The Boys With The Thorns In Their Sides

"Rejected...incapable...anonymous...displaced....an outsider."

Those are some of the words Mike Wallace uses to summarize the place of gay people at the end of his 1967 CBS program, "The Homosexuals". This old footage has been making the blog rounds today. I just now watched/listened to it, and boy is it painful. At nearly 44 minutes, it's long, but it's worth playing all the way through.



The hopelessness of same-sex love - both in the sense that it is impossible to find, and in the sense that the world will never accord same-sex love any dignity and respect - is a theme repeated throughout this documentary, and as I was watching, it was impossible not to think of The Smiths' song, "The Boy With the Thorn in His Side".



And specifically, it was impossible not to think of these lyrics, which have always haunted me:

How can they see the love in our eyes
And still they don't believe us
And after all this time
They don't want to believe us
And if they don't believe us now
Will they ever believe us?
And when you want to live
How do you start
Where do you go
Who do you need to know?

For me, those lyrics have always been about the struggle to find one's gay identity, and the struggle to find gay love. Those struggles can feel like odysseys. So to watch that Mike Wallace program, a mainstream news program that's only about 40 years old, so casually and "objectively" play into every awful, defamatory stereotype there is about gay people was sobering, to say the least. But it was also a reminder that, purely by virtue of being born when and where I was, what seemed like odysseys to me - those journeys to find my gay self - were not nearly so epic as the journeys that all the queer boys who came before me had to endure. And for that I cannot help but be grateful, even though there's so far yet to go.

I Love Being Right, or Why Gays Need the Right

Previously, in response to the absurd "scandal" about one of the founders of the gay sex site Manhunt being a McCain donor, I posted a screed about how we gays need to get over our kneejerk liberalism. The Los Angeles Times just ran a smart, even-handed piece by James Kirchick of The New Republic on just this issue.

This line really stuck out for me: "labeling everyone with whom [gay activists] don't agree a 'bigot' does not help the worthy cause of gay equality." I was reminded of the night I went on a bar crawl with fellow Obama supporters in the Gayborhood just before the April 22 primary here in Pennsylvania. We handed out literature and stickers and buttons, talked with people who were curious or had questions, and generally just put a gay face on the Obama campaign, as it were. On the whole, it was a great experience, but the things that some gays and lesbians we talked to that night believed about Obama were frightening. Many people were convinced he was anti-gay. The Donnie McClurkin incident seemed to have done a lot of damage - never mind that under Bill Clinton, husband of the woman most people we talked to that night supported and supposedly a hero of gays, we got Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Most had no idea that Obama's stance on LGBT issues was actually slightly more progressive than Hillary Clinton's. One (rather drunk) Hillary supporter got into a screaming fight with one of us, accusing all of us who were out supporting Obama of being homophobic. And she wasn't the only one.

So I think that experience (and keep in mind, we were out there in support of another Democrat - can you imagine what would have happened if we were McCain supporters?) gave me a greater awareness of our community's tendency to excommunicate anyone with whom we don't agree. We do this to our inestimable detriment. As Kirchick points out, Democrats alone have not been able to move this country forward on gay issues. Like it or not, we need Republicans.

On Gay Bars: A Response to Eric Leven

Below is a comment I posted at Eric Leven's excellent blog KnuckleCrack.

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said here. The problem is, as Anonymous hints in the comments, we're now nearly 40 years past Stonewall, and queers don't have the same fight in us that we used to - because we've made an awful lot of progress during that time. Progress means being able to be out without fear, which means not all gays need spaces like bars and bathhouses to feel accepted and linked into a community.

There are other, non-queer-specific factors as well. U.S. cities, including New York and San Francisco, have experienced an incredible resurgence in the last 20 years or so. This drives up real estate prices, which has the effect of scattering gay communities, since higher expenses drive out those who can't afford them. We used to have downtown areas to ourselves because no one else would go near them. Now they're the hottest real estate there is. There's also the Internet, of course. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on the effects of the Internet on gay culture to this crowd.

And frankly, there's the AIDS crisis. A bartender here in Philly told me a while back that two things were responsible for the demise of the most vibrant and crazy spots in town: the Internet and AIDS. AIDS killed off a huge number of our people - specifically, it killed the ones who remembered Stonewall, who remembered having to fight hard just to be out. They're also the ones who defined the scene during the 1970s and 1980s. When they died, the demographics and attitudes of gay people shifted dramatically.

There's also the effect of gay marriage, both as a concept and as a right. I'm surprised no one has mentioned Boston in the comments. Boston is a prime example of the death of gay culture. There are more gay bars in Providence, Rhode Island - a city 1/4 the size - than there are in Boston. Why? Gay marriage and the cost of living. Boston is super expensive to live in, and it happens to be in a state where gay marriage has been legal for years now. Gay culture has nearly died there because not enough people there need gay-specific spaces - at least not enough to pay Boston prices to live near them. Queers there are settling down, many in the suburbs, even if they're not getting married. The gay ghetto is nearly obsolete in Boston.

So on a certain level, we actually don't need gay bars – at least, not like we used to. And this is not something anyone else did to us, either. Things just changed, mostly for the better. If we need anything in terms of shared spaces, it's not more gay bars. It's better gay bars. Our current nightlife seems to me to be stuck in the past. Most gay bars – and there are exceptions, so don't get twisted here – are kind of all the same. But the ones that aren't the same are so refreshing that you wonder why you've put up with the places you've been going to. We need gay bars that reflect who and where we are now, not who and where we used to be.

Unfortunately, I'm going back to school in the fall, so one of you is gonna have to open one up.

Breaking: Massachusetts Moving to Repeal Residency Requirement for Marriage

The AP is reporting that the Massachusetts Senate has voted to repeal a 1913 law banning marriages between non-residents of the state. That law was originally passed, if memory serves, to prevent the state from becoming a hotspot for interracial marriage, as Massachusetts was unusual at the time for allowing people of different races to marry. Obviously, the impact of changing the law could be huge: gays from virtually any state could get legally married in Massachusetts and then sue their home states for not recognizing their marriage. It's not difficult to imagine this going to the Supreme Court.

The repeal must also be passed by the Massachusetts House and then signed by Gov. Deval Patrick, who has an out lesbian daughter and has indicated his support for the bill.

"My Very Moral Fiber"

I don't normally post on the weekend, but Rich, the mastermind of fourfour, posted this and I wanted to share it.



I will say this: in spite of the fact that these asshats have tried everything in the last 20-some-odd years to scapegoat us and limit our rights, they are on the losing end of this battle in the long run. Gay marriage is now legal in two states. Surveys indicate that opposition to gay rights is growing weaker over time across all age groups. But sometimes it's good to have a reminder of the fight that remains.

Norway Legalizes Gay Marriage

Today the Norwegian Parliament voted to allow same-sex couples to marry, becoming the sixth country to allow gay marriage.

The gallery at the Norwegian Parliament erupted in applause and cheers on Wednesday with the passage of legislation allowing same-sex couples to marry.

The law also recognizes both partners in a marriage as equal parents and gives lesbian couples the same access to "medically assisted reproduction" as opposite-sex couples.

Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve the bill, despite opposition from the Christian Democrats and Progress Party.

Nicely done, Norway!

Image: Flickr user TimOve, used under a Creative Commons license