Prop 8

I say this to those who continue to fight against the human and civil rights of homosexual people under any rationalization or righteous religious banner. You are bigots and liars.

I am tired of hearing the public pronouncements by homophobic ministers, priests, judges and legislators that they are not anti-gay. Anyone...yes, anyone...who supports depriving gay people of marriage and/or any other civil rights is an anti-gay bigot. And, if he/she then states that he/she does not dislike gay people he/she is a liar. Are we all clear on this now?

Post-Gay

A recent Boston public radio program hosted a discussion about Boston as a "post-gay" city. As a native of the Boston area, who has lived here most of my life, I found the discussion revealing and somewhat confirming of suspicions I have had about the political views of those who are currently steering the LGBTQ politics here through media and lobbying.

I do not cling to the past by any means. I do feel that the current political leaders of our local LGBTQ community represent the new (downtown) Boston population of marriage-oriented, conservative and high-income professionals. This is a matter of simple economics. The Menino administration's development policies have purged the city of single, low-to-mid-income, young gay men and lesbians, who once made Boston's gay community one of the most vibrant in the U.S..

Many have moved to Providence, where there is a gay street life and night life, similar to the Boston of the past. Others have moved to Dorchester and have developed a new, active gay community there, which is out of sync with the less-unified downtown community. Boston Proper has become the Gay Marriage Capital, a bastion of more conservative LGBTQ values.

While I take a certain pride in my own small contribution to the development of gay rights in the U.S. through my participation in our liberation during the past four decades, I do not acknowledge the current post-gay LGBTQ's as my successors or heirs. I accept their choice to pursue bourgeois, Reaganite bliss. However, our rights were not secured, nor will they necessarily be maintained, by pushing baby carriages and acting just like heterosexuals.

I am not post-gay. I will die as an openly gay man with self-respect for my intrinsic, natural difference from heterosexuals or bisexuals or transsexuals. I have worked hard for that self-respect and for the rights of all homosexual people to live in peace with equal rights. I feel a certain implicit disrespect towards me and others like me coming from those who have the money and propensity to act straight in a socioeconomically privileged Boston. While they may relegate me to "pre-post-gay" history, I assure them that I and many others like me will be absolutely necessary to maintaining their rights into the future.

Appreciation

An open letter of appreciation:

Herr Ratzinger,

Danke. I wanted to convey my heartfelt appreciation to you. Your expressions of homophobic venom and actions of covert enabling of sexual exploitation of minors by your religious brethren has helped my gay/lesbian brothers and sisters, present and future, a great deal.

By banning gay men from the priesthood, you have spared them from a tortured life of self-hatred and schizoid behavior. By banning women from the priesthood, you have encouraged Catholic lesbians, who feel religiously motivated, to look elsewhere. By horrifying the most reactionary Catholics with your hypocrisy, you have dealt a potential death blow to an institution which would darken and pollute the lives of families with gay/lesbian children into the future.

And, if you yourself might have some sexual secrets of your own to share or confess, I would encourage you to get them off your conscience now. It could not be a better time. You could not do much more harm to your institution. And, you will feel much better.

Yours in the light of day,

Paul Creeden

Detours

As a pacifist and gay man, I find the focus of today's GLBT political community and the press on Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell (DADT) less than inspiring. While I understand the political importance of the issue to some, I dispute its merit as a major focus of the GLBT movement. The premise appears to be that being a soldier somehow makes a person, despite his/her sexual orientation, a more qualified or more respectable citizen. This is an unconstitutional premise in America.

As a political movement, we rejected that premise resoundingly during the Gay Liberation Movement which existed quite healthily before being decimated by HIV. While many in the community of the late 1970s and early 1980s supported the personal struggle of Leonard Matlovich and others who were mistreated by the military, it was not a major focus of the movement. The main focus of the movement was to achieve direct and unqualified acceptance of all people under the law as equal in all rights of citizenship. Period.

DADT follows gay marriage as a wedge issue in Washington and in the media. The current GLBT leadership, Neo-Liberal at its best and Log Cabin at its worst, wants to make GLBT people 'just like straight people' under the law. This furthers the dichotomy of gay-vs-straight. It does not cut through the dichotomy to the core issue, universal human rights under the law. And, one of those universal human rights is the right to not be forced to kill or aid in the killing of another human being. As long as armies exist, so will conscription in one form or another.

The foundation of the modern GLBT movement rested on the peace movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Previous gay rights' organizations did not reach all classes and all segments of American society. They were primarily middle-to-upper-middle-class, intellectual organizations. The Stonewall Riot changed that, thanks to the courageous drag queens and working-class gay men who finally stood up to corrupt police oppression. Demonstration for equal human rights got the GLBT movement where it is today. Not back door legislation and political bargaining.

While I praise and support the GLBT people who strive for their rights in any way, I do not necessarily approve of their techniques. I would not approve of aggressive violence, for example. I do not approve of lobbying our way to freedom in a way that makes us look manipulative and aligned with everything that is wrong with government in the U.S., as it now operates.

I am also quite disgusted by the media's coverage of both the gay marriage and DADT issues. For example, today on NPR, I was presented with a back-and-forth discussion of the DADT issue by military-affiliated personnel, who freely spoke of GLBT people as though they were a different, non-human species. If the word "Jew" or "Black" or "Woman" were substituted in any of the statements made, there would have been enraged howls from all corners. Yet, the interviewers and presenters carried on with an air of everyday indifference.

DADT will not achieve universal human rights. Gay marriage will not achieve universal human rights. These battles, if won, will simply lessen the potency of the gay-straight dichotomy. And, in my opinion as a gay man and humanist, that simply isn't enough.

March

Tomorrow, October 11, 2009, may herald the reawakening of the national homosexual community in the U.S., after a long, exhausted slumber, caused by epidemic and the active Republican oppression, internal and external, of the last decade. Grass roots organizations have rallied, despite active discouragement by gay lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats. Buses will roll down highways. Jet travelers will fill D.C. hotels. The tide of real, not virtual, community will come in to face the white marble indifference of the nation's capital in the name of universal human rights, guaranteed by federal law.

Notably, Barney Frank, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, who is a homosexual man with a rather checkered past of his own, has posed as Pope of Gay Politics and issued a dictum that these young, energized people should stay home. Now, this is indeed surprising, especially in light of Mr. Frank's well publicized and one-time scandalous predeliction for young men. One would think he would be mingling happily among the marchers.

There have been other reactionary shouts against the Equality March from lobbyists and professional gay politicos. Is there really any question about their motivation? Gay rights and marriage rights, like AIDS services, have become a GLBT minority business with its own guilds and mafia-like gangs. Professional homosexuals are making their living in the nation's capital and in state capitals in the pursuit of 'equality for all'. Rather prosperous livings in some cases.

While I applaud the dedication of those who are selflessly pursuing a vocation in the name of universal freedoms and protections, I also need to remind the GLBT community that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Pop-culture heroes, the likes of Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan, are very influential in shaping public opinion. However, few celebrities can resist the corruption of principles that occurs when money and fame become major motivators.

So, to you young and energetic marchers, I say, have a blast. Strut your stuff. And, pay little heed to the men behind the curtain of political respectability. You must meet in groups and bond to create a new vital human-rights movement. It is, after all, the American Way.