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Hello! This week, we're going to do something different.
I'd said I was only going to read light stuff this summer -- nothing heavy, no politics, history or social issues,
just light beach reading.
But this week, I read a book called "Gay Power."
So what's up with that? Well, in June, the State of New York legalized same-sex marriage.
I thought this was very interesting, because up until then, five other states allowed gay marriage:
Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Washington, D.C. -- right here!
I was actually amazed, because the total population of all five states plus D.C. is about 15.6 million.
But New York State alone has almost 20 million! So the number of Americans living where gay marriage is legal
doubled all at once. That makes it a big deal for American society. It also means that it's important to understand how it happened.
This would have been impossible fifty years ago. What's changed? How'd it happen?
I have many gay friends and some gay relatives, and have grown up with some of them, so it's always been a normal part of
the background noise of everyday life. But now I'm looking at them in a new light.
The lives they lead now would not have been possible fifty years ago. So what changed, and why?
So I decided to read "Gay Power."
It's an interesting book, starting in the 1950s and working up to the early 1980s. It opens with an interesting point.
In the 1950s, gay people were widely stereotyped -- the classic limp wrist, for instance -- and coming out
invited discrimination and prejudice. So most gay people were closeted and passed for straight. It was pretty easy --
just stiffen up that wrist! As long as they didn't fit the stereotype, they could pass unnoticed -- and took advantage of that.
They also set up small societies where they could discuss lifestyle issues, spread awareness and advocate for more tolerance.
But they were still quiet, passive, and fairly clandestine. The last thing they wanted was to push the rest of society too hard.
That changed in the 1960s, which was a chaotic time in all spheres of American life -- including the gay community.
Young gay people entered college and tasted a greater sense of liberation, and wanted to experience that too.
It started with Columbia University, for instance, which hosted the first gay student organization in the U.S. ...
but only after a long struggle and a lot of controversy. The university president refused to recognize them until the
press got wind of it; then they were established.
So awareness was beginning to spread, but at the same time, most of the gay bars in New York City was owned by the Mafia.
Being gay in New York State was essentially illegal at the time, so it was largely underground and outside the law.
However, the Mafia used their gay bars as a way to identify closeted politicians and businessmen and extort money from them
with the threat of outing them to the media. The FBI got wind of this and got involved, raiding gay bars all over the city.
It started to get violent, with bar patrons being physically assaulted by law enforcement officers.
Things finally came to a head at Stonewall, which was taken down in a particularly violent raid.
The gay community had finally had it, and they rioted that night, marching in the streets. The local press heard about it
and headed down there to interview the people involved.
People all over the country heard and read about the Stonewall raid and realized that gay people could riot.
They hadn't known this was possible!
They had so far been seen as passive, effeminate weaklings, which was suddenly overturned by this one event.
They also realized something else. Gay people looked like normal people! The interviewees reminded them of the kids next door.
They didn't fit any stereotypes.
It actually helped spread awareness and sympathy for the gay community in general, emphasizing that gay people could
be normal -- but still didn't have the same rights everyone else did.
So things like this continued into the 1970s, which saw a lot more political activism.
Advocates would show up at politicians' press conferences and ask tough questions about gay rights, attempting to force them
into expressing support for the gay community.
There were still violent incidents, like the Inner Circle Affair. The Inner Circle was a group of New York City politicans,
businessmen, reporters, newspaper editors, and TV newsmen. They'd get together every year and stage humorous skits,
eat fancy food, and get all dolled up. A group of gay activists raided the event one year, and so enraged the leader of the
firefighters' union that he assaulted one of the activists badly enough to land him in the hospital.
It ended up all over the news, including the subsequent court case, and led people to ask, "If a firefighter is willing to
do this to a gay person, what about a straight person?" It brought up a lot of uncomfortable questions.
Those questions and other incidents contributed to a gradual shift in public opinion toward tolerance and acceptance.
Gay rights became a key issue during the political campaigns of the 1970s, including presidential elections.
Jimmy Carter announced his support of the gay community, for instance.
I was fascinated with this history all the way up to 1981, where the book stops rather abruptly.
Fortunately, it includes an epilogue about the 1980s, which was particularly awful for the gay community.
Why 1981? That's when the AIDS epidemic began to be noticed. But even though this was a killer disease -- people were dying all the time --
it wasn't covered very much by newspaper and television news, mostly because at first, it only affected gay men.
I was appalled. People were dying from this spreading epidemic, but because the first victims happened to be gay men,
it was swept under the rug. Because who cares about this group of people?
Then around 1983, Rock Hudson -- a famous actor, a real manly man who was very handsome and good at what he did, who was
looked up to by a lot of people -- went to a hospital in Switzerland. People had known he was sick, but they had been told
it was liver cancer. But this one hospital was well-known for its focus on the treatment of AIDS, and people connected the dots.
And then the situation became embarrassing. The United States, the most advanced country in the world, had such
poor medical care that someone had to go to Switzerland for treatment! So that contributed to increasing awareness about the
disease and changing attitudes toward the gay community.
One thing that really blew me away when I read this part of the book was its explanation of how, at its peak, one in
350 gay men in New York City was infected with AIDS. If you were in a long-term relationship with an AIDS sufferer,
you had no rights as far as the hospital was concerned. No power of attorney or the ability to manage your partner's estate.
You couldn't even make decisions about your partner's care. Nothing. And that touched off the struggle for gay marriage.
You can see where the seeds were planted, and now they seem to be flowering. We may end up in a fairer society someday!
This was a really, really good book. There were some great stories, and a lot of good people, some of whom kept coming up.
Throughout the book, you get to know their personalities, how they work, their lives and families. You get to know and like them.
And then you get to the end, to the epilogue about AIDS, and suddenly, you find out that it killed them. It's terribly sad.
It's a great book, really. I recommend it!
That's it -- thank you!