Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:19:43 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: David Dance?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 09:43 PM 10/26/2006, you wrote:
>Candy Madigan wrote:
> > At 05:46 PM 10/26/2006, you wrote:
> >
> >>At 05:13 PM 10/26/2006, Candy Madigan wrote:
> >>
> >>>>>Can you tell I'm finally pissed off enough to speak out?
> >>>>
> >>>>Oh yes....... loud and clear.
> >>>
> >>>You know what makes me maddest?  The stupidity of this whole
> thing.  How on
> >>>*earth* could they have thought that doing this would be accepted, much
> >>>less condoned?  It's the self-destructivemess of the whole thing that
> >>>really gets me.
> >>
> >>I dunno.  Just because people accepted, condoned, and even told people to
> >>quit making a fuss over it for  -- what, four or more years? -- shouldn't
> >>give the Gillilands any reason at all to think that people would do so
> again.
> >
> > I'm sorry, not speaking out is *not* the same as condoning.  Many of us
> > just wanted to remain neutral.  I still say that if people had ignored it
> > it would have gone away, but fandom isn't exactly known for adult behavior.
> >
>
>Hey, we let it slide when they banned my son Steven from their house,
>and it just made them think they could ban lots of other people. I can't
>say that was all bad, because it did get us to rediscover BSFS (now
>hashing out a possible series of author readings, over on *their* list,
>by way of contrast) but I can't say any of us are happy about it.
>
>Had we known that taking on a developmentally delayed 2 year old was
>going to lead to banning Keith and Ted, we would have made more of a
>protest at the time. But Jack felt like the club was OK with telling
>Steven to leave, so we let it slide. Now I'm sorry we did.--Eva Whitley

That was a slightly different issue.  Expecting parents to parent is not
unreasonable.  If the parents won't or can't keep a child under control
(i.e., reasonably behaved) then it is not unreasonable to ask them not to
bring that child.  Steven got nothing from the club and the club got
nothing from him.  It impacted you because you had to make a choice between
getting a sitter and not coming, but you still could have attended meetings
had you chosen to leave him behind.

Candy
(301)345-6635