The Derailment, Co-opting and Mainstreaming of The Gay Rights Movement, Or: Why more gays aren't libertarians (Part I)

Lately, my head has been swimming. Between the holidays, campaigning for Ron Paul during the NH presidential primary, and a couple of anti-gay marriage bills coming to the floor of our statehouse, it has left me mentally exhausted and neglecting my blog.  Sometimes my friends, mostly the gay ones, have a hard time understanding my support for Ron Paul. It's really not rocket science. It's because, for me, the light bulb of individual liberty went on several years ago, but in order to understand how I got here, a little background is in order. As I see it, the gay rights movement lost it's way in the 1990's and has since become big government suck-ups as if they have Stockholm Syndrome. Instead of resisting the very entity that has been their biggest oppressor, the gay community has been reduced to begging for it's "rights" now. Gays and lesbians had a long, proud history of snubbing the government. Today, thanks in part to Rachel Maddow types and non-profit PAC's like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), it's just the opposite; this historical tidbit of the gay liberation effort has been relegated to the dustbins of history... and memory.

When I came out as a lesbian in 1988, I was fresh off the turnip truck. As a 21 year old and newly budding "baby dyke", I certainly had no clue about the history of gays and lesbians in the US. Like most Americans, I was completely unaware of the brutality inflicted upon gay people preceding Stonewall Riots, and after. From post-WWII until the late 70's, there was literally an institutionalized form of a gay Auschwitz. Back then gays were lobotomized, castrated, sterilized, subjected to electro-shock 'therapy', given pharmaceutical drugs which simulated drowning like waterboarding, or just 'put away' in mental institutions and forgotten about. Additionally, many other untold atrocities occurred.

Yeah, this really happened in America less than 40 years ago. This was a history lesson from which the gay community should have learned. Before my time in 1969, the Stonewall Riots happened in NYC. For three days, gays and lesbians said to no and fought back against the police harassment of gay establishments and its patrons. To have been caught and arrested in one of these raids meant the end of your career and the destruction of your character, or worse. Much worse. Being a homosexual was still listed as a mental disease by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973. For brevity, PBS has a remarkable documentary about this riot entitled Stonewall Uprising with footage and photos even I had never seen. The interviews are heart-wrenching. It's certainly worthwhile to see this film. Ironically, in the early days, it was called the Gay Liberation movement, not the "gay rights" movement. And let it be known that the first 'Gay Pride' was an actual riot.

I was fortunate to have come out of the closet in a metropolitan area, but living in the Bible-belt South, specifically the Land of Jesse Helms, it was still highly taboo to be an "out and proud" queer. Very "hush-hush". I didn't tell my family I was gay until the age of 26. Nonetheless, I found myself fascinated by this whole underground gay world of which I would soon become an integral part. From here on out, my entire existence took place in exclusively gay communities, employment, and social circles for the next two decades. I was now part of the gay ghetto.

I was a quick study and got up to speed with the help of my new co-workers. I took a job as head chef of a fine dining gay restaurant which had a small, but very popular upstairs bar with wrap-around porches overlooking the panorama of the city skyline, all neatly tucked away in an old and tastefully appointed Victorian house in the historic district. In fact, if you didn't know where this fabulous little spot was, you might not find it. At that time, we liked it that way. The violence from random gay bashings was no joke. If you were an out queer, you stood a good chance of being verbally accosted or even physically attacked. Homophobia was still quite prevalent and in cases, life-threatening. Setting ablaze a gay and lesbian bookstore just next door to my job was one way the local fag bashers showed their love. Boy, do I have stories. I knew people who were attacked and left for dead.

It was the height of the AIDS epidemic. Reagan had just left office and GHW Bush now had the reigns. Luckily, my gay history education was put on the fast track as one of my waiters began to tell me of his experiences in NYC with the activist group ACT-UP; the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. It had only been two years since Reagan first uttered the word "AIDS"; a mere 7 years into his tenure. Even then, Reagan admonished us and made it into a morality issue. Basically, it boiled down to "you gays get what you deserve because of your immoral behavior". AIDS was, at the time, known as the 'gay disease' even though by this point thousands of straights, blacks, hispanics, whites, children, hemophiliacs, iv drug users, in addition to gay men had succumbed to it's deadly grip. The HIV/AIDS drug AZT was only in it's infancy and a prescription cost more than $10,000 annually, as if the people too sick to work could ever afford that. For those with insurance, AIDS patients had riders placed on their policies which limited coverage. A diagnosis of AIDS was a death sentence.

As we delve into this tragic history, it will shape my argument as to why there aren't more gays and lesbians who are libertarians. At this time, the activist group ACT-UP had arisen out of the anguish of helplessly watching our friends and acquaintances contract full-blown AIDS and in many cases dying within weeks or a few months of developing pneumonia. Some wasted away longer term. Not everyone affected could afford AZT. AIDS testing was still primitive and, in many cases, not anonymous. In my immediate circle, I knew eight co-workers and five of their significant others who had HIV or full blown AIDS. I cannot even begin to count the number of our clientele in my new gay world who got sick or died in that 4 year period. 200? 250? 300? It's almost impossible to know. I do remember how devastatingly horrible it was. Looking back, I feel like I experienced a war and the utter despair a war brings; a history, my history, that not too many people know about. It affected me greatly. Here today, gone tomorrow. I remember sobbing over the death of a friend as I prepped trays to be sent to his home. You just had to work through it.

In the fight to cure or at least alleviate AIDS, gays quickly learned that the government wasn't going to help us, mainly for the fact that they simply didn't acknowledge our existence as human beings. In fact, the federal government, the CDC, the NIH, the FDA and the drug company Burroughs Wellcome were the biggest roadblocks. The government and it's agencies fostered an environment which allowed the drug company to have a monopoly not only on the drug AZT, but they also excluded gay men from the experimental drug testing. Gay men were shunned even though they were the number one group categorically who were affected. ACT-UP protestors in '88 surrounded and shut down the FDA for a day. Even now, this was the largest US protest since the Vietnam war. In 1989, ACT-UP also targeted Burroughs Wellcome on Wall St over their price gouging for AZT. Chained to the second floor balcony, the activists hurled themselves over the railing, unfurling a banner that read: SELL WELLCOME! Within the next few days, the company dropped the price by $3600.00/year. This small victory against a government-backed drug monopoly (among many other protests), was my introduction to direct, non-violent, civil disobedience. I learned that it worked.

From '90-'93, Act Up raged on in the big cities, but in the fairly-sequestered gay community down South I was preparing numerous banquets, caterings, and dinners for fundraisers or funerals. I watched helplessly at the bedsides of dying friends in hospitals and at their substandard treatment by supposed 'medical professionals'. Ignorance about this horrid disease, even especially among nurses and doctors, was rampant. For years, it was a time of great sorrow. I once prepared food for two funerals in one week. Friends sewed 3'x6' panels for the Aids Memorial Quilt to honor our dead. My guy friends, their emaciated bodies reminiscent of Holocaust victims, were dropping like flies. In gay circles, you couldn't say the words "skinny" or "sick" without the implication of AIDS. People whispered these things.

My work as a chef, being an aspect of fundraising, was my introduction to government-free mutual aid. If the government wasn't going to help us, we had to help ourselves. So we did. Government-free, mutual aid groups flourished and still do to this day. This was another lesson from which we should have taken a cue.

1991-92. Enter Bill Clinton. It is at this juncture where I feel the gay community's momentum was derailed. 


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This blog will continue in Part II, shortly……

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REASON to stay on target: Opportunity of a lifetime

With this past week's brouhaha over Reason Magazine editor Katherine Mangu-Ward's patently false comments on Fox News, this incident reveals a valuable lesson for Ron Paul's supporters: Stay on target! You had better get used to the bumpy ride. And for those familiar with libertarian circles, this televised slight by a Reason editor comes as no great surprise.  Dubbed the ‘Beltway libertarians”, it is well known and documented that neither Reason Magazine nor many of its online audience have ever been friends or allies of Ron Paul, even in the last election. And regardless of what they may claim, to the casual observer this condescending hostility towards him goes well beyond passive indifference and “honest” assessment.

As for Katherine Mangu-Ward, her unfortunate comments do a tremendous disservice to her own supposed “libertarian” publication whether she realizes it or not. Maybe her mouth was running faster than her brain, but I highly suspect that this is not the case considering her journalistic roots. It should be clear to supporters that her sad Asperger moment says more about Katherine Mangu-Ward than it does about Ron Paul and his prospects.  It's fairly safe to guess that as a representative of Reason, they knew prior to the Fox interview exactly what Mangu-Ward would say on the air. If not, this firebrand only served to shoot Reason in its proverbial foot. Senior editor Nick Gillespie's attempts at damage control, as he pushes a few poll statistics around, only serves as more weak sauce and he acts as if all of those "disagreeing free minds" at the editor's desk were drawing straws to see who would be sent out for interviews that day. We're not buying it and Reason’s commenters seal the deal here. Spare me the “Free Minds and Free Markets”, Nick. This isn’t an isolated incident. 

Here’s a free piece of advice: Solid libertarians who consistently and steadfastly adhere to their principles and who actually have integrity will not continue to give Reason Magazine the pass if you habitually straddle the ideological fence with this schizophrenic inconsistency. You can’t have it both ways. We see the pattern: professing the “free markets, free minds” rhetoric on one hand and then hiding behind this tag line when it is transgressed. Repeatedly. In admonishing the most libertarian presidential candidate running in this election, were you expecting a different public reaction than the one you received? Surely, you jest. You reap what you sow.

Glad I got this screenshot before it disappeared... I had to chuckle.

So at this juncture, Ron Paul's supporters should pause and take a deep breath. Please place you tray tables in their upright and locked position, and fasten your seatbelts. This is politics. And as much as you and I know how unfair it is that Ron Paul is indeed getting the mainstream media shaft, don't let it get under your skin. The last thing we want to do is give this mainstream media machine a reason to label Dr. Paul's supporters as anything other than courteous and polite. And to that effect, I defer to Dr. Paul's own shining example. Don't allow the MSM to push your buttons and send you off hurling insults. Doing so only embarrasses Dr. Paul. Remember that your actions and words reflect on him.

Let's gain a better perspective with a little Politics 101 so we can learn the lessons here and put this event to bed. Writer Justin Raimondo comments: 

"Let's see: Reason collaborates with the neocons over at The New Republic to smear Ron with charges of "racism" -- and then they send out Mangu-whatever, a former Weekly Standard staffer, to declare that he can't win... What's really disgusting is that the non-libertarian lady [in the Fox interview], I'd never heard of her, is the one defending Ron against the Mangu! This should tell us all we need to know about not only the Mangu but Reason magazine as a supposedly "libertarian" institution. It isn't anymore: it's a Beltway institution."

That pretty much nails it, but the one sure thing Ron Paul's supporters can count on during the next 14 months is that more of the Mangu-Ward type drivel will be in the pipeline from the establishment. Don't get caught flat-footed... you should expect it. A lot more of it with Ron Paul gaining more ground.

When Mangu-Ward says that Ron Paul is getting oh-so-much media attention, anyone with a lick of sense knows she is wrong. The media watchdogs can easily verify that. Then she blurts out that "Ron Paul knows he can't win, his staffers know he can't win." Again, she's wrong unless she is some sort of psychic with extraordinary powers that I am unaware of. No one, not her, not the MSM, not Reason magazine, not anyone knows what the end result of the 2012 election will be. Don't ever forget that.

What is important is that you don’t end up being the one to feed the media trolls the ammunition they need to discredit Dr. Paul. As frustrating and angering as this is, don't react to the politics-as-usual game in a negative way that would embarrass him. Rise above it. Your conduct and character as supporters will reflect on him. With Ron Paul's traction increasing, the establishment media are beginning to panic, realizing that they're losing control and are grasping at straws now, any straw, so they are trying to get a rise out of you. Smear attempts cannot be countered with reactionary negativity. Grin and bear it and set a good example, especially in online forums. Once you say something in an emotional reaction that's not in particularly good taste, it's out there on the internet forever and you can't take that back. Negativity repels people and makes you lose credibility in the eyes of those who might have otherwise been receptive to hearing his message. Numerous times Dr. Paul has pointed out that if you live by positive principles, others will want to follow your example and emulate it. He's right. My mother, in her own sage wisdom, has always taught me to "Whip 'em with kindness."

This past week on the very day it all blew up, I saw Ron Paul at an event in NH. I am friends with several of his staffers and when we spoke I told them it was pretty amazing at how much larger exponentially the crowd turnout was now compared to '08. They all agreed and were ecstatic with how this same event just four years ago might have garnered a couple hundred supporters showing up. And just like Dr. Paul's Iowa straw poll vote count had quadrupled since 2008, a staffer told me that last week's NH rally turnout was more than double the 400 people they had initially anticipated showing. So rest a little easier, people, and grin in knowing that the Mangu-Ward's or any other detractors aren't psychics. It's fairly obvious to anyone involved in the last election how the dynamics have changed. The most ironic part the staffers and I discussed was that Dr. Paul's MSM invisible man treatment had exactly backfired on them. Petards away! Ignoring him has had the equal and opposite reaction that the establishment was hoping for, and not just media-wise either.

Folks on the left who are admitted non-supporters of Paul have been calling out the MSM, from Jon Stewart to Glenn Greenwald. And in my perusing about the internet, I see a shift happening that desperately needs some attention: Obama's base is leaving him. In droves, it seems. People on the left are fed up with the lies and the wars. So at this very moment we are presented with a unique opportunity (more on that below). However, it's time to stop fretting with the media hit jobs like Reason's Mangu-Ward and mentally prepare for the inevitable character and credibility attacks that are surely destined to follow because that's just the nature of political mudslinging and cheap shots. Your opponents will do just about anything in their desperation. But we don't have to follow their lead. Chasing the tail of the negative stuff isn't going to help or advance our cause. Stooping to their level and gracing their smears with retaliatory and reactionary remarks is entirely the point of their tactics: To throw you off your game and stop your momentum. To make you reactionary. We're on the offense now and by merely projecting the positive, the numbers will continue to grow.

I've seen Ron Paul several times, but at last week's rally, there was this pervasive sense of "we have much more in common than that which divides us". Here I was, a former left-leaning, independent-now-libertarian lesbian, chatting and laughing with all sorts of strangers in common cause; veterans, Republicans, former Obama Democrats, libertarians, former Tea-o-cons, Independents, conservative Christians, atheists, Jews, a Muslim lady, many of my fellow gays. All those of voting age were represented; college kids, middle-agers, retirees. We came from all backgrounds; social, economic, religious and non. It was a genuine portrait of American diversity. What struck me in particular was that in this groundswell of energy, you could really feel the love. Everyone was smiling. No one seemed bitter or angry and yet there I was, talking to people that even just a few years ago I would have never bothered to speak to because of the partisan left/right divide. I am convinced that this is the beauty of the word LOVE in the R3VOLUTION logo. It was certainly there and love is definitely more attractive to me than the bitterness of party line politics. An atmosphere of negativity is necessary for “divide and conquer” to work and noticeably, there was no negativity present.

So back to that opportunity. The more time that goes by, the more I'm reading articles, blogs, and tons of reader comments from those on the left of whatever persuasion who are figuring out that Ron Paul is the only viable anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-corporatism, anti-drug war candidate running in 2012. Facebook pages for new groups like "Democrats for Ron Paul", "Blue Republicans" and "Registering Republican Just to Vote for Ron Paul" are springing up. Many of them are now willing to cross that divide because they realize the left doesn't have an honest candidate in this race that represents their values. These folks have decided to register as Republicans and vote in the primaries to help Ron Paul take the GOP nomination. The Primary vote is the key.

Even though many on the left are not completely on board with all of Dr. Paul's views other than war and corporatism, they realize voting for him is the best and only option in this election cycle, as mind-boggling as that is to them. Having become so completely disgusted with Obama, they see no viable alternative other than to nominate an anti-war, anti-establishment Republican in the primary to pit against him in the general election. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Still, some are only doing this as a protest vote and we should positively respect that and thus wooing them over to Dr. Paul's message will not be ideologically possible, so do proceed gently and don't press them on issues where we disagree. Nonetheless, this is fantastic news and they need to be warmly welcomed despite obvious differences on social policy. This quite possibly could be the alliance so desperately needed to begin the end of empire, war and corporatism. And although it will have taken 12 years of the BushObama tag team fiasco, this definitely reveals that the veneer of the false left/right paradigm is beginning to peel away to expose the real divide: "you vs. the establishment".

Another saying my mother always had was, "If you're not going to help me, don't hinder me." Ron Paul can hold his own with the contenders, but expect the powers that be, and therefore the media, to double down their efforts. Expect more slander and misinformation, more shills, provocateurs, and agents of disinformation to appear. Simply, don't fall for it and let the establishment/media pull you out of your own element. Counter their hate and fear with love and reason and everything else will fall into place.

Steady as she goes, folks... but the next pressing question is this: just who or what exactly will be counting the votes?