BY TIM GAY | A year ago, who would have predicted that virtually all references and public information about gays and lesbians would be erased from every federal agency Web site?
Check out Health & Human Services. Search “L.G.B.T. Health” and you get “Page Not Found, We’re sorry, but there is no page that matches your entry.”
Everyone I know is appalled. However, allow me to go further, and to make some racist, sexist and derogatory statements.
Specifically, I am thinking of Mitch O’Connell, Steve Bannon, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes and Sean Spicer, not to mention the tasteless and gaudy purveyor of glitzy real estate, the once-and-future king of bankruptcy, that increasingly plump Donald Trump.
These pale, pampered fat boys — and those who obey them — are the heirs to political gerrymandering, census undercounting, election fraud and a national race-based legal system that for 40 years has kept conservative white men in power.
With undulating thighs and bouncing bellies concealed in loose blue suits, they are fighting to keep women pregnant, underemployed and vulnerable to sexploitation.
They want to eliminate higher education and force the masses back into low-wage manual labor in factories, gas stations and coal mines. They want tougher laws and more police enforcement to put more minorities in prison, and then strip their rights to vote forever in all but two states.
Corporations are people, too, and rich people don’t pay taxes. Healthcare is a luxury that only they can afford.
These blubber boys got their military experience from interactive war game videos, blockbuster movies and clips on CNN. They live in white-only gated communities and show up at Christmas and Easter for photo opportunities at suburban gothic cathedrals or 20,000 seat megachurches.
And most of all, these plus-sized creampuffs of masculinity are hell-bent on eliminating the rights for those ungodly homosexuals, transvestites and gender-manipulators. Sure, many of them are closet cases. But remember, those in power in Washington still have young men willing to be discreet — for a price.
Suddenly, it’s back to 1984. Back then, Reagan promised “Morning in America.” He was elected and re-elected by the homophobic white male television ministers who created the Moral Majority, which was neither. H.I.V. was identified and AIDS exploded, but our president didn’t utter the phrase until his last declining year in office.
In 1984, Cardinal O’Connor spent millions of the faithfuls’ tithes to fight New York City’s proposed lesbian and gay anti-discrimination law. Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of New York was quietly settling cases with underage rape victims while providing refuge for pedophile priests from the Archdiocese of Boston.
Yet we persevered. And yelled. We stood tall, marched, raised our fists and hollered, “We’re Here! We’re Queer! We’re Not Going To Take It Anymore!”
Many of us would actually like to forget those days, or think of only the good times and the successes for L.G.B.T.Q. rights.
As time goes by, fewer and fewer of us personally experienced that important transformation. And those who don’t know history and 1984 are condemned to repeat it.
Consider that every gay man and lesbian age 40 and younger never lived in a world without AIDS. However, they came of age in an increasingly “out” society where it was cool to be gay. The national dialogue went beyond AIDS to social issues, like gays in the military, recognition of “domestic partnerships” and immigration reform. The Democratic National Convention of 1992 included a gay and lesbian platform.
In 1990 alone, mainstream television shows had gay characters, episodes and themes. “Roseanne,” “The Golden Girls,” “L.A. Law” and, of course, “The Simpsons.” Remember when Homer’s new secretary, “Karl,” with voice by Harvey Fierstein, ends the episode by kissing him?
Back in the ’90s, when Chelsea Boys ruled and Eighth Ave. was the center of the L.G.B.T.Q. universe, we still fought homophobia and violence. I remember when a gay couple was attacked in 1997 by four men from New Jersey in a red Chevy van. One had an eye gouged out by broken bottle. The 10th Precinct captain, whose name I forget, dismissed it as “a guy thing.” After our outcry, he was soon transferred.
We elected Tom Duane back in 1991 as our first openly gay city councilmember. He and his chief of staff, Christine Quinn, spent as much time dealing with L.G.B.T.Q. violence and discrimination as they did with health, parks and housing issues.
One phone call to Tom and Christine could stop construction of a high-rise (The Grand Chelsea, where workers threw coffee cups filled with concrete down on the Chelsea Gym), and halt evictions of people whose partners had died from AIDS. Tom and Christine dealt with police indifference and a recalcitrant district attorney and brought them to the forefront for equal protection. Christine, as we know, went on to head the Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project, and then followed Tom to the City Council, becoming the Speaker.
Now, well into the 21st century, violence, homophobia, hostility and indifference are on a startling rise. Bigots, tired of being “politically correct,” plus a minority of Protestants and Catholics, pleading for “religious freedom” from queer people, helped to push the current president to an electoral college majority.
So today, Hispanics and Middle Eastern-appearing people are stopped, interrogated and deported. Anti-Muslim violence is becoming commonplace. Young black men continue to be killed by law enforcement officers.
And, conversely, the first reported anti-Republican shooting ever reported took place last week.
What are we L.G.B.T.Q.’ers supposed to do in a hyper-polarized post-fact era?
Look Back, Understand the Past, Don’t Panic: Lesbian and gay activists pre-Stonewall through the 1970s found invaluable lessons in the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and the labor movement — in fact, many of them were involved in all three. Those organizing and educational tools are timeless. Combined with social media, the Internet and even our own networking capabilities, we have good ways to communicate and, yes, recruit.
There are so many similarities from the 1970s and 1980s with the current Fourth Reich. Thankfully, we have a solid history, multiple resources and active advocacy organizations already in place. But we must support them. Human Rights Campaign, Immigration Equality, the National L.G.B.T.Q. Task Force are three of more than 25 national organizations out there.
Older Queers, Be There for Our Young Ones: My husband, who was at Stonewall for the second day of riots in June 1969, and I, an openly gay writer and politico since 1979, are always reaching out and helping young gay men.
We go to Hillside Campground and other gay campgrounds. We’re involved in our L.G.B.T.Q. community in the Hudson Valley. We’re the go-to guys when someone wants to talk about the old days. Bob and I tell them how we were fighting just to keep our jobs, and then to save lives for people living with AIDS, and to make our streets and discos and bars safe from the police and the Mob.
Last weekend, one 23-year-old man admitted the only reading he had done on gay rights was the history of the rainbow flag. Still, he knows a lot about our social, sexual and liberation revolutions through the stories we’ve told him over the past two years at camp.
Then there’s the 21-year-old Bard College student who was archiving and digitalizing historical VCR cassettes from the ’80s and ’90s at the L.G.B.T.Q. Center in Kingston, N.Y. He wanted to know more about the “gay ghettos” since they no longer exist. We told him stories about how we moved into an almost-abandoned building in Chelsea in the late ’70s, and how our safety depended on creating our own communities. We told him about the gay zones in Houston, Chicago and New York, and the mecca of all, San Francisco. He couldn’t believe it when Bob told him about dining and dancing with Liza, or how I met Hibiscus and the Screaming Violets and edited newspaper stories on the Harvey Milk assassination.
And there’s the 27-year-old guy, now married and living in a gently run-down fixer-upper riverbank house near the Hudson, who is becoming more involved every day in helping runaway and throwaway L.G.B.T.Q. youth.
We encourage curiosity, much like my mom and dad did when discussing how they survived the Depression and fought fascism.
All Politics Is Local — Reach Out, Help Others, Know Your Neighbors, Elect or Replace Your Elected Leaders: Contrary to the vicious diatribe, most people, including many Trumpers, can engage in reasonable discussions. More people are understanding the true significance of Obamacare. The majority of women have used birth control, and men understand that. Almost everyone today knows someone who is gay, and the majority have no problem with gay marriage.
Since L.G.B.T.Q.’ers no longer live in gay ghettos, we need to get out there and know our neighbors, store owners, dog walkers, crossing guards, police officers and get involved in their issues, too.
When Bob and I got married in 2015, a lot of mountain neighbors on our “last road up there before trail’s end” were not only happy to hear the news, but several came to our creek-side ceremony.
Rabbit John, a neighbor down the road who raises rabbits for show and eating, is a card-carrying Conservative Party member. He told us he was “proud to walk his daughter down the aisle” when she married her girlfriend at a nearby country Methodist church a few years ago.
“She couldn’t get married in Virginia back then, but we wouldn’t have heard of it, even if she could,” he said. “She married a fine woman.”
We shall overcome.
Actually, we already did. It’s just that the fat men haven’t finished singing.
Gay was the male Democratic district leader in Chelsea from 1992 to 2005 and deputy chief for the Manhattan Board of Elections from 2002 to 2014. He and his husband, Bob Gibbons, divide their time between Hillside Campground in Pennsylvania, Chelsea and the Catskill Mountains.
