SILICON LOUNGE: Alien Telepath Joins Dr. Laura Fray

By Donna Ladd, Village Voice. Posted July 25, 2000.

Air Force veteran Dan Sherman was surprised to read that Dr. Laura Schlessinger is getting her own TV show this fall. He was also dismayed that homosexual activists are trying to pressure Paramount Television to drop plans to launch a version of the syndicated advice show. He clicked to the StopDrLaura.com Web site, which excoriates the radio queen's antigay views, and didn't like what he saw.

"They try to portray her, physically, as a monster with the dark pictures," says Sherman, in an e-mail interview. "I think this really speaks volumes to the way they [gays] really feel toward this topic. That is, anyone who doesn't agree with them must have evil intentions and must automatically warrant being hated."

Even after Dr. Laura bowed to the Internet campaign in March and removed some of the antigay material from her Web site, protests have continued around the country and major advertisers have pulled their backing. The protest seems to be working: Gay activists have picketed local CBS affiliates, and BoxLot.com, an Internet auction company, released a statement saying it would no longer buy ads on Dr. Laura's broadcast. In response, on July 20, Dr. Laura posted a "call to action" on her site: "I have come to understand how difficult it is for sponsors to be accosted by a few people with an agenda." She then asks supporters to send letters of support to her sponsors.

But Sherman, of Portland, Oregon, has already tried to rescue the beleaguered radio doc by posting an entire site to plead her case: SupportDrLaura.com. The site's "fresh" design, as Sherman describes it, uses Dr. Laura's cheery sun logo and a perky picture of the talk shrink, whose Columbia University doctorate is actually in physiology. On the site, Sherman exhorts supporters to "Go Take on the Gay," adding that "we must stand up and 'take on' this issue. . . . A lot of people throw around the term 'bigot' like it's evil and everyone who displays this trait can justifiably be disdained and hated. We are all bigots about one thing or another. . . . [T]he very people who are rallying against Dr. Laura are the biggest bigots of them all."

Sherman says he and Dr. Laura agree that homosexuality is a "moral" issue and defends her characterization of gays as "biological errors." After all, his Web page argues, gays and lesbians admit to being born that way: "People who are gay, for years, have been saying that they are genetically predisposed to being sexually attracted to the [same] sex."

The site provides a "support Dr. Laura" petition and the same Paramount contact information that StopDrLaura.com lists. Sherman credits the anti-Dr. Laura site, which to date has drawn an average of 2 million visitors each month, for motivating his effort, which so far has garnered only about 100 hits: "I can thank this site for educating me on the [Dr. Laura vs. gays] subject. . . . Since it was doing such a wonderful job mischaracterizing her, I thought I would try to create a decent rallying point for her supporters."

Sherman insists he is not condemning gays and lesbians. "I have two very close friends that happen to feel they are gay. So please do not think, when reading this, that I can't begin to imagine what I'm talking about. I know more about this subject than most," he says.

The 36-year-old Gulf War veteran also knows a lot about the existence of extraterrestrial life, he says. SupportDrLaura.com links to his Web site, aboveblack.com, which explains that he spent part of his 12 years in the U.S. Air Force as an "intuitive communicator" with an alien contact program, launched in 1960, 13 years after the Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash, and run by the National Security Agency. His 1997 book, Above Black: Project Preserve Destiny, Insider Account of Alien Contact and Government Cover-up, describes his two encounters with alien beings.

"I'm not some conservative idiot holed up in a West Virginia mountain shack with tons of ammunition stored in the shed out back and dragging my wife by the hair. . . . It's more typical to see a person with liberal viewpoints coming forward with stories of alien contact," says Sherman. His site says he was decorated with the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Achievement Medal with two oak-leaf clusters. He says he sought a discharge from service after his alien experiences.

He hopes his Web site and book, buoyed by Dr. Laura traffic, will help educate the public about alien realities."People must be aware of what is happening within the U.S. government regarding alien contact. Insert X-Files theme song here," he says.

Washington, D.C., online consultant John Aravosis, who with several other gay activists is running the StopDrLaura.com campaign, says he can respect Sherman's alien encounters, if not his views on homosexuals. "I just watched Contact the other day, and Jodie Foster is really cool, so I don't knock the guy," Aravosis says. "I believe they're out there, too, and we just haven't met them, yet. . . . Some of my best friends believe in UFOs."

The talk-show host could not be reached for comment. Sherman says he faxed her a note letting her know about his site's existence, but she hasn't been in touch. "But who knows how often the faxes are read?" he says. "I'm sure she'll know about it soon."  

Donna Ladd can be reached at donna@shutup101.com.

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