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donClark:
Ron I as a former member of the GLK government disagree with your statment that we never tried to fill positions within the government.  we did try, but at every turn we were blocked by Bill and his lakeys, anything  that we tried to do was never granted assention.  I believe that Bill never wanted the government to do anything.  I truly hope that this does not happen here, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that what ever type of government we have succeds.  I will talk with you soon, have a great day



--- Quote from: Feral on Sat, Apr 30, 2005, 19:16 ---The GLK was an interesting experiment.

"content cut"
Many people are too willing to blame the governmental model for the Gay Kingdom’s continued failure. I am not sure that this criticism is accurate. It is a constitutional monarchy to be sure, but this is not an entirely untried system, nor is it particularly antiquated. The problem with the Gay Kingdom was not that its governmental system was flawed. On the contrary, the problem was that the system was never implemented. It is a representational democracy. To this day, not one of the governmental positions that are to be filled by the parliament has been filled, and not one of the functions performed by those empty positions is being executed. If the people’s representatives will not comply with their obligations to govern, why then is it a surprise that Bill and his associates step in to fill the void?


Ron


--- End quote ---

Mogul:
Dear Ron,

you rise some very important questions, which I was also thinking not only once about. I agree, the central question is still not answered: does the GLBT community need a state on its own, and if "Yes", why?

There are many reasons to say "No". If one looks to the so-called "Western World", one will admitt that the gay emancipation has taken enormous progress and in several countries gay people can marry and adopt children. The cultural diversity within gay communities in big cities is amazing and one should be a fool to seek his hail on a desert island, be it Cato, Clipperton or some other place. It can be assumed, that in the next future the rights of gay and lesbian citizens of USA and Australia will make steps forward, despite of certain developements in the last 5 years. In the western world the situation will improve due to the political work of many NGO's like ILGA, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

On the other hand, in many countries (with the bigger part of world's population) the situation becomes even worse day by day. Many countries in Africa and Asia are increasing the measures of penalty for gay sex, indeed in Sansibar (Tansania) the usual penalty is told to be 25 years of prison, in Iran people usually are stoned to death.

Regarding these facts, and the uncertainty of the long-term future developement even in the "civilized" parts of this world, my final judgement about the necessity of a gay-lesbian state is "Yes". The history of this mankind tells us, that there are certain groups, which by some weird reasons often provoke strong negative emotions from the rest of the population, even to that extent that their lives become endangered. And, put the hand upon your heart, you will admitt that gays/lesbians belong to the said groups as well as jewish people. No matter what we do or how we act, at least 20% of our neighbours (in distant villages up to 90%) would agree that our place is in a concentration camp or at least in a clinicum. Some more percents are of a solid belief, that some electroshokes and maybe good medicaments could cure us and make us "normal".

Indeed, if we understand the GLBT community as a "nation", we can see many similarities to the jewish people. Of course, the immense grief caused to jews by the holocaust is unique and cannot be compared with our cause to full extent, but the specific nature of our peoples trouble is the same: we are hated from out of guts just because we were born as we are. No bad or good character, no good or bad deeds can change the feelings of true homophobes, they HATE us even if they are well-educated und can put on their friendly artificial smile on their face. They cannot change their feelings, as they were told during their whole life that gays are evel and belong to be EXTINGUISHED. Especially the catholic charch and the islamic theology has loaded much of the guilt on their shoulders.

I am well aware, that we would be fools to believe, we can save every or even most of our brothers and sisters in the next decades from the claws of the outraged homophobes. But if we can save some of them, maybe thousands or millions (added together over the future centuries), it is woth it. I am as well aware, that the way to a really independant state could take more than 3 or 4 decades, with a possibility of a failure. But I firmly believe, that the idea is worth it and that step by step we could manage this project. Beginning with one or more settlements, establishing functioning social and economic life and within an appropriate period of time begin to think about self-administration and de-facto independency. This is a process, which one repeatedly has met in history, namely the natural developement of any society which becomes a real nation. Vatican and Israel prove us, that a state, based on an idea, can become reality.

To catch one of your further questions: do we need a "gay government" as such? Well, the need of a government usually arises from the necessity to govern things: rise taxes, build streets, schools and hospitals, entertain police and military as well as supply the people with food, water and houses. These are things, which become important only in the case that we actually would posess a peace of land to be populated. As long as there other governments which are regulating all the matters mentioned above on a territory where someone lives, is is just grotesque to talk about a "gay government".

As at the very beginning of the "Gay Kingdom of the Coral Sea" it seemed that the leaders seriously considered to establish any, however small population on the said territory, it was absolutely legitime to talk about the "government" of the GLK. As it is absolutely clear now, that Cato is to small to be populated by anyone, and even the leaders of the GLK show not the slightest intention to move there, the idea became just a role game. A virtual "all-gay-government", especially based on anti-democratic principles, has no legitimation and saves not a single gay man or a lesbian woman from homophobic attacs and is even not able to provede them with such simple things as food, water and medicaments, should they live in a poor part of the globus.

One of the cardial mistakes of the GLK, in my eys, still remains the unclear structure of the powers. The modern world knows 3 powers: the legislative, the executive and the legislative. No matter, whether the country is a monarchy, parliamentary or a presidial republic: everywhere you will find this 3 elements. They should be segregated from eachother and there shall be a cross- control of each of them. Of course, the best laws fail, if the people on power purposefully violate the laws or are just unwilling to work together in a productive way. On contrary, the simple council of eldest can rule wise and to the best of the people, when formed of responsible and sound individuals. But, still a bad legal frame makes the violation of law much easier. One further serious problem of the GLK (and many modern democraties as well) is, that most citizens see no direct use for them, derived out of their participation. The citizens, lead by common sense, understand very well that the amont of time and health they would invest into communal service stands in no relashionship to what they get back. And if few, who are ready to serve others, get frustrated as well (because the "oligarchy" blocks their constraints), well, then of course only individuals will participate in politics, which character is usually making an disgusting impression on us.

Fortunately, if citizens recognize serious problems for their live and comforts, they tend to participate in politics very well: they go to demonstrations, write angry letters and sometimes ride the presidential palasts in order to gain their rights back. As GLK is not much more than an organization, even one without proper registration and standing somewhat outside any law, citizens do not have physical and legal possibilities to take influence and, to be fair, they even do not have real interest to participate. I am sure, though, that shall we ever establish a physical settlement somewhere, its inhabitants would be well-aware to secure their rights by loud protest and maybe violent actions against anybody, who would try to take their money and give nothing in return.

As I said on other place, the future gay state would probably have a core population of refugees from oppressing countries and an "seasonal" population of gays/lesbians from the western world. Surelly, there will be some idealists who will stay forever, but it is unlikely that many well-situated, wealthy gays from western metropols would change their living place to the said rather poor, less than developing country. Again, the example of Israel teches us, that within some decades a pretty good economical developement is possible even on a rather unfruitfull landscape.

As you probably may have noticed, the primary aim of this group is to discuss the possibilities and the sense and nonsence of such a project and find ways to make it possible, if the answer will be positive. The name of the group is currently "Free Gay and Lesbian Republic", but it is for certain that no one pretends us to be a state or a "government in exil". We rather understand us as a back-ground supporting organization, and if the said settlement should ever become a reality, the people themselve would form their representations and administrativ institutions. For sure, some of us would join the said settlement, but the organization as such has no intention to govern or rule anyone. That's why we are carefull to make elaborate by-laws for this assotiation, and that's why we understand us just as the founding members. Once things will become official, the rules are clear and everyone will have the usual rights of any full member, including the right to be kicked out of his office, if he/she does not suit the majority of members anymore. The organization as such will survive and flourish independently from the particular persons in charge.

I hope that heated emotions, arising from recent developement within the GLK will cool down and we turn our efforts to our primary issue, the analysis of the need and possibilities of creation of a gay and lesbian self-administrated territory. Thank you very much for your contribution, hopefully a vivid discussion will follow.

Warm hugs, Vicky

Feral:
The GLK was an interesting experiment. In my view, it has clearly failed, but that does not lessen its value as an experiment. Experiments that succeed only tell you that you are correct in what you think you know. Experiments that fail are much more useful: they show you what you do not know. A failed experiment is not a reason to quit, it is a reason to conduct another experiment, but not before some reasoned research on why the previous experiment failed.

Many people are too willing to blame the governmental model for the Gay Kingdom’s continued failure. I am not sure that this criticism is accurate. It is a constitutional monarchy to be sure, but this is not an entirely untried system, nor is it particularly antiquated. Australia has been served by this form of government for all of its history. It does not surprise me that a group of Australians setting up a new government would copy something familiar to them. A group of Americans doing the same would surely copy large sections of the US constitution (if not the entire document). Since the US system has served the American people reasonably well for many years, there is every reason to presume that it would also work well if transplanted elsewhere. I believe, however, that if an American system had been chosen the end results would have been very much the same.

The problem with the Gay Kingdom was not that its governmental system was flawed. On the contrary, the problem was that the system was never implemented. It is a representational democracy. To this day, not one of the governmental positions that are to be filled by the parliament has been filled, and not one of the functions performed by those empty positions is being executed. If the people’s representatives will not comply with their obligations to govern, why then is it a surprise that Bill and his associates step in to fill the void?

I suspect in the instance of the Gay Kingdom the people as a whole (not any one person or any group of persons, but all of them) did not understand the governmental system they were to be participating in. I also think the people in that kingdom do not understand the uses and functions of a government in the first place. There is a difference between a government and an organization, but this difference (which seems very clear to me) seems to be quite blurred in lmany people's imaginations. Most importantly, I do not believe that the people in that group have any idea about why they are there.

I think we must step back several paces. We can argue for many years over how we should be governed. Once a government is decided upon, we shall no doubt argue for many more years over whether the correct choice has been made. The more pressing question at the moment seems to be if we shall be governed. For what purpose do the Gay people seek self-determination? What is the point of this exercise? To many it may seem that the answers to these questions are obvious, so obvious that they do not merit discussion. Still, I have gained the impression that these obvious answers are quite different depending on who you talk to. If three cooks decide to bake a cake, but one of them thinks a ‘cake’ involves wrapping a pastry crust around roast beef, there will be problems.

Ron

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