Monroe's column asking what Dr. King would say/do about lgbt issues (WCT 1-20-10)

To Tracy Baim, editor of the Windy City Times:

It is very strange that for some reason there is so much discussion at once, or so it seems to me, about homosexual and racial civil rights issues, and two items seem to speak to each other and us about what we need to consider.

I watched, a rare thing for me on that channel, a documentary on Bayard Rustin on Dr. King’s holiday, on LOGO. A tangential issue, I wonder how (Rev. Irene) Monroe thought when the BET channel chose to have, on King Day, a film on Malcolm X. But I learned or was reminded of the issues Rustin faced, and King and the black civil rights movement deal with, in their work in the documentary. There have been several boks on Rustin, but i dobut young people who read them even really understand the many issues he had to deal with.

I think Monroe is right when she says/thinks that had King done much in support of the lgbt civil rights movement he would have lost much support from black citizens, and black preachers, as he started to do near the end of his life when he got into economic issues and the questioning of the Vietnam war.

And King and Rustin, like Obama, LBJ, etc all had to make choices on how best to get changes they sought without harming other changes they also wanted. Specifically, Rustin had started in the anti-war movement, a pacifist and working with the Fellowship of Redconcilation, as I recall. He then got into the black civl rights issue, and as the media finally got right, he got credit for the March on Washington. But he was under constant attack, as indirectly was King, from blacks who hated homosexuals. While some good came, for instance, from (Rev. Adam Clayton) Powell, he was vicious in accusing King of being homosexual because King chose to accept the help of a homosexual, Rustin, in his work for black civil rights. And Rustin, who had been arrested for public sex (homosexual) did little for the glbt cause as he had chosen to work for the race rather than sex issue.

And Rustin, needing LBJ’s help in the cause, did not speak out against the Vietnam war because he thought it would cause strain in getting help from President Johnson in changing laws, and he was right.

And the issue is with us today as we try to get changes in all areas of American life. Each of us can only do so much, and we must choose what group or part we will support. And hoope others will work in the areas we can not.

As we watch the issue of same sex marriage come up it is sad if not funny to hear young black people opposed to lgbt civil rights when they did nothing to gain their own rights.

It is another issue I wish we had a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert to cover in case there is some way to deal with this issue with humor.

What may be missing in the era of the internet; sharing of thoughts and ideas that don't make sense without context of experiences

I have complained often to, and about, Don Slater about not putting down his views on his life’s work. He urged others to do this, but like many of us, didn't practice what he preached. His reply was always that he HAS—in his many writings and the magazine he more than any one else gave to our community and movement, even when most people were still not ready to deal honestly with their sexuality or deal with it seriously, instead of being gay in a gay bar or by dressing in drag and using coded in-group words.

And I can not seem to find a way to tell others of my life experience with some, in fact most of, the pioneers in the movement to gain civil/equal rights for homosexual Americans. But in an incoherent way I am going here to try. How can you explain an experience to those who, sadly, may never have such an experience? For instance, I would probably not have understood other people talking about their great feeling for some person they loved if I had not known Melvin. I'm not saying I didn’t have lots of great sex, and like the people I had the short experience with. My deep love for my co-workers was not the same thing, but was just as important.

In obituaries, the parents and relatives are listed. But in a sense, how do we know if they had much affect on who the person became. If they did, was it by commission or omission. I honestly don't see how my parents affected my life. But I see in others that I was lucky my parents did not reject me. I see little influence on me from schooling, or LSU, and even the time in the Army. No teacher, or book got me to understand my sexuality. I had some input on religion from the Methodist Church, and it gave me the most important weapon to combat prejudice based on the Bible-they told me, in the late 40s, that they had been wrong to support slavery based on quotes from the Bible. That meant later that I paid no attention to the misuse of the Bible about homosexuality.

What I got from work with Mattachine, ONE and the Homosexual Information Center was the most important thing a person can get, sharing an experience of learning with others. I got from Dr. Evelyn Hooker the proof we needed that will eventually prove our case. But I met her only through having first volunteered at both Mattachine (with Hal Call, Don Lucas briefly in San Francisco in 1959) and ONE, where, no matter how later events and disagreement affected relationships, I daily worked with Dorr Legg and Don Slater, met and talked with Harry Hay, and John Burnside, and Jim Schneider and the editors of the magazine, including Joseph and Jane Hansen, he being a writer/author who was willing to work with a homosexual group.

And I learned that people and groups change. Obviously the main founders of (early) Mattachine were Communists, using their training in that secret organization to found a homosexual organization that in 1950 (see the movie The Way We Were) had to also be secret. and I saw co-founder Dale Jennings go from that left (political) extreme to the right extreme as Hal Call took over and led Mattachine to the right/conservative side, almost going too far to seek “respectability,” hiding behind experts instead of using them, as ONE did.

The most important part of this experience, getting me to where I am today, was just having conversations with these people, not always on sex issues. Long trips from Los Angeles to the house in Colorado gave Don and me lots of time to talk. And that may have been as important as the work on the magazine, or the Motorcade or lectures.

These thoughts came to me as two items are in the news. I was happily surprised to hear people saying that the terrible earthquake in Haiti points out that in life it is not enough to have a good national art, or culture, or special music. You have to have/do the basics, of people and government working to make life safe, in this case a country, but in my case a civil rights movement. Many people think the world will come to accept homosexuals because we are good interior decorators, can make good music, are good artists, go to operas. The fact is that it has taken people working seriously to change laws, to educate people on the issue of sexuality, that has made life so much better for young homosexual men and women. The same is true of the blacks’ and women’s civil rights movements. It is great to have good musicians, but it took marching and education to change the nation to the time we could elect an interracial person as president, and have women mayors, including homosexual women, and governors, etc, and black men in law enforcement when a few decade ago they were being lynched.

And that leads to the other “major” news item. Senator Harry Reid's remarks to and about (President) Obama's “negro-ness,” or lack hereof. A (black) columnist—Eugene Robinson—said all that needed to be said. It was a good sociological thought, but a stupid political thought.

But I think more should be understood in this case, and it is relevant to the issue of acceptance of homosexuals/LGBT citizens. Senator Reid, and even those wonderful “Mattachines,” Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, should go see a movie that would have told Reid why he was wrong, even though perhaps right in the world we lived in before the election—and hopefully will no longer be right on judging or urging change of homosexuals soon. I urge them to see the movie that at first seems irrelevant to this issue, although in others ways is a very important movie on our personal lives, “Disney’s The Kid.” It is great to think of seeing yourself as a person today, as you were as a child and as you will be later in life. I'm not sure we would change things, but it is great to be reminded of the past and see your future.

But the relevant scene, important in the film and important to Reid's “issue,” is where the man (Bruce Willis character, the man of the present) is in a plane, sitting next to a woman and they talk, and she learns that he is a person who advises people, such as politicians, on putting up a good front (my interpretation). So she asks him how he thinks she should change as she is about to get a job as a TV anchor person. He, as I recall says something perhaps about her hair and dress, but he specifically says for her NOT to change her voice—not to give up her (southern) accent just to be acceptable. The opposite of what Reid thought was Obama’s situation. Obama had not changed, except from Barry to Barack, and it is good to speculate what bigots would have said if he had tried to use Barry, and of course what bigots said when he honestly used Barack. With bigots there is no winning.

That is what Don Slater said in person and in ONE Magazine for two decades. And why he put a Trans person on the cover. He knew that if we tried to hide or disclaim drag queens, or some other segment of our community, that would still not make the “normal” queers “acceptable” as our enemies hate us all.

Maybe someday we will know, if we have competent and ethical historians, who and what got the world to change its views of homosexuality, but I don’t know for sure. Obviously I took the path led by ONE and think we have been right. I hear from good people who worked in other fields, trying to change the church/religion from inside, trying to change right or left wing political parties from within. Many people think the world likes us better because they like Ellen, or Elton, and they have seen the absurd thinking of bigots as pointed out on Comedy Central shows—more than on the supposedly educational channels or in college classes or they have not wanted to be on the side of nuts like the preacher family from Kansas.

But why is there only one answer? Why can it not be all of the above, or none of the above. Perhaps Elvis, or Playboy or World War II is/are the catalysts that led us to where we re today. The “religious” have always hated the “new” music, and the human body and those who are different. It may be that we live in the time when religious institutions that base their main efforts for existence on some tangential issue such as sexuality, as Jesus said, have built their house on shifting sand, and may not stand. It is for sure that homosexuals will be here, and if we/they and our allies continue to push, politicians, churches and the bigots will learn to do what we ask, leave us alone. We don't need special rights in a fair world. It seems that they have so little faith in what they claim to believe about homosexuality and the world, that they do need special rights.

Can we today have the emotional values we got working personally with others in a cause. We can send emails, and hopefully will. But it could be we need to spend time just being with each other, that way we will know how to "hear" what someone is saying. Those who “know” Reid know how to “hear” what he said. That makes a big difference, one that talkers on Fox “news” or elsewhere will not understand. If our nation is to keep going where the founders envisioned, the media is harming us by taking us off on tangential issues. It is up to good citizens to seek serious news and information, or we will, like Haiti, be on shifting sand.

Great articles in first Gay & Lesbian Review of 2010

From the start to end, this issue is great. I agree that our being hidden iin the past is important in learning our history. Larry Kramer’s article in a previous issue, opposing queer theory, is a great example of how a “view” can bring on a counter view and a great discussion. Ironically I don’t agree with the queer theory people yet agree with the disagreement with Kramer.

It is good to have a person who served in the military again say that the majority of people serving don’t feel the need for don’t ask, don’t tell. And as we try to be “accepted” it is good to point out that laws with good purposes, such as the obscenity laws, can have bad enforcement and do more harm than good.

There are good letters to the editor, and again Kramer inspired response. I think the issue of how black Americans view homosexuality is not that confusing—they use the Bible that approved of slavery—not that only black people have been slaves, just as the Mormons preach oldfashioned marriage while they had polygamy at their founding and only “got rid of it” when forced to by the government.

And Bill Percy’s protest of using science as a replacement for religion as proof of something, when it in many cases has merely been pushing religious ideas under differnet terms is still needed, as many young people have no idea of how science, medicine, etc were used to harm our community in the past. A columnist, Thomas Sowell, has recently said we should not accept “science” when it tells us about climate control, but he accepts it when it says homosexuality is wrong, if it says homosexuals are sick.

As to the question of the Knights of the Clock,the early Los Angeles interracial group, I know of no more information, as Dorr Legg covered it in ONE's first book, Homosexuals Today, still available as I have a copy, and assume ONE Institute (Dorr Legg, Jim Kepner parts) and the Homosexual Information Center (Don Slater part) archives/collections do as well.

I am sorry that I see no place, especially in “queer studies” that the issues brought up in BTW are covered. I have said that is where even our HIC website fails, as do all books, in covering why ONE and HIC founders had such important views that are still valid today. You point out that in a court (in Australia) men were asked to “prove” they were homosexual. We answered that question, even if the world and even “gays” reject it, years ago, in court, with the person best able to support our belief, Dr. Evelyn Hooker. In fighting drafting of young men who had said they were homosexual, to avoid the draft, and some of them were not homosexual, Don Slater and attorneys went into court several times, winning all cases, and telling the court that the ONLY proof that someone is homosexual is their word. An act does not prove or make someone homosexual, and no “experts” could prove it when Hooker offered them the chance.

And then you say Kenya wants homosexuals there to identify themselves, so they will know how many there are in dealing with AIDS. Well, that is the same issue we faced in the 1960s when the Health authorities in Los Angeles asked ONE to work with them, take money, and deal with homosexuals with medical problems. We said no and reminded them that we would have to identify those people and by their admission they would be confessing to a crime, and the information would not be kept secret. They claimed we were wrong, until we showed them information given in secrecy to them had been given by them to health agencies in another state.

And the silly addition of letters to our “community” only shows how silly some of us are. Just as the continued insistence by a few people that only the word gay is acceptible—even some women don’t accept the word lesbian. No comment on how Texas should correct the mistake in its attempt to defend marriage from us. They now have a “gay” mayor in Houston. I think that tells us where the future lies.

But the most fun is in trying to understand what Jason Schneiderman is trying to say to and about Larry Kramer's anti-queer theory remarks.

How can I say it except that his “proof” is unacceptable to me, yet his arguments are right.
No one at ONE, as far as I can remember, ever accepted the arguments about Foucault. I never read him, and it seems to me that much of the article is an east coast view as we were busy working on the west coast and not being intellectual. It amazes to me that the world still seems to think homosexuality and our movement didn’t happen until the east coast thought to join us. And in book reviews it seems no one ever heard of many west coast authors, including Patrica Nell Warren, who is in this issue, or Joseph Hansen, etc.

Books in current (Fall 09) issue of Claremont Review of Books

I was glancing at magazines in the book store and saw this, and even though from the past I know I don’t often agree with the Clarement Review’s views, I want to say that I found this coverage very interesting, as I assume was intended, since it covers American history, even indirectly (with such books as one of Islam).

Will Morrisey's review of The Crisis of Islam, by Ali A. Allawi, is very good. It points out why most Americans insist on separation of church and state, and, despite the attempt at apologizing for Islam, the fact remains that Islam says, "What is ours is ours, and what is yours is negotiable." It says clearly that while someone can convert to Islam, no one can "leave' Islam. I read such things from the view of a homosexual American, and that is why liberals have supported Bush, and now Obama in their defense of America from Islamic etremists, and insist that all Muslims must agree to accept America's laws and not try to impose their religious beliefs, which say that religion and the state are one.

And that is why I still doubt the Christian Right, as covered in the review by Jon A. Shields of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, by Jean Bethke Elshtain. Both books try to explain what is unacceptable, and thus fail. Then there is the very good discussion of the book Lincoln at Peoria. I wonder when books will discuss Lincoln's sexuality. But I must say that I had not thought of the speech there as being that important, but it seems to have led to Gettsybug, and Lincoln's view on slavery—which should be read by Judge Bork, whose book is total nonsense as even the reviewer seems to understand. His idea of original inent is, of course, nonsense. But I was glad to see it said that the constitution does not guarantee the right to marry. And the comment that he should understand that if you can't add anything to the Constitution, you can't deny what is there!

But the Review remains consistent on the last two items, on Obama, and having Dick Cheney as speaker.

But keep going, editors! You keep my blood going.

Why do some homosexuals have more faith in America today than the right-wingers?Over the holiday i have listened to C-SPAN2 book rviews, and one final

Over the holiday I have listened to C-SPAN2 book rviews, and one finally got to me. I heard the views of George Nash and his discussion of his book, Reappraising the Right. I could not believe my ears when what he seemed to say is that they should start doing what (he did not sway this but what he said is what we have done, poor man) the very things, tactics that the movement for homosexual equal/civil rights have done, starting in 1950, ironically when he thinks the conservative movement started, and that it has lost some of its original thinkers and needs to restart.

It is strange to hear him think that programs on NPR and what I consider liberal media should be copied by the rightwingers/conservatives. I of course never listen to these sources, don’t consider them as having helped our cause and think most Americans feel the same way.

This is part of the bigger issue, a generic one that has been around, probably since the nation’s founding. But if we are to believe the polls and the media, most Americans now not only don’t like how things are going and are doubting Obama but think things were better in the past, presumably even under the last administration. How queer that most homosexual Americans think that things keep getting better and our nation has never been more like what the founders envisioned. We have more faith in our system than the rightwingers.

We have reasons, as do most black Americans and most female Americans. And most Hispanic Americans. I hope soon that will be true of most Native Americans, who still have not gotten promises fulfilled even from the Clinton administration era. Each decade since 1959 our cause has made progress. Each generation our community/movement has had a better life. I wonder why other Americans can’t feel the same way. They lost no rights by slowly granting us ours. We got no special rights that made us happier, gayer than other Americans.

It is time that intelligent Americans stop whining and realize that our nation deserves credit for having gone further toward the America the founders sought—using the constitution and Bill of rights and other guides they gave us. The system works. In a time of economic trouble, the has been no backlash against any minority—as might have been expected. The vast majority of Americans are loyal, support their government, and want it to succeed, even those who might not have voted for Obama. Our two-party system is not bad. Progress has been made under all administrations. We have reasons to celebrate, no matter which politidcal party we support or our religious beliefs or race. Let’s welcome a new year in which to continue our work to make our nation even better.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are today’s Mattachines

A most interesting sociological (and psychological) study would be learning who watches/listens to Comedy Central’s shows, especially The Daily Show (Jon Stewart) and The Colbert Report (Stephen Colbert). What only a few homosexuals may “see” is that these people are today’s version of Mattachines. It seems lost that not all “mattachines” were homosexual, including the supporters of America’s first successful organization seeking understanding of homosexuality.

This is relevant today as we see more and more print media, homosexual and non-homosexual, disappearing, and many people crying that our civilization will be the lesser for their loss. Nonsense. The sad fact is that journalism has never been the great contributor to our civilization that most people, especially academics and journalists, have told us. It is not just the faux “news” we get from Fox News that is recent and indicates a decline. It is the rare exception—Edward R Murrow—to the rule that makes us think journalism has been so good in the past or different from Fox's ignorant talkers.

That is why it is good that so many young Ameicans now get their news and views on important issues from Stewart and Colbert, et al. Like the early mattachines, who talked truth to the “leaders” of their time, which is why Harry Hay proposed that name for the first organization, it was a perfect name—sorry Dear departed Dale Jennings, although your version of the discussions held are also funny—and is a perfect name for Stewart and Colbert and their staff. But, sadly, there are no mattachines in our news rooms today. Serious Americans should ask the tv networks and local newspaper editors why a few staff members at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report can find information on people who are telling us lies and tell us about their deceit, with humor and satire, entertainingly, and NBC, Time, et al, can't with all their vaunted money and experience. And the evidence is there, even more today, on the internet.

I challenge anyone who thinks that they are getting news and good views in The New York Times, or Newsweek, or the local alternative publications such as L. A. Weekly, to watch these two shows a week and learn who is really giving you facts and the “news” and how really sad the state of journalism is. And I challenge the glbt journalists to even learn the history of their homosexual community/movement—as it seems few have even heard of Mattachine and ONE. And they may learn news from Stewart’s segment called “gay watch.” They will not learn anything from watching endless repeats of the L Word and Queer as Folk on LOGO. And they sure will not get any news—gay or non-gay—from the nightly network news shows, including PBS News Hour which seems to follow Karl Rove's idea of politics, don’t change things, just change names or the meaning of a word. And even less will they learn the truth from liberal media—which has been true from the start of the homosexual movement. We got less then and get less now from The Nation and The New Republic and The Village Voice than we got from the main street media. What a true journaolist, Don Slater, learned early was that we got more help from rightwingers of each era, such as Joe Pyne, than we got from the liberals who ignored us, including the ACLU. Our attorneys were conservatives, not liberals. Our printers were conservative, not liberal. We got more publicity from attacks from the right than we got from silence from the left. Playboy ignored us, but we got publicity when the lesser sex publications mentioned us. As any effort or cause learns, there is a serious question of whether you are better off being attacked or being ignored.

There may be a day when newspapers and magazines, major religious groups and even current political parties are no longer with us, and today's politicians are dead—some are already, except physically—but there hopefully will always be mattachines.


While it seems that the first public homosexual publication, ONE Magazine, founded in 1952, coming out of early (secret) Mattachine did do a good job, and had no competition for several years, the vast majority of later publications, like ONE, didn't have the resources to really give news and view on homosexuality, and once some got advertising and income, they seemed to go for entertainment only, ignoring the work of the movement. And most recent books seem to also ignore the serious discussion, so th3e clsoing of lgbt bookstores means little in fact as far as our community/movement is concerned.

Guest Blogger: Aristide Laurent and The Not-So-Sudden Death of The Advocate

As a person known for having an article in the very first issue of The Advocate in 1967 (under the nom-de-plume “P.Nutz”), and having been there at its birth, I take this news with mixed emotions. I continued writing and working with the newspaper and into the 1970’s when it became a glossy under Mr. Goodstein. As Todd White reported in one of his earlier Legends columns in The Long Beach Blade, I was an “accidental activist” who kept winding up at history-making events because, well, “where the action was there was I” ... starting with The Black Cat protest in abt 1968 and marching against the passage of Prop 8 in 2008. I was a personal friend of Advocate owners Dick Mitch, Bill Rau, and Sam Allen. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, we were so proud of our work and how the Advocate grew in circulation with each new issue to hit the stands, eventually becoming a household world in most LGBT households. This was during the rag-tag beginning of the gay/sexual revolution—hippies, gay-ins, pride parades, protests by the unwashed masses of gays & lesbians. It was the right thing at the right time. It was an idea whose time had come.

Then David Goodstein came along and purchased all the Advocate stock (I think he paid $4 a share for what was originally sold for $1 a share). I was one of the “anointed” whom he moved to San Mateo to set up shop. There is much debate about what Goodstein changed the Advocate to, but I’m a believer in the theory that nothing can, or will, remain the same and must adapt to its time. In those 10 years from 1967-1977, much progress was made in the battle for gay rights and equality. Goodstein, rightly or wrongly, decided that it was time for the gay community to move into the main-stream and flex our purchasing power. Still, the gay community continued to fight and demand equality without the help of the all-new-glossy Advocate. I cannot say, nor will I attempt to, say, how much influence Goodstein and the new Advocate had on causing corporations to acknowledge us as a source of income to be courted and leading to Ellen daring to come out on national TV. To me his concept was just another militant division, or troop unit, in our march towards equality.

So it seems that “new” Advocate is about to go the route of the “old” Advocate and, like the dinosaurs, become an anachronism and victim of technology and progress. One can only assume (and hope) that the new technology (esp. the Internet) will now continue the battle for equality using today’s weapons. Being an optimistic cynic, I would not be surprised that the gay community (though, perhaps in a different form) will still be standing and progressing when the rest of the country collapses into the Haves and the Have Nots. Of course, by then, we probably will no longer be known as DINKS (double income/no kids) as in the past 40 years of my activism, we have gone from sexual liberation to the right to marry and have kids.

I attended the Advocate’s 40th Anniversary party in WeHo in 2007. I felt like a dinosaur among all those pretty young things and Hollywood celebs. Stuart Timmons tried to get the editor of the Advocate to introduce me to the gathered throng as the oldest living former Advocate employee still standing and speaking out, but ... well, I think the word “oldest” didn’t go over very well with a crowd whose parents had probably not been born when the rest of us were fighting against bar raids and lewd conduct arrests for just holding hands in a bar. I told Stuart to let the issue go because I was from a different world than this generation and that was OK. I had my many years of wonderful memories, felt very secure in myself and the fact that I had contributed a little something toward their freedom to party in public and dance man-to-man, woman-to-woman without fear of being raided by the LAPD. That was more than enough for me for me.

As one-of-our-own (Rod McKuen) said in song during that period: “People change. Life goes on. Every midnight brings a new dawn.” Here’s hoping each new dawn brings continuing advances in our struggle for equality. Gay marriage is an idea whose time has come and, in my humble opinion, nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. We saw that with the Hate Bill including the gay community. We will see it with our other reasonable demands, including marriage, adoption, DADT, and things we can only dream about for the future.

The older I get, the more things from my generation pass on ... my favorite bars, my friends, my health, newspapers, etc. Thank Zeus and Aphrodite I still have my memories to sustain me above ground.

Aristide Laurent