUNM 90.1 FM Albuquerque. This is women's focus for Saturday, January 28th. And we're going to keep going and just a few minutes we'll have our book review and guest

commentary and arts calendar and all kinds of things. First, this message. Hello, I am Chris Garcia, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of New Mexico. The bylaws recently adopted by the Board of Regents concerning KUNM include the constituting of a radio board. The Board will help ensure that KUNM is operated according to the region's goals. The Board will consist of students, faculty and staff at the university, plus five community members. Three of these five community board members are to be elected by KUNM listeners. If you wish to be considered for the board and will be able to play an active role in it, including attendee monthly meetings, please submit your name by February 17th, along with a statement of interest and a short biography totally no more than 75 words. This will be published along with a ballot in the next edition of our monthly program guide. After we have a list of interested persons, we will proceed through an election process to elect three members. Please send your name, interest statement and biography by February 17th to nominations, KUNM, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 8-7131.

Thank you. And one last thing I would like to also extend my thanks to Macrossan for her assistance in preparing this program today, you're tuned to Women's Focus here on KUNM 90.1 FM Albuquerque. Here's some music from Mary Lou Williams. You can call it Temptation. Thank you. .

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . In the course of her examination of herself, she, a Jewish woman, chose to go to Palestine to the refugee camps, to talk to the women there to find out about their connections with terrorism and what she found out is like women everywhere, their most intimate relationship with terrorists was the terrorists they live with. The terror they felt every day, every moment from the men who made their lives unsafe, not the flinging of the bombs, but the beating with hands. What does it mean to your politics if you find out that Gandhi beat his wife?

What does it say about his politics? What is this love affair we have with violence? The demon lover by Robin Morgan will help us understand it. For women's focus, this is Mary Morrell. Just a note, Robin Morgan will be in Albuquerque on March 13th and I'll give you more details on that as I get them. Unfortunately, we won't have a film review today because our scheduled guest for this spot has taken ill, but tune in next week when Helene Van will review Mississippi burning. Our commentary for today is from Velia Silva, who was a longtime community activist. She is president of the New Mexico Progressive Political Action Committee. Silva was a candidate for the Bernalillo County Commission in last June's primary election. The following does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the regions of the University of New Mexico

or of the staff or management of KUNM FM. One of my favorite Chilean poets, Victor Hara, articulated his observations of our country by writing of his people been gunned down by the Pinot series gene and seizing to exist. Yet they continue to fight for their right to remain both physically and spiritually present. Victor felt that we in the U.S. had suffered a spiritual death, that we had allowed a dichotomy to develop, a dichotomy which further wedged our emotions and our reality further and further apart, until Victor saw us as a spiritually beaten people, the walking dead. Victor Hara was executed by the Pinot series gene because of his powerful written thoughts. In these times of economic hardship, I reflect upon Victor's wisdom and presence. How can it be that we have allowed millions upon millions of our nation's children to go

hungry, cold, beaten and abused? Six out of ten of our elderly have been cast aside, barely subsisting. Much is not right as we enter 1989. Most of a destabilized economy plummeting into a recession will only intensify the suffering of an already vulnerable portion of our society, people of color, children and the elderly. What will happen to this growing population here in New Mexico? Even though New Mexico has the highest percentage of people of color in the nation, we have never seen a commitment to deal with the special needs of people of color. Other states with a much lower percentage of people of color have made a real commitment by establishing commissions on Hispanic affairs, commissions on minority affairs, etc. People of color are barely present in our institutions that make a difference, institutions

such as the University of New Mexico. One only needs to look at the faculty with tenure to notice the absence of people of color. A student population reflects the same attitude. You look out into the job market in the larger society and the same pattern exist and one can go on and on and look at the different parts of our world. This is sad to me because I feel that people of color have so much to offer and so I look at a challenge that is presented to us, a challenge that I feel will make a difference in our lifetime. I feel that we have been conditioned to believe that our happiness as a society is external, that pleasure lies in how many material things we can accumulate. Christmas, for example, has become a time to express that contorted love, buying give things.

I encourage us to break with that twisted contortion and begin to look inward. My belief is that the more we become aware of our internal emotional selves, that only then can we direct what we know and what we feel in a conscious manner. Only then can we become more human. In addressing these issues, I believe that we are now in the final frontier in our search for our humanity. For women's focus, this is Velia Silva. If you have an opposing opinion or would like to be featured on this portion of the program, write to women's focus commentary, care of KUNM FM, Onyate Hall, campus and Gerard North East, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 8-7-1-3-1. And for the women's calendar for Saturday, January 28, 1989.

The New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women is seeking statewide nominations for the 4th Annual Governor's Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women and Women's Hall of Fame. There are no categories or strict criteria, all nominations are welcome and will be accepted until April 1, 1989. For information, contact the commission at 8-4-1-4-668 or write to 5-0-0-6 copper Northeast, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8-7-1-0-8. The commission holds a weekly support group for displaced homemakers. The group meets every Tuesday in the commission's conference room from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m. A group targeted for those who speak only Spanish meets at the East Central Multi-Service Center at 75-25 Zoony Southeast. Call the commission for details that number is 8-4-1-4-662. You can call the commission on toll free at 1-800-432-9168. The University of New Mexico Faculty and Professional Women's Association, the Women's Center and Women's Studies Program are proud to announce the 6th Annual Colloquium for Research

on Women. March 8th through March 10th on the UNM campus. The call for proposals has been made in the deadline as February 1st. That's this Wednesday. Keynote speaker for this year's event will be Monika Moyer, a Mexican artist and founder of the feminist group Polvo de Gallina Negra. For more information, contact Dr. Pam Olson at the College of Education here at UNM. UNM Women's Center offers a number of workshops and support groups for women. Among those coming up in February are Stress Management for Women's Realities, Beginning February 23rd, Assertiveness Training, Beginning February 24th, and Begin on March 23rd. Testing anxiety, good one for students. There's going to be five individual sessions, Beginning February 7th, and a workshop on Code Dependency and how to break that routine that's beginning on February 2nd. There are others too, I'll be letting you know about them as soon as they come up. You need to register for these workshops at least one week in advance. For more information call the Women's Center at 277-3716 from 8 to 5. The center also sponsors an ongoing anorexia nervosa and bulimia self-help group on Wednesdays

and a disabled lesbian support group twice monthly. Also a student alcohol education series will be held beginning Tuesday, February 7th and that number again 277-3716. And to celebrate Black History Month, the African American Student Center will be holding a national teleconference this Wednesday, February 1st. If you'd like to participate or know more about it, please call the African American Student Center at 277-564-4 for more information. 20th contingent of events that I most brigade will be traveling to Cuba for the 30th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. If you'd like to be part of the brigade this year, contact the Peace and Justice Education Project at 144 Harvard, Southeast here in Albuquerque, 87-106. In honor of the UNM Centennial celebration, the College of Nursing at UNM has organized a series of three free informative seminars for the community. Lectures are held at the Continuing Education Building 1634 University Avenue, Northeast here in Albuquerque.

In Saturday, February 11th, that's coming up in two weeks, the topic will be osteoporosis, take charge, and stand tall. The lecture will begin at 10 a.m., if you'd like more information, call 277-0859 during business hours during the week. And in the arts, you can enjoy an evening with some of Albuquerque's finest entertainment tonight at the second annual Yubik Sound Review. I think this is really worth the admission fee because you're going to get bands like Bayus Seco, Bonnie, and the Boomerangs, that's Bonnie Bloom. Amiga Sisu Grupo Ritmo, the normed Everett Band, Animal Opera, and the premier performance of two new bands performed from now in memory only, the Broadway Elks. So time to support a local production company producing local music for all of us, and these folks Yubik Sound and Manurettanja are diehard supporters of KU&M, and have given us a lot of help in the past. So I thought I'd let you know about that. That's tonight at the L-Ray Theater, 7th and Central Southwest here in Albuquerque, beginning at 8 a.m. And speaking of Amiga Sisu Grupo Ritmo, they've got a new album link because set out, which you can hear tonight.

You can also catch Amiga's at El Madrid on 1st Street in downtown Albuquerque on the 17th and 18th of February. And tomorrow, also at the L-Ray, even more hot entertainment at a benefit concert for homeless families. It's a sponsored by the New Mexico Songwriters and Musicians Association. And dig these bands. There's a lot of bands going to be playing. It's kind of an all day affair, beginning at 3 o'clock. The bands are Saxi, Kui Kani, Dennis Soto, and Groove 66, James LaShelves, All Eyes, David and Company, Cudi Bay, Freddie Chavez Foundation, Fett City, and Shuggy, Frank Chewyley and his all-stars, George Subratti, Freddie Williams, Brown Sugar, lots of good bands, terrific cause to the homeless families of Albuquerque. So you can bring a can of food with you and an article of clothing, either one, and that's part of the admission fee with a small donation at the door. So check that out tomorrow at L-Ray Theater. Also, Jane Voss and Hoyle Osborne, whom you've heard here on occasion, will be performing in concert at the chemo theater in downtown Albuquerque, Friday, February 3rd at 8 p.m. Student and Senior Citizen Discounts are available.

For more information or to make reservations, call 877-7259. That's 877-7259. Jane and Hoyle are also planning to release a new album this spring. This Saturday, Jay Clayton and the string trio of New York will be performing at the chemo theater at 8 p.m. sponsored by New Mexico Jazz Workshop. Tickets available at Bowel Hall Records, Ticket Master at Smith's Pope Joy Hall, UNM, and in Santa Fe at Nicholas Potter Bookseller. The next Saturday, the fifth, the Rio Grande Red Hot Chili and Jazz Society will sponsor a Marty Grapp party at the Holiday Inn Pyramid here in Albuquerque. Four bands will be featured, including a guest artist from New Orleans, gig stars at three in the afternoon. So Farron will be coming here to Albuquerque in February, so we'll be letting you know more about that as we get details. So stay tuned for all that. Also, Women in Movement in New Mexico is sponsoring a Women's Valentine Dance Saturday, February 18th at La Posada in downtown Albuquerque. Last but not least, get ready for Women's Fest 89. Listen to this lineup.

Lucy Blu-Tromblay, Rianne and Linda Tillery, Cherry Moraga, Toshi Regan, and many, many others. That's coming Memorial Day weekend and we'll be letting you know lots more about that. If you'd like more information on these last two or other events involving women, call full circle books at 266-0022. If you have an event or service you would like listed on the Women's Calendar, write to Women's Focus Calendar, care of KUNM FM, Onyate Hall, campus and Gerard Northeast, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 87131. That's it for the events calendar for today. Next Saturday for Vosis Feministas, there will be a special celebration in honor of Black History Month. Your host will be Marilyn Davis. So stay tuned for that. That's going to be real good. And I also want to tell you that I'll be back in three weeks on February 18th. We're going to do a real special show. It's going to be a live Collin program. It will be Simulcast on cable channel 27, the community cable channel. So we're going to do a live Collin Simulcast. The topic will be racism in the Women's Movement, something we all need to look at.

So stay tuned for that. I'll be seeing you in three weeks. Thanks for listening. This is KUNM, 90.1 FM. Stay tuned. And just about 13 minutes, you can hear this way out. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

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