First I want to establish myself as someone who has a)engaged in sexual intercourse with numerous boy-people of the same gender as me and b)experienced firsthand vicious discrimination and harassment against my person directly resulting from my sexual preferences, which adversely affected my social and financial stability as well as my mental health.
Okay, now that I've establish my "fagalicious" credentials (not that it ought to matter in terms of the validity of my argument... ), I want to say that I feel some real trepidation about the tactics of the GBLT Alliance. My concern for Queer Rights and my civil libetarianism are colliding head-on around this issue, and I feel more than a bit uneasy.
IF WE RESORT TO DE FACTO CENSORSHIP OF (ADMITTEDLY) OFFENSE ARTISTIC SPEECH THAN WE SET A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT THAT COULD BE USED AGAINST US IN THE FUTURE.
What I specifically object to is the attempt at banning the performance. I feel that this could be a tactical blunder, and an act of hypocrisy that could give homophobes further reason be angry at us. What worries me is that concern for people's safety will be used to establish a regime of political correctness wherein ostensibly "progressive" group will police free speech that they view as "homophobic" or "sexist" or "racist" etc. I'm afraid that even if such a precedent is set initially with good intentions in mind, that over time a power structure will evolve wherein unscrupulous, power-hungry people within our community will use anti-discriminatory rhetoric to institute repression and censorship.
Also I am concerned that this effort to ban Sizzla from playing is being put forth under the banner of the "Santa Cruz queer community at large" as if we were a homogeneous mass who all agree 100% with the tactics of activist groups.

I am not "pro-homophobia" but neither do I support the de-humanizing demonization of our political adversaries. To me "homophobia" means 'fear of homoeroticism' which I believe usually begins with fear one's own homoerotic and homosocial tendencies. Instead of framing the issue as if "Sizzla is an EVIL man and must be stop, First Amendment be damned" why not put forward the arguably more nuanced critique that "Sizzla is obsessed with gay men because he's secretly attracted to them, and he projects his self-loathing for his own homoerotic urges - that he's been taught to stiffle - onto the source of his inner tension, namely other gay men"

I think we should picket the Catalyst on the night of the show, I think we should blanket downtown with pamphlets about gay bashing and gay rights, I think that all the fags/queens/dykes/leatherfolk/queers in town should turn out and be LOUD, VOCAL, VISIBLE, FABULOUS, and (goddess forbid) SEXY AND FUN about making a public statement that we are not about to tolerate being PICKED ON, FUCKED WITH, DISCRIMINATED AGAINST, or ASSAULTED by ANYBODY. The point is that we should be encouraging a DISCOURSE based on a DIVERSITY OF OPINION, not "our way or the highway" - if we come across as more repressive and fanatic than Sizzla than we run the risk of alienating potential allies.
Yes, I think we should do all that and more, BUT, I don't think that we should stoop to the level of, oh, say, JESSE HELMS, by calling for the de facto censorship of speech we find dangerous to moral standards and offense. I use the phrase "de facto" because just as GBLTA argues that "free speech rights ... [is] not at issue here, since we're not saying that Sizzla can't say what he wants to say, but that The Catalyst does not have an obligation to provide a stage for him.", Jesse Helms technically wasn't saying that Robert Mapplethrope has no right to take sadomaschistic homoerotic photographs or that Andres Serrano has no right to submerge a crucifix in human urine, but that the government (by way of the National Endowment for the Arts) is not obliged to fund the display of (ie "provide a stage for") said artworks. Many gay rights groups at the time argued that this was not that case, that the selective scapegoating of controversial artists and targeting for grant withdrawal was actually a politicized suppression of the artist's ability to effectively communicate their message to a relevant audience. I would argue that the same dynamic is at work here, regardless of the fact that "our side" is the one doing it.

I sincerely hope that SC queers, especially organizers associated with the GBLT Alliance will take my critiques seriously without resort to the kind of name-calling and simplistic "your-either-with-us-or-your-against-us" talk that goes on sometimes around emotionally charged issues such as this one.