The Gay Des | Esquire | NOVEMBER 1987

Contents:

• WHEWASHG GAY HISTORY
• FRANK RICH ON GAY RIGHTS, THE PRINTIAL RACE, AND “CATS”
• THE GAY DES
• FRANK RICH ON THE NATNAL CIRC: GAY MARRIAGE TRIUMPHS, ROBERTS BE DAMNED
• JT HOW GAY IS THE RIGHT?
• YOU’RE LIKABLE ENOUGH, GAY PEOPLE
• GAY BASHG AT THE SMHSONIAN
• FRANK RICH: GAY BASHG AT THE SMHSONIAN

WHEWASHG GAY HISTORY

Fran Lebowz is rrect to remd that not all gay people (any more than all straight people) are beatg down the doors to what she lls “the two most nfg stutns on the pla, marriage and the ary.

A Valente’s week New York Tim–CBS News poll, echog others over the past year, found that Amerins now favor marriage over separate-and-unequal civil unns as the legal optn for gay upl; ls than a third of the public believ that gay fai should be nied both.

Beg wh the gays, ’s clear, has bee a savvy (if not necsarily selfls) way to attach a halo to almost any troubled brand, om Goldman Sachs to some preccts of the Rupert Murdoch empire (though not the New York Post or Wall Street Journal, the only major daili the state that disdaed large ont-page headl after the Albany victory).

FRANK RICH ON GAY RIGHTS, THE PRINTIAL RACE, AND “CATS”

Compared wh the other civil-rights battl Ameri, pecially the epic stggle over race that has staed and hobbled the natn sce s birth, the fight over gay equaly is remarkable for s relative ease, pact chronology, and the happs of s pendg rolutn.

THE GAY DES

One of Ameri’s two major polil parti is still hell-bent on thwartg and even rollg back gay rights much as Goldwater Republins and Dixie Democrats (on their way to jog the GOP) risted civil-rights legislatn and enforcement the sixti. While Nielsen tells that gay ncerns and characters are “the new mastream” of televisn—figurg 24 percent of broadst prime-time programmg last season—we do not yet live the Uned Stat of Glee.

We—and by we, I mean liberal New Yorkers like me, whether straight or gay, and their fellow travelers throughout Ameri—would like to believe that the sole obstacl to gay civil rights have been the ual spects: hibound relig lears both whe and black, nservative policians (mostly Republin), fundamentalist Christian and Mlim zealots, and unrenstcted bigots. What’s been lost this moraly play is the role that many liberal policians and stutns have also played slowg and at some junctur haltg gay civil rights recent s. It was, after all, the tste of the Smhsonian Instutn, not a Bible Belt cultural outpost, who bowed to prsure om the ant Catholic League jt fifteen months ago to censor the work of a gay Amerin artist who had already been silenced, long ago, by AIDS.

To fet this particular history is to mimize or erase the stggl of gay men and lbians whose liv and fundamental rights were trampled routely for s Ameri, wh cel and sometim adly rults.

FRANK RICH ON THE NATNAL CIRC: GAY MARRIAGE TRIUMPHS, ROBERTS BE DAMNED

The reason for that failure is one that pole people don’t want to talk about anymore: Bee the first nspicuo victims of AIDS were sexually active gay men—a mory lackg civil rights and often regard as morally fective or worse—too many Amerins across the entire polil spectm uld easily jtify lookg away, and did. That mpaign was ditive of the polil climate around homosexualy, even theoretilly enlightened New York Cy, that would allow AIDS to rage out of ntrol once h four years later. It was 1977 that Harvey Milk won a seat on the San Francis Board of Supervisors, beg California’s first openly gay official—a victory that would end wh his assassatn the followg year.

JT HOW GAY IS THE RIGHT?

It was also 1977 that Ana Bryant, a pop sger and oime Miss Ameri nner-up, mounted her “Save Our Children” mpaign to repeal a Miami ordance protectg homosexuals om discrimatn jobs and hog. Bryant lled gay people “an abomatn, ” but such vective didn’t prevent her e om wng the endorsement of the Da County Democratic Party—or of Florida’s ernor, Rb Askew, a Democrat so progrsive that Gee McGovern had offered him the vice-printial slot on the 1972 ticket.

But repeated efforts by New York activists to get their own Cy Council to extend the cy’s Human Rights Law to clu gay cizens had died mtee two years earlier and would not be passed until 1986. It breathlsly reported that “creasgly, the homosexual muny is very much one of lawyers, physicians, teachers, policians, clergymen, and other upper-class profsnal men and women, ” many of whom “tend to live like their heterosexual unterparts. Rosenthal, banished the word gay the paper except quot and radiated a homophobia that timidated gay employe to stay the closet rather than risk beg banished to reer Siberia.

YOU’RE LIKABLE ENOUGH, GAY PEOPLE

“There wasn’t a sgle openly gay reporter or edor the newsroom, ” says Charl Kaiser, a former Tim reporter and the thor of The Gay Metropolis, and there wouldn’t be for the rt of the . In 1970, Harper’s had voted eleven pag, replete wh photos of poutg male mannequs, to the sayist Joseph Epste’s tortured explanatn of why he “would wish homosexualy off the face of this earth. What we do know is that Andrew Cuomo serv every b of cred he has received for makg same-sex marriage a top prry of his young ernorship and for movg heaven and earth—ep-pocketed donors, relcrant Albany policians, and sometim-disanized gay activists—to get the job done.

GAY BASHG AT THE SMHSONIAN

By the time Cuomo uld act as ernor, the issue was a w-w for him Democratic polics, lolly and natnally, the path havg been paved by other fighters before him and by fast-movg polls nfirmg an ever more gay-iendly Ameri. Yet even the preement gay magaze The Advote failed to nont him on his rerd s worshipful ver story markg New York’s marriage law; that past was journalistilly Photoshopped out of existence. But fear and monizatn of gay men was off the charts: In 1995, a rerd 50, 877 Amerins wh AIDS died—a one-year unt rivalg the 58, 000 Amerins lost the entire Vietnam War.

The Christian Coaln, unr the Machiavellian guidance of the yet-to-be-disgraced Ralph Reed, saw an openg to explo homophobia to galvanize a Republin base unenthiastic about Bob Dole. In a nsummate display of bad taste, Clton announced that he would sign DOMA that sprg jt two days after the Supreme Court, a rare natnal victory for gay rights, stck down a Colorado nstutnal amendment that had barred anti-discrimatn laws benefg gay men and lbians. At a Human Rights Campaign fom for printial ndidat 2007, Melissa Etheridge had the nerve to nont Hillary Clton for her hband’s rerd of havg thrown gay Amerins “unr the b” while office—a charge that Bill Clton would dismiss later as “a slight rewrg of history.

Clton’s lip service might actually mean somethg if he spent his own current fancial and polil pal to help undo the send-class cizenship for gay Amerins that was dified on his watch. ” Or wh Print Romney, who lately boasted of how hard he fought to prevent Massachetts om beg “the Las Vegas of gay marriag”—a claim he ma only days after acceptg an endorsement om that paragon of “tradnal” marriage, Donald Tmp, Las Vegas.

FRANK RICH: GAY BASHG AT THE SMHSONIAN

Though a dre of nservative fanciers, at least one wh a gay son, helped bankroll Cuomo’s succsful strong-armg of Republin same-sex-marriage vot Albany, there don’t seem to be a sgle major Republin donor or lear, or even a mastream nservative pund, wh the guts to ll out the ndidat or the party’s ngrsnal learship on their rrosive anti-gay rhetoric and agenda. But over the shorter term, the party’s hard le will ntue to flict real jtice on cizens of all strip—not jt on gay adults (whether they are seekg marriage or not), but on gay kids stgglg to fd a safe place for themselv the world and straight children who love their gay parents.