Thanks for the good coverage of the CA marriage decision.
At first I laughed at your "question" of the media (was it CNN) going to a gay bar in West Hollywood to get a "gay" reaction-since obviously someone at a gay place would think it was a good decision. I thought, ah ha! Another example of the lazy media people. But I also thought it was a waste of time to have gone to any glbt center, or publication, as the people there would also obviously know of the decision and like it.
Sadly, as in any group or minority, a lot of people really do nothing for a cause, and often don't even know what is happening-many don't read newspapers or watch tv news.
So, in a sense, the best place to go to see if glbt people really know and care about the court's decision wouid be where they go for entertainment and pleasure, and not a place where serious thinking and work for a cause takes place-such as at a lgbt newspaper or gay/lesbian center of a PFLAG meeting.
If the movement for civil /equal rights for homosexuals is to continue and make progress, a lot of young people must get involved. If they want to continue to have the pleasure of a safe gay bar, they must work to keep it safe, and that means giving time, energy and money to their cause.
That was Always what we at Mattachine/ONE/HIC have thought. We of all people had no reason to trust any part of the government-we were treated (and entrapped) as criminals (laws probably based on relgion), shuned as sinners (by all religions), and of course probably following the religious thinking, labeled as mentally ill by the psychologists and psychiatrists-who testified against us in court and made money off of "curing" us (and apparently are still putting young people into "care centers" to change them).
Working with the system we, the community/movement, from 1950 on have essentially changed all of this, so now the bigots are accusing the courts, which one were anti-us and were making decisions THEY liked, of being activist, because the decisions are going against the them. Most of the media that once attacked us, is now neutral or gay-friendly.
Same with racial issues. Only someone who lived when the preachers, politicians and newspapers were saying terrible things about black Americans and any white Americans who supported their efforts to gain civil/equal rights, would know how much better the world is today. That is now more true for women and homosexuals.
Now in a sense the government and other institutions (except religious ones) are on our side. But, as Harry Hay warned till the end of his life-look at what happened in Germany. We must be constantly alert to people and groups that would reverse our gains. The founders of this movement did their job, and each generation since has, so now it is up to the young homosexual men and women of today to hold what we have given them and build on it an even better nation, for us and all Americans.
Thanks for that moving report by Carleton Cronin on a real example of why Don't Ask, don't tell is so terrible-for all servicemembers. He visited a former military buddy who was dying, in South Dakota and who had trusted him enough to tell him he was gay. And Cronin is the example of why more and more Americans are aware of the real consequences of the rule and why it separates men and women who need to work and trust each other.
The Bay Area Reporter answered a question from a reader by giving a sample of lgbt libraries/archives. Many papers during the year mention some, such as Liberty Press in Kansas reports on the new archives at the library at the University of Kansas, but it is good to have a larger listing in all our community/movement publications, and they are of course listed in Gayellow Pages.
I am told that The Huffington Report has published a short list of books dealing with and aimed at young homosexual men and women. So i glanced at the few I have in this part of the HIC library. And I was surprised to see one that is by two people who were connected to the university where our Homosexual Information Center/Don Slater Collection is-California State University Northridge.
Counter Play, by Anne Snyder (and Louis Pelletier) was published by New American Library/Signet in 1981. A teenage boy, whose military family moved often, finally gets to a high school he is able to adjust to and likes football and finds one close friend, with whom he has a working football relationship and goes camping with.
Later in the school year the friend tells the boy he is homosexual. The boy deals with it, but the friend is later falsely accused of trying to have sex with a trucker-and is exposed and this creates problems for both boys.
The story is well told and is handled well. It shows how just having a homosexual friend can harm a non-homosexual. There is a happy ending.
The fact that the two authors were connected with CAl State Northridge is interesting, since that means they were already thinking of the issues, and might even now deal with them and perhaps help CSUN students learn about the issues and the resources available.
And I don't understand why the authors have not been able to turn this good book into a tv special movie. (Pelletier has been connected wwith Disney)
There may be a need for a discussion of good books, for those who still read, that are helpful for young people dealing with sexuality.
I met Harry and John at ONE in the early 1960s as they came to work and visit-worked on a Friday night committee as I recall. I still think that is how they met, although I/ve seen other versions. I think Harry had not been active for a few years after being kicked out of his Mattachine by Hal Call et al in about 1955 or 6. The publications section had already come out to publish ONE Magazine, and incorporated to do that and then the other needed things, such as have lectures, classes (the Institute) and help in social services and legal work. (Inbetween as I recall is when the Dale Jennings legal case, over his entrapment arrest, happened, as reported by him in I think the first issue of ONE. As a co-founder of Mattchine and ONE he was one of the main people at the time.)
Jim Kepner had just left ONE for the second time-over Dorr's not being honest about our tax-exemption-which he had not completed, which is why ONE never was tax-exempt, and had a license as we had the Bookservice. That is why in 1965 ISHR was formed, with Reed Erickson giving the funding for a tax-exempt part of ONE. Don and i switched to it, but then Dorr tried to force everyone out who disagreed with his priorities and Don led the separation that Easter Sunday. The Annual Meeting had been a disaster and right after John and Harry had become voting members, they quit over this as had Morgan Farley. They had all warned Don that Dorr was causing trouble and didn't think Don cared as he liked Dorr so much, and till then they had run different parts of ONE, Don the magazine and library.
In the early 1970s as I recall Don and Tony (Reyes) bought the house in Colorado and about the same time John and Harry moved to the cottage at San Juan Pueblo. In earlier years they had lived in Laguna Beach and other places. And they lived in Hollwood after moving back and then to San Francisco. I am not sure when they did the Faerie bit. They in I think the late 80s visited with me here in Louisiana while coming back from a speaking trip. I think they were in a Volkwagon or some such small car.
I/we of course went to their place on Washington Blvd at Western right around the corner from our office on Venice at Western (Around 1962-4). There they made the Teleidoscopes that John had invented, but later I think his wife took control. He had lived with her on Outpost in Hollywood, where we went once. But their material burned up in a fire that destroyed the Trading Post in New Mexico and tthen they were poor. (There Harry contuned his interest in American Indians/Native Americans, and did the work to stop the builidng of a dam that woud hurt the tribe there.)
We had a great time around May, 1966 when they and we worked on the Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals From the Armed Forces. They rode in a car (we did a Motorcade of a dozen or so cars thought L. A) .and were interviewed on some tv shows. Dale talked about Harry as dominating, such as choosing the name Mattachine, and yet his experiences in the early days, and communist work may have helped get it started, even if later it was a hindrance- which is a generic thing for lots of causes. But I never saw a downside of either of them. In theory Harry was the dominant one, but they both talked a lot.
I don't remember much of the conversations we had over the years, as I don't even remember much of the time with Don and Dorr. Fortunately Don's work is in print in the magazine and newsletters and a few columns in general newspapers. And Harry is in several books, stuch as Stuart Timmon's (The Troube with...) and the short biographical material in Vern Bulloughs' edited book, Before Stonewall, and C. Todd White's history of early Mattachine/ONE/HIC (Pe-Gay L. A).
Can we assume the history will be dealt with in what I understand is a 2012 celebration of Harry?
I wonder if even the people active in the effort to get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell know the long history of our community/movement attempt to get justice in the Armed Forces. The article/viewpoint of Jeff Fulton in the current issue of Windy City Times is a small contribution to getting this history on the record (DADT: A historical perspective).
Since May of 1966 we have been dealing with the military over the issue of homosexuals in the Armed Forces. At that time the inductees (men) were asked about their sexuality-which we obviously opposed, as is the basis of the effort today. But as Fulton points out even though the men were asked, the hope was that they would not answer, as the military needed bodies to serve in Vietnam. AND as we in Los Angeles had to deal with, the Army actually tried to ignore the "checked box" and drafted some men anyway. So Don Slater led the legal battle, taking the issue to court, with the aide of Dr. Evelyn Hooker, friendly attorneys and as far as I remember not one of the dozen or so men whose case was handled were actually drafted. Others were. And, as the military, and I'm sure the courts as well as we, knew that some of the men who said their were homosexual were not.
And as far as we know the men we helped had no problems in their future, although only a few ever contacted us later in their life or did any work for the "cause." We have the records of these men in Homosexual Information Center Archives at Cal state Northridge. I wonder where they are today, these man years later and if they have any thoughts of helping the young men and women today still fighting that battle.
