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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1988)
Speaking for the gay and lesbian agenda BY DR. LENORA B. The Democratic Party can no longer sustain the myth that it is the party of the underdog, the disenfranchised and the poor. FU L ANI he “ official” leadership of the lesbian and gay community is up in arms over my independent campaign for president of the United States. I am America’s third candidate — the first woman and the first African- American ever to be on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. I am the only national pro-gay presidential candidate. I have used my independent campaign to advocate a federal lesbian and gay rights bill; a federal AIDS Bill of Rights; a national health service that would provide comprehensive, quality healthcare for every American, including, of course, people with AIDS; legislation that would reverse the Supreme Court’s Hardwick decision upholding Georgia’s anti-sodomy law; and defeat of the dangerously homophobic |Califomia| Propositions 96 and 102. But the mostly white, middle-class and male- dominated establishment leadership of the gay community isn’t interested in any of this. They are Ux> busy repeating secondhand charges, as vicious as they are foolish, that I am a brain washed member of a cult, that I am a follower of the neo-fascist Lyndon LaRouche. that I only seem to be pro-gay but in fact have a “ hidden agenda " What’s their plan for advancing the gay agenda in 1988? In Massachusetts they put it this way: “ Vote for Dukakis and then throw up.” The tragic fact — the criminal fact — is that the only commitment these gay-movement leaders have is to holding on to their jobs, their little pieces of turf and their niches in the status quo. They have abandoned the lesbian and gay community to the right wing, to AIDS and to gay bashing because they have abandoned T Political stew lesbians and gays to the manipulations of the Democratic Party. It’s outrageous that the gay population of this country is being told by its “ leadership” to embrace Dukakis as a friend who cares about people with AIDS! This is the neo-liberal who was t(X) busy retrenching the Massachusetts budget in favor of Big Business to put any money into AIDS treatment until 1987. This is the governor who authored an executive order making it practically impossible for lesbians and gays to be foster parents. This is the man who chases after the Reagan Democrats and who — like his Republican counterpart — wouldn’t utter the words “ lesbian” or “ gay” in the course of the televised presidential debates. But now the gay establishment is telling us that in the name of people with AIDS we must defeat George Bush and vote for Michael Dukakis. Are we supposed to forget Dukakis’s actual record on AIDS and on lesbian and gay rights? Dukakis’s weak performance in the debates revealed that he is suffering from the unraveling of his campaign and the two-decades-long erosion of the Democratic Party. Dukakis has rejected ideology in favor of "competency” and thereby runs smack into a basic contra diction. The Democratic Party can no longer sustain the myth that it is the party of the under "You deserve to die, AIDS scum!" It was not a game in New Orleans. It was not a performance fo r the television cameras. The hatred was pure and clean and strong. You could see it in their eyes. B Y___ R E X W O c K N E R didn’t realize it while it was happening, but afterwards, on the airplane, somewhere over Tennessee, it became crystal clear. I suppose we frequently don’t realize it while it's happening That's the nature of this beast. But later, on the plane, or lying in bed. bam. Bam. It hit me over Tennessee. The six days 1 had just lived through were going to be w ith me for the rest of my life. The Republican National Convention — like the March on Washington — would become one of the fundamental defining events of my life as an activist, a journalist and an individual I'd had a hint while still in New Orleans that something was churning in my subconscious. My last night there I had this dream that a space station fell from outer space and into Shea Stadium, which was Unrated in Decatur, Georgia, which was in the mountains. Miracu lously. only one person was killed I told my New Orleans roommate — Charles fn>m ACTUP — about the dream He said he too wondered if the convention week hadn't permanently tinkered with his psyche There’s something about being hated, yelled at and punched out for six days running that takes its toll. The Republicans, you see. let their hairdown in New Orleans At a Reagan speech, hundreds of them tried to beat the living shit out of I ju \r nut • 14 • November ivx* ACTUP members who were peacefully stand ing in a crowd holding AIDSGATE signs. “ If we had stayed there one minute longer, we would have been killed.’’ said ACTUP’s Neil Broome. “ These people were rabid.” The faces of the Republicans were contorted with hatred. Women in their 50s were shout ing. “ You deserve to die. AIDS scum.” Well- scrubbed Republican boys in their 20s were letting loose full-force punches at the faces of ACTUP members. “ They wanted us dead,” ACTUP’s Frank Smithson said. The scene was repeated two days later at Bush’s grand riverboat entrance into New Orleans. “ Forty thousand dead from AIDS; where was George?” ACTUP members chanted. “ Kill the fags.” the Republicans responded, as fists, elbows, feet and knees flew into action. As much as anything, it resembled an episode of the old Batman television series. Zowie. Splat. Crunch. Smash. “ It was so awful,” said ACTUP’s Heidi Dorow . “ This one guv with an umbrella just crashed it down on Bill Blum's head.” Scrrrunch " I ’ve been called a 'fag' down here more times in three days than in the whole rest of my life." commented an ACTUP member later. “ It's not safe here this week.” The final grisly clash w ith Republicans came dog, the disenfranchised and the poor. The Democrats’ unwillingness to put forth a progressive social vision of the kind articulated by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and supported by seven and a half million Americans means that Dukakis has to try to appeal to the party’s tradi tional working-class base of liberal voters while effectively denying that he is a liberal. How is it that the gay leadership can tell lesbians and gays that the New Alliance Party, whose national chairperson I am, is to be shunned? A party many of whose leaders are lesbian and gay? A party that includes people who themselves have AIDS? Are only gay Democrats really gay? Are only Democrats with AIDS worthy of compassion? My vice presidential running mate in Oregon, Harold Moore, is a gay man with AIDS. Is he “ contaminated” in the eyes of the national gay establishment by virtue of his association with the New Alliance Party? Why in the name of the gay agenda isn’t the establishment leadership addressing itself to the work that the New Alliance Party has done in the fight for lesbian and gay rights? Why in the name of the gay agenda isn't that leadership responding to my charges that Michael Dukakis is anti-gay — his wife Kitty’s "good will” tours notwithstanding? Why, when gay men are dying of an epidemic that the Democratic poli when gay and lesbian activists held a rally at the convention’s “ designated free-speech site." About 35 Young Americans for Freedom showed up. four of them in surgical masks. They chanted: AIDS is not a disease; it’s a cure. Just say no to homos. No God-given right for sodomite. Gays kill themselves in bathhouses. Dukakis can’t veto natural law. Homos go home. So, fag, do you get the picture? AIDS is not just a disease, it'sacure. You ve got no right to hutt-fuck. JUST SAY NO. You brought it on yourself, letting ten strangers a night rip up your ass in a hellhole of a bathhouse, licking your shit off their dicks aftei wards. And now \ou want our money to get you out of your mess. You sad fucking penerts. You think you’re not un natural, don t you? Well, you can scream and vote all you want, but no one can change the way God made the world — not you, not the Duke, not even your messiah, Jesse Jackson. Just go home, will you? Better yet, get the fuck out o f my country. Better yet, get the fuck off o f my planet. In the mainstream press, we’d respond to this by addressing human sexual behavior, biblical interpretation, the concept of Universal Truths, the sociological facts of gay sex. the structure of the gay community. But the readers of this paper have all passed Gay Apologetics 101. In this paper, published for fellow perverts, fags, homos, lesbos. queers and sickos. a single question is all that remains. How can so many of you still be considering voting Republican this November? This is 1988 now . The days of Richard Nixon ticians cry crocodile tears over but don’t have the guts to take on the murderously homophobic right wing, won’t the leaders of the establish ment gay organizations and the editors of the establishment gay press stand up for the com munity? Why, instead, are they seeking to cult- bait and LaRouche-bait me? The Democrats pretend to care about the AIDS crisis when all they care about is getting votes and preserving their position of power. They’re hypocrites! But what are we to say about the establishment gay leadership, which is acting as a procurer by attempting to lure the gay community into the party’s vile embrace? The Democrats arrogantly assume that, with the “ help” of such leadership, the gay com munity will vote for them again this year— just as they assume that the African-American electorate will once again give the party a blank check without getting anything in return. And that’s why we need to cost them the White House. We need to teach the white supremacist, homophobic party leadership that we are just as independent as the conservative white voters — the so-called “ Reagan Democrats” — that Dukakis is so busy running after. If the Demo crats want our votes, they’ll have to deliver much more than a definition of apartheid as terrorist, a few tears for our brothers who have died, and other “ symbolic” gestures that are more of an insult to our people than a victory for our agenda. A vote for Dukakis is a wasted vote — it shows the Democrats that we are still a blank-check constituency. But a vote for me on November 8 is a way to use our votes — it forces the Democrats to deal with our agenda. Sisters and brothers, our willingness to stand together and stand up on November 8 will make all the difference. We have the right, you have the right, we have the opportunity, you have the opportunity, to stand up and tell the Democrats that we’re not going to take it any more! • Lenora B. Fulani is a candidate for president o f the United States. and Gerald Ford are history. “ Republican” no longer means “ economic conservative.” The delegates didn’t even applaud when Ford came out to speak at their convention. The Republi can party is now under the thumb of theocrats — zealous fascists who want nothing more than to jam their religion and their natural-law philosophy down our throats. They’re already killing us by doing nothing about AIDS. It’s a very small step to speed up the process with new, proactive legislation. “ But, oh,” said a friend of mine, “ those Republican gay activists are so brave to be in there fighting for us. They deserve medals.” Yes. they do. Medals are hereby conferred on all 100 openly gay Republican activists in the United States. That leaves us with 6 million other gay Republicans. And it’s to them that I say it’s time to shit or get off the pot. Either come out of the closet and fundamentally stun (and thus change) the Republicans to the very top of their power structure, or get the hell out of there before you end up assisting in your own extermination and mine. It was not a game in New Orleans. It was not a performance for the television cameras. The hatred was pure and clean and strong. You could see it in their eyes. We must either use all our strength from the outside to keep them from power, or we must come out of the closet on the inside and show them that they are us. The time is now. The analogy of “ Jewish Nazi” is not too strong. Otherwise, we’re dead. • Rex Wockner is a reporter for Outlines (Chicago) and is a nationally-syndicated writer.