Response from EPIC (to me)

[erastes]

I've had a response from EPIC - not in response to my two emails to the Chairperson, but from a former President, Brenna Lyons who seems to have been told of my dissent, rather than having read my emails or seen my posts.  I'll post both her letter and my response to it.

Erastes,

You know me from ERWA, I'm sure. I don't know what was said on what list. All I know is that you somehow got the mistaken idea that EPIC is bigoted against GLBT romance. If you'd give me a moment and some patience, I'd like to explain what we're dealing with here.

First of all, we have a separate GLBT category, as many contests do, BECAUSE the GLBT writing community asked us for one. For two years in a row, authors of M/M and F/F romance asked us to make a separate GLBT category, because none of us (myself included, as I was fielding complaints from judges and from author entrants both) felt the books were getting a fair judging in the romance categories. Now, before you blame EPIC for that, we were doing everything we could to ensure they would get a fair judging (asking for content information from authors and content nits from judges and so forth then avoiding giving GLBT to judges who expressed concern about it), but there is only so much we can do, and the current pool of judges weren't helping us mainstream them. The REQUEST to create a GLBT category seemed like a good one to grant. At the time we created the category, the authors who'd asked for it were happy with that, and I've only seen two complaints about it since then (averaging one complaint a year...not too bad, considering our track record).

Do I believe GLBT romance is romance? You know I do. I've even written in the subgenre. Can I get enough judges to accept it to ENSURE a fair judging to those who enter it in non-erotic romance categories? Maybe not at this time, and my first concern is a fair judging for all books entered. I CAN get enough judges to accept GBLT content, all the way around, to compete all GLBT non-erotic together and GLBT erotic either in GLBT or in erotic categories (as the author chooses to enter them), since erotic romance and erotica judges are more open to GLBT content. I can tell you that the vast majority of GLBT entered in the GLBT category (based on last year's numbers) is romance.

In short, we are doing what entrants requested of us, and I'm not entirely certain who is painting EPIC as bigoted for it and why. I would embrace any discussion you'd like to have about this, because I really do want to understand why you are upset. The consensus when we added a GLBT category was that the authors of the books wanted it. The category was well-populated last year. So, you'll have to excuse my confusion with attacks now.

Nothing in EPPIE is considered a permanent move (save the fact that it's a peer-judged professional award and every category must be able to support itself). If we have enough requests to change something and the ability to do so without sacrificing the integrity of the award and the assurances of an unbiased judging we work so hard to maintain, we do. Since we couldn't assure an unbiased judging (due to our pool of judges and NOT to the feelings of the committee on the matter), we took this step, and it's worked well so far. In fact, the committee was so upset at not being able to resolve this any other way that we didn't make the GLBT category the first year the entrants requested it.

Brenna

Hi Brenna,

Thank you for responding.  I understand that you are responding to my public comments, and not to my TWO emails to the Chairwoman?  I don't know why my letters have been ignored, or my concerns not addressed.

I'm not the only one voicing these concerns, that's for sure - Lee Rowan has given a public statement which she copied onto her Livejournal but of course I don't have access to the yahoo group to see the "debate" that I've been told is happening there.  The only answer I've seen up to now was the Chairperson's reply to Pat Brown in which she said rather infamously "some of my best friends are gay" - which has caused no little consternation as you can imagine.

Ms MacLeod didn't mention to Ms Brown that anyone had asked the categories to be separated in the way you suggest. I'm surprised that she didn't use this excuse because that might have stayed my hand in making some of the comments I did. 

What she said was:   "We fully embrace the difference in romantic liaisons. We have a category, GLBT, for same sex romance and other books within those genres. We are looking into adding a GLBT Romance category next year because we realize that we need a split between general GLBT books and their romantic counterparts."

Her attitude is one that I took exception to, because she kept on about how she knew that GLBT people were "different" and that the romantic liaisons between GLBTs were different to those romantic liaisons of heterosexuals--but it did explain EPICs segregation when no other literary award I could find was doing so.

Do I believe GLBT romance is romance?

What I most objected to was the definition of contemporary Romance - couched in almost identical terms that the RWA attempted to do a year back - which caused so much furore that they were forced to change it away from "romance is defined as being between a man a woman"  This is their new definition.

"According to the Romance Writers of America, the main plot of a romance novel must revolve around the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship together. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain  subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters' romantic love. Furthermore, a romance novel must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." (WIKIPEDIA)

There is simply no place to put a gay romance in the EPPIES unless it's "lumped together" in the GBLT category where it has to compete with every other gay book, literature, slipstream, sci-fi, historical, god knows what.

You say that "many other contests" segregate in this way.  Which ones specifically?  Not the RITAS, not the Hugos, not the Edgars, not the IPPYS, not the Pulitzer, not the Booker, not the Whitbread, not the Locus, - so ... which?  Granted the IPPY(for one) has a gay category, but gay books can be entered into any other category which makes sense. A gay novel about spacemen would be better suited in the sci-fi category rather than in the GBLT which is usually just for ordinary gay fiction.

In fact, as far as I can see the only contests that even mention things like gender, race or sexual orientation are those designed to give awards honouring books by or about those genders or sexual orientations such as the Stonewalls, the Lambdas... oh - and EPIC.

These aren't "attacks" Brenna, they are concerns that romance as a genre that seems to be taking a step back into fundamentalism and that the church goers who read romance want to keep GLBT at arms length in case it's catching or something.  As I say, i wrote twice to the Chairwoman and she didn't reply, so I decided to let others know what I thought. 

That being said, it's the definitions are what people are objecting to the most. And if you follow a flowchart method to try and place a gay historical romance you end up in only one "Bin" -  the GLBT one. If I were to presumptuously place it in historical romance (where it belongs) I would automatically get a penalty - which would then lead to the unjust judging that you mention several times.

First EPIC says that "contemporary romance" is defined as "one central, monogamous, romantic relationship between a man and woman"

Ok  - so my gay romance can't go there. It's not erotica, so I can't put it there.It  can't go in historical, because only heterosexual romance is welcome there. So there's nowhere else for it.

I would - perhaps a year or so back - say "have mirror categories" for GLBT but that would be daft and unwieldy.

What I don't really understand is why you say GLBT romance are not getting a fair judging in the same category as hetero-romance.  If you have readers for all of the genres, then Ms A is judging the Het books and Ms B is judging the GLBT books.  I'm assuming they use the same marking sheet no matter which book they read - ticking boxes for plot, characterization etc - so why, if Ms B is comfortable reading GLBT book, would the GLBT book get a less than fair judging?

 I'm not entirely certain who is painting EPIC as bigoted for it and why.

That's surprising as I know that Lee Rowan has posted on the EPIC list which has caused her being called narrow minded as far as I hear (not having access). I rather think that if you have some judges who only wish to read het books, surely its her prerogative to only wish to read GLBT books. So that's one person who uses the term bigotry - and several people have posted about this matter on Livejournal and wordpress and many authors agree with them. I have many responses on my two posts on the matter.

Nothing in EPPIE is considered a permanent move

Good. I hope that you decide to mirror the professional award sites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_literary_awards

and stop being discriminatory and creating - as Gehayi called it - a Lavendar Ghetto.

(save the fact that it's a peer-judged professional award and every category must be able to support itself).

If the categories were open to all comers, that wouldn't be a problem at all.

If we have enough requests to change something and the ability to do so without sacrificing the integrity of the award and the assurances of an unbiased judging we work so hard to maintain, we do. Since we couldn't assure an unbiased judging (due to our pool of judges and NOT to the feelings of the committee on the matter),

Again - I really don't understand this logistical position.
 

we took this step, and it's worked well so far. In fact, the committee was so upset at not being able to resolve this any other way that we didn't make the GLBT category the first year the entrants requested it.

Well, when it comes down to it - I'm not an EPIC member, I don't have a vote and I'm only one person . I'm quite sure that were you to have a vote of members they would agree to keep matters the way they are, but perhaps they think, as you seem to, that most  award ceremonies work in this way.  However, as you can see - they don't.  I was sorry to have to withdraw my services as a judge (as my second email to Madam Chairperson stated) but - like Lee, I can't encourage segregation of this - or any - type.

Yours sincerely

Erastes

Comments

[marquesate.livejournal.com]

A very well worded and well reasoned reply. Congratulations.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I worried it was a bit rambly. :)

[marquesate.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm not good at judging that, because I am the Queen of Ramblings, so I would never notice anyone else rambling.

[pepperlandgirl4.livejournal.com]

I like your response. Unfortunately, her excuse is one I've seen over and over from various members of EPIC. And they think it's a perfectly reasonable excuse, but it comes down to making sure people with homophobia (vague to extreme) don't get the vapors because of tey ghey. If a person writes GLBT, due to the way they run things, that person will not judge GLBT. In fact, the people judging GLBT are probably either non-romance readers or the sweet romance writers! And knowing what I know about the membership--that it skews older--I don't see the sweet romance writers enjoying GLBT. On the other hand--and it seems clear to me--there's an easy way to fix this. If I want to judge this year (and for various reasons despite my feelings I probably will) I cannot judge GLBT, or pretty much any of the erotic categories (we are submitting a LOT of books). But I like GLBT! So that means I would not object to reading GLBT in a "romance" category. I think you're right. If the EPPIEs were open to all submissions, the problem would work itself out.

Um, that seemed like a long way to go to get to "I agree."

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

They could do what the Lambdas do, and give awards in the same categories divided by persuasion - m/m, f/f, m/f. It's a great deal like a dog show with breed categories. (Best In Show and Best Opposite could be fun, too.)

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

The downside is that now they've got one person fewer to judge GLBT.

I'm sure the catch-22 that pepperlandgirl describes wasn't deliberate, but it's a dilemma created by the category. And if writers refrain from entering in order to be eligible to judge the glbt category, the number of entries goes down so it looks like there's no interest.

It's a pity they decided to go with the religionist definition.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

And if writers refrain from entering in order to be eligible to judge the glbt category, the number of entries goes down so it looks like there's no interest.

I agree, a big part of this is a numbers problem. I remember seeing that EPIC has about 700 members, which really isn't all that many for this sort of thing. They're drawing on a shallow pool, and the various kinds of divisions and restrictions are making it harder to get the numbers they need.

It'd be nice if they could revamp the whole thing -- not this year but, say, next year -- and rework the various genre cats to include everyone, but at the same time they'd need some assurance that enough people interested in GBLT fiction would volunteer to judge that they could be sure of filling out the judging roster properly. I think the Eppie issues are fixable, but both sides would have to take several steps forward at the same time. Having each side give a tiny bit at a time, turn and turn about, would drag this on for many years, and I imagine most of the GBLT writing community would have given up in disgust long before any solution was achieved.

Angie

[stacia-seaman.livejournal.com]

I think part of what I find so objectionable is the idea that GLBT works will be more fairly judged in a catch-all GLBT category. To me, that shows a problem with their judging. If your judges can't be impartial about GLBT content, what other biases are creeping into their judging? And why institutionalize one of them but not the rest?

I agree with you about the IPPYs. I know of at least one publisher who has had multiple finalists in the genre categories (romance, erotica) because they didn't want to define their work by the sexual orientation of the main characters. I'm trying to think of another instance where the subgenre trumps the genre when it comes to award categories, and so far I've got nothing.

I think that's actually my biggest problem with this: rather than accepting LGBT as a subgenre of genres of fiction (which would require categories like contemporary romance, historical romance, GLBT romance, etc.) they've taken that subgenre and created a category for EVERY book in EVERY genre that falls into that subgenre, and that to me is not a workable solution. It makes things harder, not easier, for the judges. Yes, they all have one thing in common (they don't "object" to GLBT content--and amn't I grateful for that (eyeroll)--but do they have sufficient knowledge of the various genres (contemporary romance, historical romance, horror, fantasy, western, etc.) to judge all the entries fairly?

I'm also thinking about telling them I can't judge the GLBT category based on that aspect alone. It's like judging best in show in a dog show: the entries aren't competing against each other, because they can't--they're all too different. Instead, they're competing against the breed standard, and that means very few people are going to be able to do a decent job of judging them.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

I think it's a shame she didn't give any numbers, because that would probably have made the situation much more clear.

If they only have, say, eight people who are eager to judge GBLT books (and would therefore probably do a good, unbiased job of it), then I can see how they'd be reluctant allow GBLT fiction into a dozen categories; the only judges they could count on to do well with the GBLT entries would be incredibly overworked and very likely not to volunteer the following year.

And I think she's right in that the biases and bigotries of the volunteers aren't something the organization can control. It sucks, yes, but it sounds like they barely have enough volunteer judges to do the job as it is, so tossing out all the bigots would leave them unable to run the awards at all. I can understand them choosing the lesser of two evils, and being reluctant to change the category definitions in a way which would make the situation worse.

Of course, all this is based on the numbers I pulled out of the air up above. Maybe their situation is that bad and maybe it's not; I don't know, and I'm not quite willing to give them unconditional support and sympathy so long as I don't know exactly how much of a bind they're in.

I do agree with you, though, that part of the problem would unwind on its own if the categories were more inclusive, so that GBLT writers could both enter books and judge, just in different categories. If most of the GBLT books end up piled up in that one category, though, then writers have to decide to enter or judge and there's no really good outcome for the contest in that situation, either way.

I rather think that if you have some judges who only wish to read het books, surely its her prerogative to only wish to read GLBT books.

If the organization is all fine with het writers and readers turning up their noses at GBLT entries, but is allowing Lee Rowan to be snarked at for not wanting to read het entries, then that's pretty outrageous. :/ It's one thing if a few idiots were sniping on a forum, but one of their mods should have stepped in, even if other forum members did not. Did anyone intervene? Anyone official?

Angie

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

My only direct knowledge on assignment of books is what happened when I judged last year: I specifically said I was willing to read glbt (I had entries in glbt and erotic historical; therefore I could have read glbt erotic paranormal, contemp, etc.) Instead, I was sent 7 het historicals. Not complaining, three were very good (I think one won its category) two were so erotic that I did dock 'em for being in the wrong place, and the other two were forgettable. But I was a little surprised that with all the talk of being unable to find enough judges for glbt, I didn't see any m/m work at all.

I don't dislike well-written het romance; I love most of Georgette Heyer's stuff, for instance. But that 1M/1W definition... sorry, my wife and I were married by a Unitarian Universalist minister, and I think that comes under the "what God has joined together" category. I can't change that narrow religionist language but I can mirror the behavior, and I can't help it if they don't like what they see.

[jessewave.livejournal.com]

Excellent letter Erastes - on point as always.

I guess not being a writer I didn't "get" that if there was only 1 category that every GLBT book was lumped into, that the field of GLBT judges would pretty well be depleted if writers could not judge the category because of conflict of interest concerns. I'm assuming also that because there are countless het categories that there is no issue in terms of having sufficient judges for each category. It seems to me that if this issue can't be resolved expeditiously (and it doesn't seem that it's going to be) is there any possibility of setting up an organization like EPIC just for GLBT authors or conversely, have the GLBT authors in EPIC withdraw from the organization and set up their own show with other GLBT authors. Kind of long winded but I hope my point was clear. This way you would have two mirror groups looking after their own interests and managing their own awards because clearly EPIC does not represent GLBT authors, or at least does not have their best interests at heart. Why pay dues to an organization that discriminates against you?

Your response to Brenna

[valkovalin.livejournal.com]

Well stated. I'm glad you're pursuing this.

open response 1

[brennalyons2.livejournal.com]

I'm going to hit a bunch of responses at once, since there are a lot of things that need addressed here, not just in your post. Saves me time.

First of all, what I said isn't an EXCUSE. An excuse would imply that the EPPIE committee doesn't want change to occur and is trying to justify itself.. On the contrary, if ANY of what has been said on the EPIC lists or in the second e-mail to Erastes had been posted here, you'd have more information and the fact that I'm all FOR change, and the committee is open to it.

In fact, much of what you see as the problem here occurred because of the historical evolution of EPPIE, over the last five years. In short...we're doing our best to make this workable for everyone, and we really need input...CONSTRUCTIVE ideas to overcome the problems we've had historically with integrating GLBT into the categories.

In point of fact, all three of the current EPIC members who have voiced concerns over the last couple of days have been invited to join the EPPIE committee for next year to help us come to an amicable resolution to this concern. Not that the committee has ever been closed! It's always been open, but we can only work with the input people willingly submit to us and the time they commit to us, since it's an all-volunteer organization. So far, one has expressed an interest in becoming part of the committee.

Whether or not they join the committee, any EPIC member knows what the proper way to address change to the EPPIE is, and this is not it. Sorry, but the only reason I saw this discussion is because my name was all over it, and it popped up in Google Alerts.

The proper way to affect EPPIE change is to speak to the committee chair (who is NOT Carol MacLeod, for those interested...it's Debi Sullivan) AFTER the close of an EPPIE year, so it can be added to the docket of prospective changes for next year. Once EPPIE opens, there is never the possibility of changes for that year. I might note that we did post the category definitions, which did NOT change from last year, as far as GLBT and romance are concerned, more than a month and a half ago, and no one raised this concern then, when we MIGHT have had a chance of doing something for this year.

BUT, there are things you need to know.

We created the GLBT category at the request of GLBT authors (the second year running that they asked for it). We didn't just wake up and decide to make the category.

They requested it, because even with the judging forms and the book entry forms set UP to avoid the non-GLBT reader getting GLBT content, which we'd hoped would ensure an even playing field, the authors asking for the change didn't believe that was happening and asked for a separate category. To be honest, as a coordinator, I didn't think it was happening either, based on judges who didn't note a concern and then complained...rolling eyes. When they asked, I agreed that it MIGHT be the best solution, at least temporarily, if not permanently.

NOTHING in EPPIE is considered permanent, save the fact that it's a professionally-judged award and must be able to support its categories independently.

MOST entries in GLBT last year were romance-based or erotic romance based. Were we to remove romance GLBT into another category, the rest of the entries might not float a category alone.

open response 2

[brennalyons2.livejournal.com]

If we placed GLBT books back into the categories (which isn't out of the question), we'd face the same problems we did before, with all likelihood. Now, we could go one step further and ask specifically about willingness to judge GLBT content, separate from genres, but we'd have to have first round judges who are willing to judge GLBT in each individual category (which I'm not sure we'd get) and final round judges willing and able to judge both GLBT and any other type of romance that comes up (sweet, inspirational overtones, sensual) or non-romance non-GLBT and the GLBT entries both in non-romance categories... Yes, that wide a range. If you can't judge the full range in final round, you're of no use to us for such a disparate category, no better than comparing the odd non-romance GLBT that enters to the romance ones.

And, I'll note that GLBT is not the only category that has this problem. You might as well know that anytime we can't float separate categories, we have something like this happen. We're not "picking on" GLBT here. Mystery, Suspense, and Horror romance plays together. Historical and Western have to play together, from straight genre on up. Anthologies are (for the first time) given a full 3 categories to compete every genre of fiction and non-fiction there is (romance and erotic of all types together, non-romance/erotic and non-fiction), IF they can support those categories. If not, all anthologies will play together, as they have in the past...talk about apples and oranges, but it's the lesser of the two evils we've attempted. ALL of them...every genre, competing against each other. That's not an excuse either. It's the fact of life. We can't support categories without the numbers to do it.

GBLT last year was at the hairy edge of a split, the numbers we look for that indicate there might be a split possible that will support itself in both directions. If it has entry numbers similar to last year, next year we could certainly consider it. (Hey...it took us a full 5 years to get erotic from no categories to the six we have now.)

Someone wanted numbers...Angie, I think.

Lee, I don't know what happened to your request to do GLBT judging last year, but you weren't on the list of judges sent to me as GLBT coordinator. Maybe the other category you signed up for was hurting worse than mine was, and mine was hurting, as it was. It's possible. My alternate judges had offered more than one category.

Back to the subject... I started out with a list of 17 judges willing to handle GLBT books, adding up to 134 judging slots. Thanks to the very specific demands of certain judges and variance judgings (which we've found a way to avoid this year, but at the cost of adding more first round judges to begin with), I had to add on another 5 alternate judges from the main list (judges who'd judged in other categories then agreed to take on more than their initial offer of books and went to the GLBT side of what they'd agreed to judge, because I was in dire need) and got up to a total of 146 judging slots for first round only and another two judges and 18 slots for final round. If we had the same number of entries in GLBT this year (ZERO category growth), I'd need 192 first-round judging slots and at least 27 judges at an average of 7 books each, willing to judge GLBT alone...plus those same final round judges. Even with inviting outside judges, we may not get that many judges willing to take GLBT. I'll do my darnedest to convince people, but I'm at the mercy of people willing to take on some reading and judging for the EPPIE.

Further number to note... Lee, you should know, if you've paid attention to projections and EPPIE cost analysis on list, we don't have enough entries to justify a M/F, M/M and F/F EPPIE in the same category (in every romance category), but beyond that... Of 64 entered books in GLBT last year, only 3 of them were F/F books. That doesn't come even CLOSE to floating a category in EPPIE.

open response 3

[brennalyons2.livejournal.com]

Angie, I love you. I mean that. That's what I keep saying. We do want to change, but both directions we've tried so far have drawn fire from different factions, all notably GLBT authors.

Now, we have started making changes that might help. We are open to judges outside EPIC for the first time this year. We are trying to fill as many slots as we can with EPIC members first, but non-members are welcome as judges, as long as they are professionals (published authors (p or e), agents, editors, publishers, etc.). We may have 700 members, but if you know the rule of organizations, you get 10% or less of the membership doing all the work. For EPPIE, we get more than 10% EPIC members judging, but we certainly don't get 700. We don't even get 400 of the membership to judge, I'm sure. I wish we did.

FWIW, of course GLBT authors are welcome to judge GLBT, as long as they don't have an entry there that particular year. That makes people like me great GLBT judges. Next year, I may not be able to judge (since I hope my print M/M will be coming in e-book by then), but I offer to every year I'm not entered there. And, I can honestly say is HIGHLY unlikely that inspi romance authors are judging GLBT books. We don't force anyone into categories they don't offer to do. Even when as judge offers and then asks to switch, we accommodate, because an unwilling judge is worse than none.

Also, the IPPY is NOT as welcoming as you might think. Having entered last year, I was told by their "powers that be" that I couldn't enter my GLBT erotic romance anthology in anthology, because it was erotic and GLBT. So, one person's experience does not a rule make.

If Lee said she wasn't willing to read het, the committee would have no problem with that. To my knowledge, she never did, but if it was done privately, I wouldn't know. Heck, I scanned the first couple chapters of every GLBT book, categorized them and pandered to people saying they would only read F/F or only read M/M or only read... If it got me judges... Every slot counts.

As for the animosity on list, yes... A halt was called. The correct procedure was explained. But, I kept out of the recrimination phase, since it is not a good idea for anyone who is on either side of the issue to be part of the umpiring of it. I left that to Carol and only answered the pertinent underlying questions, as I could. No longer my job.

and to Erastes' comment

[brennalyons2.livejournal.com]

I had no choice but to go in blind and ask you what your concerns were.

To my knowledge, Debi hasn't received a single e-mail from you about this situation, save your offer to judge and subsequent withdrawal from judging. From your e-mail to me, I ASSUME you sent your e-mails to Carol (erroneously believing she was still EPPIE chair this year), in which case, they simply haven't filtered down yet.

The first indication I had of a problem in your corner of the world was the withdrawal from judging. I haven't SEEN any other correspondence to address, and if it was sent straight to someone else, there's no saying I ever will...only if Carol and/or Debi chooses to bring them to the committee, as a whole.

I'm not president anymore, so problems don't get forwarded to me, as an ad hoc member of every committee. I'm not EPPIE chair. I am an EPPIE committee member, but not every e-mail goes to the full committee mid-contest. Only those that need immediate attention for the current contest do. Often, the committee sees a letter for the first time when the planning phase for the next year happens.

Ah...the corporate structure.

Brenna

Re: open response 2

[emilyveinglory.livejournal.com]

If more judges are needed tapping past judges would seem to be an option. I remain available.

Re: open response 2

[brennalyons2.livejournal.com]

The door is open, Emily. You are more than welcome. Even former EPIC members who are no longer members are welcome to judge, since we have opened to outside judges who are still industry professionals this year. If you're interested, please go to the EPIC site and fill out the judging form from the link on the main page.

Thanks for the offer and it's great hearing from you!
Brenna

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[bobhopkins.livejournal.com]

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[melspenser.livejournal.com]

As I've mentioned before in blogs, comments, etc... The EPIC group seems conservative in general. Well, at least those that clutter the chat with topics about "offensive language" and "other distastful things." Plus, those same folks tend to dogpile, or ridicule anyone who doesn't agree.

Then they say, regarding the categories, "Well, no one else is complaining." I guess most people aren't into public humiliation. I've stopped reading the posts because they piss me off, and it's like beating your head against a wall. They can pat themselves on the back, happy in their conservative utopia, blissfully thinking that everyone agrees with them.

My membeship runs until like next Spring. Unless something changes, they will be less one LGBT writer.