| NV parent | riled over college newspaper A GRAPHIC full page ‘“‘gay man’s guide to erotic Pete oe safer sex’? published last week in the student news- paper at Douglas College has raised the ire of a North Vancouver parent and his daughter who is enrolled at the New Westminster-based institution. By Surj Rattan News Reporter The article was originally writ- ten by two students at Memorial University in Halifax and first appeared in that university’s stu- dent newspaper, the Muse. It con- tains explicit language and in- cludes a graphic portraying two men engaged in a sexual act. The article also includes a “heterosexual questionnaire’’ that asks such questions as ‘‘what do you think caused your heterosex- uality?”, and ‘‘if you've never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?”’ The article has appeared in other university student newspa- pers, including those at the Uni- versity of B.C. and Simon Fraser University. Police have laid por- + nography-reiated charges against the Muse. But Capilano College’s student newspaper, the Capilano Courier, which is a member of Canadian University Press, the national network that distributed the gay man’s guide to erotic safer sex, has decided not to print the arti- cle. Published in the March 14 edi- tion of the Other Press, the news- paper funded by Douglas College students, the article begins with a warning that states: ‘‘These guidelines contain explicit lan- guage. If you can’t cope with real- ity, don’t read on.”’ But a North Vancouver man, who has a daughter enrolled at Douglas College, said student newspapers funded by students should not be printing such sex- ually-graphic articles. The man, who asked not to be identified because he feared his daughter would be the target of harassment from gay rights groups, said he believes informa- tion should be made available to all people about how to avoid the AIDS disease, but that it should be done responsibly. He added that his daughter became upset when she first saw the article in the Other Press. “*We’re very open-minded peo- ple, but my daughter took excep- tion to this. | think it’s imperative that information be made avail- able to adults, but allowing this kind of illustration is not neces- sary,’* he said. **We don't need this graphic garbage going out to See Paper page & es Index Gl Automotives ........ 19 @@ Classified Ads ....... 26 @ Ecolnfo............ 17 MB Home & Garden..... 13 BM Paul St. Pierre ...... 9 # What's Going On....418 Weather Saturday, mostly cloudy with showers, Sunday mostly sunny. Highs of 10°C, lows near 2°C. Second Class Registration Number 3385 Friday, March 22, 1991 - North Snore News - 3 NEWS photo Cindy Goodm: A LATE afternoon visit to the end of the pier at John Lawson Park in West Vancouver. Boards confront condom issue W. Van District will hold N. Van District sets date in May for public hearing INSTALLING CON- DOM machines in the washrooms of North Vancouver’s public sec- ondary schools will be the subject of a Tuesday, May 7 public meeting. By Patrick Raynard Contributing Writer Individuals and groups who wish to speak their mind on the controversial issue will be given five minutes each to present their opinions, the North Van- couver District 44 School Board decided March 12. The meeting will be held at the William E. Lucas Continu- ing Education Centre at 810 West 2ist St. and will begin at 7:30 p.m. Individuals or groups wishing to make a presentation must have registered with the school board office at 721 Chesterfield by Friday, April {9 at 4 p.m. and must also submit the full written text of their presentations to the same office by that date. The written texts will be needed by trustees, each of whom will receive a photocopy in advance of the May 7 public meeting, so they can prepare questions they may ask the various presenters. Each person or group mak- ing a presentation will have to be prepared to answer up to five minutes of questions from individual trustees. Board chairman Marg Jessup said Tuesday that the meeting would not be allowed to run past 10 p.m. as ‘“‘two and a half hours is as much as any- one can concentrate.’” Trustce Don Bell told the meeting that “the quality of the arguments will be more important than the number of speakers on any given side.”’ Jessup suggested that indi- viduals, rather than speaking on their own, would be better served if they joined forces with one or other of the various groups that have form- ed on both sides of the con- NORTH VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD 2 TRUSTEE DON BELL... qual- ity of arguments will deter- mine nature of meeting. doms-in-schools issue. The 2%-hour meeting limit means that the school board will be able to schedule no more than approximately 15 presentations, because each one will require a 16-minute slot consisting of five minutes max- imum for the speech and five minutes for questions from trustees. Jessup emphasized that no unscheduled presentations will be accepted ‘from the floor’ on the evening of May 7. The date of the school board’s final vote on the con- doms issue has not yet been decided. Before making their decision, trustees will also con- sider the recommendations of the board’s Learning and Liv- ing Advisory Committee, whose report is due on March 25. Condom-dispensing machines will be installed in both boys’ and girls’ washrooms in all North Vancouver public sec- ondary schools by this coming September if the board votes to go ahead with che plan. To register for a presentation and for further information, contact the North Vancouver School Board at 987-8141 or at 721 Chesterfield Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2MS. public forum next week ‘THE WEST Vancouver District 45 School Board will throw open to citi- zens the controversial issue of condom-dispens- ing machines in second- ary schools at a Monday, March 25 public meeting. By Patrick Raynard Contributing Writer Board chairman Jean Ferguson told her colleagues at a March IJ meeting that the open meeting, to be held in the theatre of West Vancouver Secondary School, 1750 Mathers Ave., starting at 7 p.m., will give individuals and groups the opportunity to tell trustees and the community their feelings on the proposed installation of condom-dispens- ing machines in school washrooms next September. The board will probably hold its final vote on the issue in early April, after schools su- perintendent Doug Player submits his own official rec- ommendation. Ferguson’s comments followed the board’s receipt of more than 20 further letters on the subject. As reported earlier in the North Shore News, the West Vancouver School Board has already been deluged with let- ters from citizens and groups opposed to condom machines. Player has thus far refused to release any of the fetters to the News, citing board policy and claiming that some of the senders had asked that the Iet- ters be withheld from the public until March 25. Player has also refused to say which of the letter writers, and how many, had requested their letters be kept confiden- tial. Ferguson’s comments Mon- day evening were precipitated by a March 4 fetter from the newly-formed Citizens for Ex- cellence in Education. Ferguson told her trustee colleagues that the group had been formed to address the WEST VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD 4 ES BOARD CHAIRMAN JEAN FERGUSON... open meeting will allow groups to air their views. condom issue and that a repre- sentative had asked for an in- camera meeting with the board. The letter from the Citizens for Excellence in Education was also kept confidential, and Ferguson did not say what position the group was taking. Ferguson also declined to say what ratio of the letters tabled Monday were opposed to or in favor of condom machines. The March 11 District 45 meeting agenda alsc listed let- ters as having been received from Stephen Frith, Mr. and Mrs. R. Baxter, P. Seeley, Elvina Fitzgerald, Dr. Brian O’Connor of North Shore Health, Arnold and Susan Shives, Meorah Kassemm, Cam Wayne, a person listed only as Amina, Mats Gerschman, Ann Burns, Rosemary Marks, Mr. and Mrs. J.R. Campos, Mrs. W.J. Goldie, Mrs. Dorothy Kingscote, Pauline Messent, Margaret Micallef and Helen Close. There were also ‘‘various form fetters’’ listed, but Ferguson did not say how many there were, who sent them or what their position was.