Tangents (magazine), reborn, as good as ever

The reborn Tangents is as good under the new editor and writers as it ever was.  Don Slater and other editors would be proud of this issue (Vol V, #1, Spring 2014).

The editorial says why we need to continue the work of ONE/IGLA/HIC.  The memorial to co-founder Jim Schneider tells how we struggled to continue the work after the loss of the main one who inspired us, Don Slater.

The article on Jim Kepner and his Little Blue Books is a good explanation of how an archive works.  My review of Tracy Baim’s “history of the gay press” (Gay Press, Gay Power) explains how the history has been preserved by our community media.

There is a strange and interesting “exchange of views of our history and thinking” in the two separate yet almost conversational essays between Stephanie Donald’s memory of Jack Nichols and Craig Schoonmaker’s memory of the movement and his views on terminology—and it seems to me this discussion is as alive today as it was in the era discussed.

Listen to the views on marriage of Jack and Craig.  “Jack’s work on gay rights was hard work for full equality.  Marriage equality was never a consideration for him because he felt that getting married, at least for men (and he felt for women, too, but  thought the ‘nesting instinct’ was harder to break in the females) was taking the ‘sexual’ out of ‘homosexual’ and forcing gay rights into heterosexual assimilation, which would destroy gay and lesbian history and culture.”  While, in a sense, Don Slater would say some of this, he did NOT agree that we had a culture—and did not want us in a ghetto.  

But, here is Craig:  “I can say, however, that I am hostile to some of the notions of people who fought not for openness but for ‘privacy’ (shame) and who advocated the silly notion that homosexuality is only a point on a ‘continuum’ and related notions that we must not narrow ourselves to gay—only but must always see ourselves first and foremost as ‘human’.”  Again, Don would not agree with most of his thinking.  We never understood why people could not grasp the obvious need to protect our privacy—something now heard when discussing the government listening to our cell phone and email discussions.  Why would asking for privacy mean we are ashamed?

As to terminology, Craig says the word “queer” is bad, yet many young LGBT people say it is better than a long list of letters.  But the issue is alive and was an article in The New York Times in the last week or two—saying only the word gay is acceptable.

So reading Tangents is reading what is in the current discussion of issues of homosexuality.

So the Homosexual Information Center is continuing its work of preserving history but also speaking to today's issues.  Again, the pioneers of this movement would be eagerly reading this issue and joining the discussion.

Saving issues of the first national publication discussing homosexuality from and by and homosexuals

Written by Billy Glover on 11-17-2012:

What seems to not have been understood is that, except for a few nuts who would find something wrong today even with the good newspapers and magazines in the movement/community, from the first issue, ONE magazine was professional, something even closeted men and women could be proud of.  They didn’t have anything else.  Early Mattachine had been secret except for the front group formed to support Dale Jennings’ court case which he, in a sense, won due to a hung jury—probably the first time someone had said they were homosexual but did not publicly solicit sex with this man.  (He covered this in the first issues and was the first editor as well as a co-founder of Mattachine and ONE. Later he was famous for writing The Cowboys, the movie John Wayne was in.)

The editors asked famous homosexual authors to contribute but none would except Norman Mailer. So no author/writer/media person could later say they did not know there was, at last, a homosexual publication, telling people what was being said and done about homosexuality. And with no apology.

Jim Kepner had a hard job searching for news, since few places—except for printing names of those arrested—would mention or use the word “homosexual.”  As I have pointed out, a search of the Readers Guide to Periodical Index over the decades will show just how little news, articles, etc., there was in the 1950s and 1960s.  Slowly but surely the coverage grew, until today, you would need a whole book to list all the articles.

The most-read parts of ONE and later Tangents were the Tangents news section and the letters to the editor.  The letters were real.  It is still interesting to see/hear people from all over the nation were writing to ONE in those years, saying what they write to Ellen and celebrities today—saying, to new people each year, “You are an inspiration. I did not know anyone else was like me. You give me courage, etc.”  I wonder why editors today do not think readers would like to see the letters they get?

The movement / community has to know that there was a doubt that you could publish such a magazine promoting acceptance of homosexuality—and obviously they were right since ONE had to go to court to protect that right. That court case (when the Post Office stopped an issue, at the urging of a politician) is covered well in the book Courting Justice.

Some young writers and media types were able to test the waters by writing for ONE.  Joseph Hansen is an example. Some fiction was good.  The different views on homosexuality were educational.  There was no other place this discussion was taking place.  We did not censor.  We let the readers hear the opinion and decide for themselves.  I do not think there is an idea or view heard today that was not covered in ONE—such as the early discussion about marriage.

The Good Old Days...

I’m about to try to cover a little flavor of the letters I faxed to Jim Schneider and Joseph Hensen in 1997– ’99. And our published newsletters would cover the history too. But obviously I am intrigued by rereading a decade later what in a sense is current history, compared to what we were doing 50 years ago. It seems to me that there has been more change in things I am in or interested in the last 10 years than all the 40 years previously.

Jim (and Joe) would know the difference; from phone calls at high cost, to the fax, after Don Slater died, at a cheaper rate—12 cents a minute I think and then 5 cents—(I sent hundreds of newspapers a single page on the book A Few Doors West of Hope) as I do now by email at NO cost.  And cell phone, so I don't have to be at home (although this one does lose calls, etc.)

And think about it, Todd White alone came in this time period. And Ron Tate retired and became active. I finally met and visited with Bill Percy, as did Paul Harris and Melvin Cain. While I used to have phone visits with Jeanne Barney and Morris Kight, not as much as I do by email now (I'm not sure she considers this a plus of course.) And I didn't know Aristide before this decade, or Tobias (Toby) or Toby (Johnson).  The sodomy case came after Don, but I think the CO case had happened before he died, didn't it? And the surge of gay characters on TV shows, and I had not heard of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert before—I didn't get satellite here in Louisiana before 2003 I think.

Some of the old issues remain—people still trying to stop us from using the term homosexual, the media still covering only the celebrities—how many covered Yolanda Retter’s death?  And I see letters I wrote in the past decade saying the same things I'm saying today. And we discussed before Don’s death about getting HIC on the internet and now Todd is doing that. And if our material is safe at CSUN and is known and available then that will at least make it hard for future historians to say they didn’t know our views and information and what we did.

I have said before but will say again, there are two things that are of great interest to me, and things that I dont think I or anyone else would understand when they are young. First, I have now outlived most of my friends and enemies. And second, in a sense I have lived to find the answers, or know how things turned out when I/we thought about the future 50 years ago. I’m afriad one thing didn’t change: me.  Specifically, I can (if I could send copies to you, show you how terrible my typing was on an old typewriter, still sitting on the floor in the kitchen, with no ribbon available—it was an old Sears given to me and can’t  be used now anyway), but it cut off part of letters, etc., and had lots of typos, and even with spell check I still have typos, but at least the letters are not cut off, etc. And oh how much easier typing is this way! And the cell phone, if working, is free after 7 and on weekends, and costs less than the old house phone.

As opposed to the old stereotype of older people telling young kids how much better they have it today, I'm telling them that and it is TRUE. I have always, for instance, told students that if they want to see how much progress has been made in talk about homosexuality, go look at old issues of Readers Guide to Periodical Index and see how few items are listed in the 60s and then glance at today, where hundreds a month are listed, even though most are from the Advocate and still don't reflect a diversity of opinion as much as ONE did back when it was the only publication.

Gay/Lesbian Publications on newsstands or online (as compared to old days)

The first question should be, are homosexuals reading the publications aimed at them. If not, can that be their personal failing or that of the editors and publishers? Here’s what I found at the local bookstore, good and bad.
 
Instinct Magazine has an excellent series of articles on the homosexual community in Durango CO. But most gay men’s magazines spend most of their space on silly clothing and non-gay celebrities. So it is good to find coverage of people who are working to change things.

In most gay publications the people covered are models, or people who may be gay but have done nothing for our community/movement.  That must mean that the editors are interested in celebrities, or think their readers are only interested in celebrities. I also find that many publications have not only ads, which is good, but articles on products, which means they may be like too many motion picture producers, who make money by putting products in their films. That is of course ironic since in the early days ONE Magazine and others could not get ads.

Outlook Magazine and others have book reviews, such as the new book by Victor J Banis, Longhorn. But none have reviews of books that cover homosexuality seriously. But we learn of a James Lyon who was in the movie Poison and died.
 
The Advocate has mention of the coming production of the Beebo Brinker Chronicles, by Ann Bannon, and a letter from Toby Johnson about how gay bombs might be a good weapon. 
 
Several publications have ads for the new retirement developments for wealthy homosexuals, such as the one at Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, the ones in Santa Fe, Blue Ridge NC, etc. This is a sociologically interesting development in our community. Most ads are aimed only at rich gay/lesbian readers, as are the articles, on expensive housing, cars, clothes, vacations, etc. And most could be found in any general publication as they are not aimed specifically at homosexuals. In fact travel writers seem to never cover a gay/lesbian center, library, historical site, book store, but only cover hotels and bars that in some case are not even mainly gay. It seems to me that a gay visiting a new town would want to find the local gay/lesbian newspaper or magazine, and see what information the local gay/lesbian center would have, and perhaps find the local gay church.
 
Curve had lots of articles on lesbians, most of whom have done something for the cause, which makes them a better supporter of those who are working in our community.
 
OUT Magazine is an example of how the men’s magazines often are the opposite-they cover no community/movement people. I would like to discuss with the writers of the article in the current issue that devote a lot fo space to two men, one of whom adopted the other and had to get the state of Illinois to change its laws to do so, was a millionaire and the two men then spent their lives to growing lovely gardens. Is that what gays do? Apparently all their money and time and energy went to gardening and none to helping our community/movement.  And they are they type people OUT covers. Where are the articles on men and women who are working in our community/movement, dead or alive? I would think young homosexual men and women would be interested in knowing who changed America for homosexual citizens in 50 years and how they came to do it.
 
If so, they will, sadly, have to go to non-gay publications. I direct them to Details, which covers the issue of a homosexual man who has been in and out of the military and is an example of why we need to change the rules, something our movement has been trying to do since the early ’60s.
 
But on one of the most important issues we face, we also have to go to a general publication, Mother Jones. Here we find a great article on the issue of what makes us homosexual—or as the pc people would insist, gay. And here we find the view Don Slater and ONE/HIC has been making since the ’50s: it is NOT a good idea to insist that we are born homosexual. It doesn't matter whether or not this is true. It is lousy politics. And it can and is backfiring. The ex-gay and NARTH people are using it against us and there is a danger that the issue will go backwards and become a “medical problem” in which the main issue, our civil rights, is lost.
 
And the issue is found in another place, not on the newsstands but in a religiously oriented publication, the Record of the Evangelicals Concerned. Among the interesting news items we find a discussion of the Exodus, ex-gay meeting in Los Angeles in mid-June. And the strange statements by what have been promoters of ex-gay issues, such as Alan Chambers, who admits that he still has homosexual desires. More ex-gays have recanted, Michael Bussee, Jeremy Marks and Darlene Bogle. And covered is the “issue” that the Southern Baptist Church is still promoting ex-gay work but in a “kinder, gentler” way. But a member of that church has said that he thinks there may be a biological component of being gay. Is that good for us? Some think so, but most of us think that merely means we can be forced to change if they can find a way of doing that.
 
But is this and other important issues being covered in our press? Are we seeing books on the subject (Besen does cover it)? Mostly we are seeing books promoted by closeted gays who were rich and famous but now are safely able to come out thanks to he 50 years of a few homosexuals and allies who devoted their lives to making changes but are ignored by the current editors and publishers.
 
I of course have a conflict of interest, but I have no doubt that ONE Magazine, and later Tangents, did a better job of balanced coverage of homosexuality than the publications of today. Today there are so many, as in organizations, that they can specialize. But they even in doing that do not serve our community well. How many even have editorials? They seem to not want to say anything that might upset readers or advertisers, much like our politicians. And they often don't even have letters to the editor sections, so they don't even let their readers have a voice. Most don't carry movement news. 
 
I think it may be a good thing that many people now turn to the internet and gay/lesbian sites. There we find news, and views. So I won't have to go to the newsstand in my local book store much any more. Once the advertisers learn this, they may go to the internet too, where most of us have gone.

Oct.-Dec. 1969 issue of Tangents Magazine. Cover story: “The New Homosexual”

It seems strange that we could call people in gay lib the new homosexuals—but they used the term too then, and we forget, or at least I did, that major magazines, thanks partly to Stonewall, covered homosexuals in that time. Esquire had a great article, Time had a messy article, etc.  But I think it may be worthwhile to look at what we did that issue, and suggest that today's editors might want to think about how the world will look back at their work 30 or 40 years later.
 
(The cover, by Joe Johnson is red and white with picket signs, including Kameny's Gay is Good.)
 
The editorial was fussing at Time for its silly handling of its October 31st coverage (“The Homosexual: Newly Visible, Newly Understood”).  Same of sick theory, etc.
 
The main cover story was interviews with two "new homosexuals," Leo Laurence and Gale Whittington, co-founders of the Committee for Homosexual Freedom in San Francisco (Gale spoke at HIC and Leo was interviewed by Joe Hansen). Gale pointed out their work with Gay Guerilla Theatre and work on UC Berkeley campus, and San francisco City College, etc. He said members might be unemployed since employers would fire activists, citing his firing at State Steamship Co. and their picketing of Tower records for firing someone. He said SIR (Society for Individual Rights, which had thought Mattachine was old foggy) was old foggy and its members were not really "out.” He admitted they tried to infiltrate SIR and take control—something people then and now have tried to do which made leaders of such organizations wary and uptight. He said that in the future it would be the integrationists that are successful, not the separatists. They were going to picket a Pat Rocco film in San Francisco. (Exploitation problem, as they felt about another movie, The Gay Deceivers). They also picketed a drag ball by the Tavern Guild, saying it merely was a money-making effort. The philosophical thoughts of CHR is scattered, marxist, anarchistic, and even moderate and Republicanist.
 
Leo (also with the Institute for Homosexual Liberation) said it was an organization of thinkers.  They had written in the Berkeley Barb and formed the Committee for Homosexual Freedom. They were trying to develop gras-root support for the community. “We simply want the homosexual the bisexual to be able to live the life he wants and as he chooses, without harassment from the state, or from employers, or from the church or rom the schools, or from his neighbors...."  They want to get young people involved. They had picketed the San Francisco Examiner with about 100 people, while HIC had only gotten about 20, including Leo. Leo said HIC's picket was too quiet, they had shouted slogans in San Francisco.
 
There was a discussion about different ways to change things. For instance Dick Leitsch and NY Mattachine had gone to Mayor Lindsay and quietly gotten the harassment by police stopped. Leo seemed to think it needed people to get organized and force change. (He pained out how he had been falsely arrested in a S. F. picket with cops saying he did things he didn't.) He assumed our judicial system is unjust.  But the change should be from  non-violent action. First we must liberate ourselves. "The homosexual community is a scared community because of thousands of years of oppression, of being taught that it's wrong, of guilt."  "The worst enemy of the liberation movement is the closet queen, particularly the young ones, because the liberation movement is beginning to make him ask himself questions about where he is and is almost forcing him....Now when you start forcing a man to do something, you create a counter-movement against it." But you must allow people to develop at their own rate.  "Hopefully it will come before all hell breaks loose."  I find that thought interesting, since over 20 years later nothing like that happened, yet change has come, great change from my viewpoint.
 
In the news section, we mention the article "The New Homosexuality," by tom Burke in the December issue of Esquire.  It was a good article.  As I think about all of these names, where is this man today—where is Gale today, and where are the authors of books that have homosexual elements that we and Barbara Grier did (writing under the pseudonym Gene Damon) reviewed in 1969? We cover a brief mention of our picketing the L. A. Times when it rejected an ad with the word homosexual, saying "the word homosexual would be offensive to our family readership."  Man have times changed.  Several examples of young men in prison being raped, partly at the urging of the cops, are given, one by a Tulane law student in New Orleans, and conscientious objectors are "punished" in Lewisburg PA's prison by the guards by being put deliberately into places other prisoners can rape them.
 
And in Minneapolis MN in 1969 we learn of the founding of FREE (Fight Repression of Erotic Expression), at the university.  Founder was Stephen Ihrig, 21 and a unnamed lesbian. Again, where is Ihrig today??? And in Reno, the University fo Nevada has sex week featuring talks on lesbianism, etc. (Led by Rita Laporte of DOB). And there is a long exchange between Dr. Charles Socarides and his usual bull and John Gagnon (NY Sate University sociologist). Temple University named March (Margo) Frantz homecoming queen. Where is he today?
 
And we mention the play that was the cause of the ad we wanted in the L. A. Times, playing at the Coronet Theater, Geese, by Gus Weill. I think Weill is in L.A. and has worked with the PBS station, but I know of nothing in our field he has done. (We held discussions after several of the nights, with I think Evelyn Hooker, Joe Hansen, etc.)
 
In the letters section there is comment on how Playboy got uptight about letters they had (printed) from Kameny and me. And how NACHO had not really worked for the issue of homosexuals and the military, missing the point about our seeking equality of homosexuals in the military since they opposed the Vietnam war—but of course 3 or 4 groups in NACHO DID have events, such as our Motorcade, which got lots of publicity and a good article by Peter Bart in the New York Times. And there is the timeless issue (in a letter) of just what the income is of the average homosexual. AND, someone wants us to change our name to Homophile Information Center as it is more “acceptable."  Wonder wonder that dear soul would think today with lots of use of the words queer, gay, dyke, etc.
 
Well, what do we think about today's "New Homosexual"? Have we settled any issue we discussed in 1969? It seems strange that the government is still anti yet most major corporations are gay-friendly and large cities place ads seeking gay tourists. Yet, even with no sodomy laws now, we still have people being arrested for sex acts. And the religious nuts are still a major problem.

Leo Laurence’s Mention in a Tangents Magazine

I have been trying to reread back issues of the Tangents magazine and other material that ONE/HIC has done over the years that I have with me here in Louisiana. And while glancing at the Tangents magazine of Aug–Sept. 1969 (the the cover image to the right), I found such items as an editorial warning us to “beware the ghetto mentality.”
 
This editorial was backed up by Don Slater’s excellent article on the issue of the military’s policy of excluding homosexuals from the armed forces. This editorial covers the work of the Committee to Fight Exclusion of homosexuals From the Armed Force—because we opposed anyone having to tell the government about their private sex lives, pointing out that non-homosexuals were using the gay factor to avoid the draft, and that based on Kinsey and common sense, the could eliminate about a third of available men from the draft, since many non-homosexuals had had an act and what proof is there if someone has a “tendency” and that we were not a blackmail threat, etc. There was and is NO way to prove someone is homosexual. That is what we told the court in the few cases that actually got to court, and we won every time.
 
Of course this involved our very basic beliefs: In a sense (a message to Sen. Craig) the only authority as to whether someone is homosexual or not is that person’s word. Homosexuality is a sex act, which can be performed by many different kinds of people. (Remember, at this time the sodomy laws were still in effect so admitting you were homosexual, and having to prove it by or through an act, made you a criminal.) The question should be eliminated.  Of course, today we have no draft.
 
Then in the news section I read the following:

Berkeley, Calif.—“Homosexuality is a natural style of life, not an abnormality, sin or perversion. Only fascists call it ‘queer.’ Homosexuals are making major contributions to our society, and to the revolution, but history books and the press ignore it...The homosexual revolution is part of the whole street revolution fighting fascism in the U.S. By locking arms with our brothers and sisters in the movement, we will ALL win our freedom...”

So began the text of a leaflet by Leo Laurence, which he and his lover, Don Burton, distributed at a Black Panther rally in Bobby Hutton Park. In the new underground paper, The Berkeley Tribe, Laurence writes, “The Panther official who okayed distribution of our leaflets said, ‘Our board of Control hasn’t endorsed this, but we’re for anyone who wants freedom, so go ahead.’”

 
The next item in the issue may have been our first discussion of Stonewall. Laurence’s leaflet had reported, “The first gay riots in the history of man turned New York City streets into a bloody confrontation between pigs and thousands of gays and hypothesizers last month...” In our news item, we covered words of Jerry Lisker of the New York Daily News about police saying things were thrown and calling the Inn “a mecca for the homosexual element.”
 
And the Gene Damon (Barbara Grier) column on books was good—I wonder if people today have heard of the hundreds of books that had a gay element that she covered? And of course the letters to the editor were always a great part of Tangents that readers liked.