Combining our cause with other causes

The Windy City Times has had articles/columns discussing what our movement has done this year.  Since it seems successful and with Illinois having marriage equality there is the question of what other causes to take on while we are on a roll. The latest example of having our voice joined with others in the joint letter of HRC and the NAACP about the views of the Duck Dynasty family.

It is a good debate to have, it seems to me, as to how much good we do our cause and another cause by joining the two. We did not have many offers from others when this movement started. Even Virginia Prince/Transvestia objected to being included in a list the Homosexual Information Center made of resources.There were good examples of those who could have worked from several causes, and a few examples show that the attempt backfired.  Bayard Rustin being only one.  I remember in theory a woman who could not do it all-a black lesbian and maybe working o get the right to vote for women.

I hope the movement is big enough now to handle different choices, but we would not want to harm our cause by devoting our time to another cause, no matter how good. 

Best wishes to you and all LGBT journalists/media for a good new year.

Letter from Don Slater, from Dec. 1990

Historians are talking on C-SPAN about how much harder learning history will be now that people no longer write letters.  So I thought I would share one, not important, letter Don Slater wrote to me here in LA while he was working in L. A.  It may be interesting if someone wants to know what he thought at the time of Stuart Timmons’ book on Harry Hay. (Or Troy Perry.) This letter was received on Dec. 3, 1990

Yes.  I wrote some time ago that Stuart Timmons' book about Harry, The Trouble With Harry Hay, had been published by Alyson. We got 2 review copies: 1 from Alyson via Timmons, and 1 from Dale Jennings who had been given a copy by Timmons here in the house when I had them over to meet. Martin, of course, is keeping the review copy we have given him, but I haven't seen the review yet. The book in my opinion is quite good. But unfortunately loaded with unimportant errors—all the result of Timmons’ relying almost exclusively on Kepner for his peripheral information. He had interviewed me a couple of times, but always for confirmation of what others had told him. I explained that I wasn’t going to second-guess, Jim or anyone else. If he wanted information about me or you, or the work we did, etc. I would have talked more to him. For instance, although it is not bad, most of the small bit about our break-up with ONE came from either Bill or Jim-or maybe both. And I said, okay, if those are your sources let it be. Everybody is mentioned including Tony (incorrectly),  me (incorrectly), no mention of our Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals from the Armed Forces, at least by name (which is strange considering that Harry was our head), no mention of you, and Dale wants to sue because he feels he’s been misrepresented. He has even consulted Herb Selwyn. But I say a suit would be the best thing that could happen to the book; I say this even thought I am basically in favor of it.  I can assure you, it was not easy for Stuart to deal with a living Harry Hay and all of the rest of the prima donnas still living. With all its errors the book is the best thing yet, and it should be allowed to die it own death; it doesn't need to be prodded. 

My fight at the moment is trying to get a review copy of the new biography of Troy Perry.  Jim and everyone else has it, but Troy sent me a formal note saying I would have to contact St. Martin’s Press if I wanted a copy. The whole tone of the note was distant. I want Chas. to review it in the same issue of the newsletter with Martin’s review of Harry, but I have a feeling that Troy may be afraid Charles will trash it since he ghosted the first biography as you know, and is not too happy with Troy who refused to give him any royalty. 

I will be writing to Karyn Schacter. But I can’t imagine a high school student is doing any serious “research,” as you call it.  She’s probably doing a school paper that’s all. You are wrong about Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund. They send us things all the time, and always addressed to you. In fact, a lot of material coming to the box is in your name so it is likely that some directory or other lists us there with you as secretary. This is fine except large packages I can’t get if I go on Sundays, and United Parcel will not deliver to a PO Box so some things get sent back, I imagine because I never get them even when I phone, and ask that they be forwarded to the house. 

Yes, we get the Gay & Les. Hist. Co. Newsletter from SF. But I like the old cumbersome name better than the new one, and I haven’t seen your letter. However, I’m glad you are getting printed because despite the length of time you’ve been in the movm’t you're still generally unknown. 

Don 

Passion of Dan Choi article

I think this article, in Prospect Magazine, is very important, for the LGBT community but generically for anyone thinking that celebrity lasts forever and everyone will love you-especially those working for the same cause.  Each person has to be able to work for the cause and still like him/herself after his time in work is past. That seems to be  generic problem with many people-they feel worthless without a job and title.

It confirms most of what Don Slater and Dorr Legg and others warned activists about from 1950s on.  The writer, Gabriel Arana, has done a good job and his article does what I have often asked GLBT journalists/historians to do: follow up and tell us what happened to those who were active and then disappeared.

Perhaps I found it interesting because he seemed to do what I did, reach a point where you said to hell with it and acted badly and not in the best interests of the service—which he chose to join.

In a strange world, he both found out you can not depend on those who should be supporting you AND he became a bad example of why letting one person be the speaker, is not good.  What even the article fails to point out, and is relevant, is what had been done BEFORE Choi, on the problem/issue.  He should have known of the early efforts.  It seems to me a copout to call DADT a bad idea—it was the best for that time.  And his efforts to get ahead of others working more silently and even for a longer time, is not honorable and shows he is not a good co-worker/soldier.

Nov. 2013 issue of the Gay & Lesbian Review

As I read Will Roscoe's article on Harry Hay, (in the November/December issue of G&LR) it reminded me of what I think of The Gay & Lesbian Review.  While I find the first half of his article very good, he lost me from then on. And, I think he never even had most young LGBT people.  

Not only do they seem uninterested in the pioneers of the movement that has made it possible for them to live comfortably open lives as homosexuals, but they seem uninterested in any discussion of homosexuality—certainly not the Hay versus Foucault thinking.  

The issue of if we are a minority is not settled, yet Don Slater’s view seems to have been agreed to in the CO decision of the U. S. Supreme Court—we are  minority ONLY because society and laws make us one. Otherwise we have nothing in common, not even the language, etc., Harry thought made us one.

I also thought of that as I read the letter—I always like letters to the editor—pointing out the misuse of Harvey Milk’s “writings.” (Sort of like the current issue over Rand Paul’s speeches—questioning authorship.) What some people have “seen” in Harry, Radical Faeries, Communist, subject-subject thinking, etc., I did NOT see. What I did see is what the letter writer points out which is that (as also seems possible in the questions raised in the new book on Matthew Shepard) some writers or closet queens feel the need to find some person or event to put forward as evidence we are good people. As the writer, who was his editor and has some of the original writings of Milk, says, “he has become the vehicle for any enterprising aspirant, including restless academics, in search of a personality to immortalize.  Harvey Milk apparently fits the bill, but this does not make him a ‘philosophe.’” What should be asked is why Harry does not fit that need.

I do not like the idea of Roscoe that it was “assimilationists” who kicked Harry, et al., out of leadership—thus ending early Mattachine.  It is clear from history that it took Harry and cohorts to start the movement. As Roscoe says, “He held a meeting,” which all the talkers and closeted writers did not.  That made all the difference. But as I worked in the movement, with him and the others, it was clear that there had to be a change of focus to make the movement grow. Secret meetings would not do it, and having communists lead the movement publicly would have stopped it. Our movement and those of blacks and women were constantly accused of being part of a communist plot (mentioned in another letter to the editor, forgiving Liberace for being a closet queen).

I’m not sure how this fits the discussion, but Roscoe is right when he says Harry said—I assume regarding all the nonsense of experts and the idea of how we became a minority— “We built it.”  We did it—not some theory, not in an ivory tower. We created the movement that has changed our lives-with no help from academia, religion, law, rich people, etc.

I am not sure how to feel about the idea that some dilettantes can go to Fire Island/CherryGrove and make a life for part of the year. But it sure does NOT fit the book review about a man who was into rodeos. Nor are many glbt people interested in the Bloomsbury thing, or Proust. Are all books about English musicians or writers?  I see a listing for meetings by such movement/community people as LGBT leaders. Why are there no books or articles about such people?

The first part of G&LR is always interesting, but the last half goes into people/subjects I have no interest in. I acknowledge that my interest has always been limited to working for civil rights—that is what ONE and HIC did/do. But I think, even with or especially with the internet, twitter, etc, and with so many issues of homosexuality on the tv and front pages of newspapers, most LGBT people will not spend their time on obscure people-artistic types. But I also think even young people are not as interested in gay plays as most LGBT newspapers seem to think—considering how much space they give to the week’s newest celebrity who has come out and is in a play. I suspect that interest is covered by the general media and by Billy Masters. I, of course, think ONE Magazine gave the community a balanced view of people, places and events.  I guess what I want is an up-to-date ONE. And that makes me guilty—as are too many people who review books—of wanting the publication to do what I want it to, not what the publisher/writer/editor intended and chose to do.

Thanksgiving Gratitude

As I hear of those celebrating Thanksgiving, I go into my non-conformist thinking. I have most of my life NOT celebrated holidays. But as I think of being thankful, what worries me is that I might be "thankful" for reasons others can NOT be thankful for-reasonably good health, a home, food, friends, that my geographical area has NOT had a tornado, etc.

So as I am thankful that friends helped me fix a housing problem, a car problem, will feed me tomorrow, and that—thanks to Medicare—I am reasonably healthy and get cheap medicine. I know others live in constant pain, barely have enough income to pay the rent, much less the electric or gas bill in cold weather times. So how do I say I am thankful? I have no resources to help others. I can only say the silly phrase: I feel their pain.

And act as a good citizen and try to know what our government is doing and vote for those who will do what I think is best. And do what I can for the cause I feel is most important to me, even though there are so many other causes I want to support too. And think of how those friends and coworkers that are no longer with us would be thankful that our nation is better today than in the past, and hopefully will continue to get even better, for everyone.

Gay Marriage and Political Correctness

It may not help to know that people who worked to gain equal/civil rights for homosexual Americans, starting in the early 1950s, were aware that the effort to educate people on sexuality could go too far in the other direction—and have unintended consequences. But the problem was discussed in the first national/public homosexual publication, ONE Magazine. 

While the organization behind it had to go to the U. S. Supreme Court (1954-58) to protect its right to publish such material/views, the editors always worried that someday fanatics could go too far in trying to force everyone to agree on the “correct” view.

The perfect example, currently in the news today, is that if we got marriage equality, then some people would then say all homosexuals had to marry, ignoring the very rights to privacy that we were pushing for.

Book by Dick Hewetson: History of the Gay Movement in Minnesota and the Role of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union

This is a wonderful history of Minnesota LGBT history [click for the PDF] , but it covers the national history too-and should be in every library.

I do think it is important to ask the question that will anger many people.  How is it possible that all of the people and resources in this book did what they did and apparently never heard of or had contact with ONE—the first public national publication, which for a decade covered the news and views for the nation?