We need a lgbt think tank, talk about issues, goals, methods, etc.

I was talking with someone today and it reminded me of how good it was in the early days to sit with people and talk about issues. And many of those "issues" are still issues today, even though in a different atmosphere.

I see shows on C-SPAN taped at various think tank events-mostly rightwing. So what is missing, as far as I know, except in our publications, is discussion and exchange of thoughts among us in the community/movement.

I can think of many news items that are not "gay" but are indirectly related to our cause and might be useful to us if we could view them for a lgbt view.

Also, since no one can read all blogs or pcations, it would be helpful to everyone if some of us could read certain publications and let the rest of us know if they have articles of interest. An example is found on today's links in Daily Queer News. There is an article in Village Voice on glbt publications and how they may be in trouble. Comments added show how interesting others found the article, most disagreeing with the idea of the writer. That is good journalism and a good education in itself.

Knowing the bgasic truths just don't seem to matter: Today someone said the civil rights movement "started' in 1945, and that the feminists have brou

In a sense it is frustrating, but it just shows that even serious people don't always seem to know how to say facts without trying to put them in context. On a morning news show a reporter/commentator started a segment by giving what would be discussed and apparently for some reason it is a legal case from the 1945 era and he said, this was the beginning of the civil rights movement.

Then a good discussion was held on C-SPAN's morning show, based on the cover story of the current Atlantic Monthly, by Rosen-she was taking questions. And her article seems to be well documented. But it still left confusion in some people's minds about why men are becoming a minority-I didn't know, for instance, that apparently in Australia they have some sort of affirmative action for boys. But the question of did feminists and NOW cause this fact that men are losing jobs more than women, graduating from college less, etc.

Poor men.

It seems to me that in a few paragraphs you could tell anyone our history, including the slow growth of women's rights, civil rights in general, etc. How wars played a part, loss of jobs men do due to strength, etc.

But that would not include necessarily a list of names and dates. BUT to say the (black) civil rights movement started in 1945 (apparently with a trial, which would mean that the homosexual movement started with Dale Jenning's trial in L. A. in 1952)., or with Dr. King's march in Selma, or at Stonewall is just nonsense and it is time we demanded that the media stop being lazy and pushing for sexy leads, teasers-how many times can a reporter say, the world is coming to an end, more right after the commercials?

And a glance at the documentary Word is out, shown on TCM this week, puts in perspective that we have been "out" at least since 1978, all over the nation, in small towns, etc. So why even then did the media ignore this? Why do they ignore it now? Why will any writer claim no one was out before someone or some event happened-which that THEY didn't know anything about the issue till THEY discovered it, whenever.

Another point I continue to find important and maybe others don't is, last Sunday, on CBS' Sunday Show, they did a segment on men's underwear-something we would have been arrested for if ONE had done it. On Comedy Central's show, Tosh.O, they did a song whose lyrics talks about anal sex, again, think about what the closet queens would have thought if they got a magazine in the '60s with such a poem, etc. If you haven't seen such examples of discussing of sexuality recently, you have not been watching TV. That to me is progress. Beyond what Playboy, etc did on the subject in the late '50s and '60s.

Word is Out on TCM last night

Anyone seeing Word is Out, made in 1978, can no longer say that the public didn't know "out" glbt people. The only reason young lgbt people didn't feel better is fi they wantd to have celebrities out to make them feel better, which is nonssense.

I would sure like to know where all these people are today, the ones still with us.

Is Rex Wockner the glbt media version of Fox News?

The current issue of Windy City Times has the usual weekly column by Rex Wockner, Quotelines. Usually it is what some current celebrity has said suddenly becoming gay-friendly, and promoting a new movie or book, etc. Seldom is there a quote from those actually working for the homosexual civil rights movement. Ironically, in this issue there are two troubling quotes.

First there are the relative newcomers to the cause, Get Equal or some such name, who spend time fussing at other older lgbt groups. Attacking our co-workers is worse than not having a quote at all. Sort of the issue of sins of commission versus omission.

Then I am confused at what might be part of Wockner's agenda, or view of how to help the cause in the opposite direction. He has a quote from writer Eric Marcus. The problem is that the quote is a "good" quote as opposed to the quote most of the media has from Marcus, which is a "bad" one, if he actually said it, which he either didn't or didn't mean to say.

The quote used is merely what many other people have said since the homosexual civil rights movement started in 1950-some say to be accurate it was then the homophile movement. "There's the assumption among gay people that if only this famous person came out, things would be better, and that's never the case."

To expand on what has been said, by many, is that we don't need to be honoring or be proud of someone who was or is homosexual or glbt who has not done anything for the cause, much less who has worked against the cause. So why is anyone happy or gay to claim Liberace, for instance, who actually sued a publication that said he was homosexual?

The "other" quote of Marcus is that he seemed to say that there were no "out" people before Stonewall. Why did Wockner not say this and explain it rahter than seem to try to cover it by using the quote he did Now many people immediately pointed out such people as Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, etc, much less the people who founded the movement and first published a magazine on the subject of homosexuality? Which the media ignored even when it won a U. S. Supreme Court case (1958) in order to be able to mail a publication dealing with homosexuality. I mean ONE of course.

As young people seem to say a lot, "I'm just sayin."

Time Magazine's coverage of Stonewall Uprising in the Short List section, June 28, 2010

I suggest you reread your words used in reporting on the documentary Stonewall Uprising, unless you really understood their true meaning. You say it evokes the "Rosa Parks moment of the gay rights movement." That is more accurate than most people know, including most "gays." The black civil rights movement had been going on for years, and the event with Rosa Parks was the result of long preparation for that moment. That is true of Stonewall, since there has been a homosexual civil rights movement, now called a glbt movement, continually since 1950, and the same type incidents had happened earlier in several cities, but the lazy media just had not "discovered" such an event until it happened in their area.

What we remember from having worked in the homosexual civil rights movement in the early days

I think the best part of these exchanges is getting us to look at our lives and the history we lived through and the little bit we helped make.

I must admit now, although I guess I knew it all along, is how easy my life was compared to a lot of us. I had a good early life-was having sex but never thought about it as an "issue." And none of the boys were homosexual. Most are dead now. The only part abut sex I remember-other than when parents caught 4 or 5 of us under a small wooden bridge in the alley behind our house-when I was about 4, checking ourselves out-is that i was reading in a magazine a story of Flicka, the horse, and apparently it mentioned birth of a colt, and I asked my mother what that was about and she told me how babies were born. it was totally unimportant to me-I'm guessing I was about 11.

I first thought about the subject in a psychology class at LSU in 1954. I went into the Army in Feb 55, never thought about sex the first 8 weeks, and only later had sex. And then got kicked out late 56, went to L.A., got regular job-had not told anyone where I was going, went with about $200 (on tran). Found a place/bed in a rooming house on Mariposa at 3d, near Normandie, immediately, got a job, and for about 2 years only got in movement as far as reading ONE Magazine. Finally got in contact in late 59, then went to Mattachine's convention/conference in Denver, and I think I've said the rest.

My parents knew (about me being homosexual), after the Army. But I was alone and on my own for only less than a year-all other times I had their financial support and their support otherwise even though they never really understood the homosexual part. We got back together when I joined the Methodist Church in L.A. which told the Bossier church where I was. They gave money to Tangents/HIC when I asked for it. I had lots of sex with marines and sailors, one of each on a long term basis. When in LA I picked up airmen from Barksdale AFB. I settled down for the about 13 years Melvin and I were together, starting in 1963 the day JFK was killed, having met walking down 6th Street. And don't worry about sex now.

I'm retelling this to point out that I never had any problems with being homosexual. I never had a job to lose, or lost a family, etc. I did work temp jobs mainly to be able to get Social Security and thus Medicare. Otherwise I gave all money I had to Tangents/HIC. Never planned ahead. So I also lucked out that from the family I have the house and car, which makes me able to live on a small SS income.

So that affects in a sense how I look at the issues. It sure makes a difference from what you and others had to face. And I had to learn this. But it is sure what was in the mind, and was the intention, of the founders; to make life better for young people so that they would not only not have to face what you did, but if they did, to have resources to help them.

Billy Glover

What the FBI and media and world should have learned about this civil rights movement and why we have been so successful

To Ron Tate, re: Boston Globe article "FBI gives a glimpse of its most secret layer (Bryan Bender, Globe Staff, March 29, 2010)

I could not find mention of Hal Call but did of Mattachine in 1958, which of course is a totally different Mattachine from the original one, which was started by communists, but in no way aimed at undermining the U. S. government. And in fact they were kicked out of the party for being homosexual—Harry, Dale, and later Jim (Kepner) I think.

If the FBI did its job, they would know that that was exactly why Hal took over Mattachine and moved it to San Francisco. It was tremendously successful in southern California and then less so in San Francisco, but that is generic—it was new and so it grew from one small gathering in a home to hundreds all over the state. But the people did not know of Harry's communist connection, and Hal feared if they did it would kill it. It was killed anyway, in order to save it.

That is why it is so historically important, despite the East Coast bias and wall to wall Stonewall exploitation by the lazy media, to know that the original Mattachine (Foundation) morphed into ONE, Inc., as the major people (only because they thought it was time to reach out publicly since it had been so successful in reaching people who were still in the closet) decided to go public and publish the magazine, and to do that they had to incorporate, get a public office, and later hold public meetings-to which most of the members would still be afraid to attend—etc.

And then ONE had to fight the legal battle (from 1954 to 1958) with the Post Office—over mailing the magazine. So, I'm not a happy camper if the FBI thought Mattachine San Francisco was more important than we were at ONE and HIC. I wonder if the reporter/journalist saw an mention of ONE, DOB, etc.?

But if they did investigate, they had to see immediately that Hal and ONE, Dorr and Don mainly, were "conservatives," and not a threat. I don't think there was any conscious plan, but it is clear that the movement started with left-wingers, some actually former communists-kicked out of the party, and IMMEDIATELY was taken over by extreme conservatives.

I think serious social scientists And political scientists will say that the reason this civil rights movement, which started in 1950 in the McCarthy era, has been so successful is because it took the best from the left and right and used them to work all angles. And another irony is that we did it better than the government does things, and the first converts were in fact big business.

Such a story may not be sexy, but it sure is historically important. And that is why the slogan is right-we started with that ripple in los Angeles in 1950, and have grown to a raging wave all over the nation—and the media just caught on about the time of Stonewall.

Billy