What happened when a biracial uple tried to tablish a gay muny lled Stonewall Park the Nevada sert durg the AIDS epimic
Contents:
- A ‘GAY HOMELAND’ UNDONE BY HOMOPHOBIA AND RACISM
- ONE INTERRACIAL GAY COUPLE TRI TO TRAVEL FEARLSLY — AND SOMETIM FDS ACCEPTANCE SURPRISG PLAC
- COMMENTARY: AS A BIRACIAL GAY UPLE, WE HAVEN’T FACED MUCH HATE BUT WE WORRY OUR KIDS ULD
- THEY WERE A GAY, TERRACIAL UPLE AN AGE OF RELENTLS BIGOTRY. THE TWO HAROLDS DIDN’T FLCH.
- EBONY AND IVORY: THE TERRACIAL GAY MALE UPLE
A ‘GAY HOMELAND’ UNDONE BY HOMOPHOBIA AND RACISM
* biracial gay couple *
9, 1986, at the height of anti-gay hysteria durg the AIDS crisis, a biracial gay uple om Reno, Nev., ma a remarkable announcement: They were gog to create what some lled “a gay homeland” the Nevada Schoonmaker and Aled Parkson planned to name the muny Stonewall Park, after the 1969 uprisg New York that lnched the gay rights movement. The effort to transform the abandoned ghost town of Rhyole to an enclave wh gay-owned banks, shops, sos, and sgle-fay hom mec ma news. “Group Buys Ghost Town for Homosexual Cy, ” said the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
ONE INTERRACIAL GAY COUPLE TRI TO TRAVEL FEARLSLY — AND SOMETIM FDS ACCEPTANCE SURPRISG PLAC
Black gay love is revolutnary. * biracial gay couple *
“Ghost Town to Bee Gay Town, ” said Uned Prs Internatnal.
COMMENTARY: AS A BIRACIAL GAY UPLE, WE HAVEN’T FACED MUCH HATE BUT WE WORRY OUR KIDS ULD
This paper vtigat the black/whe gay male uple to discern if the partners are happy, enomilly patible, and well adjted to each other. A s * biracial gay couple *
And the lol Death Valley Gateway Gazette put s own twist on : “Happy Gays Are Here Aga. ” Schoonmaker billed Stonewall Park as a rort muny, a haven where gays uld live and thrive away om AIDS-spired and legally sanctned homophobia. Schoonmaker, then 44, had faced homophobia long before movg to Nevada, which still had an anti-sodomy law, the 1980s.
Growg up a small Wt Virgia mg town, he knew he was gay om age 9. In high school, his two bt iends, 16-year-old boys who were also gay, died by suici, part “bee they knew what society thought of gay people and didn’t anticipate a happy future for themselv, ” acrdg to a story the Los Angel 1974, Schoonmaker met Parkson, his partner, San Francis, where the two ran a few bs ventur before settlg Reno.
THEY WERE A GAY, TERRACIAL UPLE AN AGE OF RELENTLS BIGOTRY. THE TWO HAROLDS DIDN’T FLCH.
There, they both worked at sos but were relegated to the rtrants — at that time, gays were forbidn to handle rds, dice and money for gamblg gam. Parkson was black, and as Schoonmaker soon saw, Ameri was not safe pecially for Ain Amerin gays at the time, they faced racial tnts Reno. He was driven to build a gay homeland not jt for the greater good, but also to give Parkson, whom some scribed as gnively challenged, a safe and peaceful place to live after Schoonmaker was gone, said Rob Schlegel, a reporter who vered the Stonewall Park story for Reno’s gay Bohemian Bugle newspaper, and the lol mastream paper, the Death Valley Gateway ia of a separate gay muny was not new to the charismatic Schoonmaker, acrdg to Dennis McBri, who wrote about Stonewall Park his book, “Out of the Neon Closet: Queer Communy the Silver State.
EBONY AND IVORY: THE TERRACIAL GAY MALE UPLE
” He was probably volved wh the Los Angel Gay Liberatn Front, which 1970 veloped plans to tablish a gay muny northern California’s ty Alpe County 10 south of Lake Tahoe, McBri proposal shocked California’s ernment and faced major opposn om relig lears and rints. Schoonmaker knew he would need more than a morn sculpture to attract fellow gays to his town. But he reasoned that he’d have to build the gay muny an area where no one else would want to live, where lols would appreciate the velopment, and gays uld be left alone, acrdg to Schlegel.