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ANOTHER COMING OUT
ANTHONY RUSSO
BY MARVIN LIEBMAN
About 14 months ago, I began writing a monthly column
for lesbian and gay publications around the country I called the
column "Conservatively Speaking " Why this title? I believed
that my major credential in the gay community was my auto
biography Coming Out Conservative, and the fact that I was a
mover and shaker in the U S. anticommunist and conservative
communities for many years before I came out at the age of 67
There were many gay men vtfio could write a column, but there
were not many gay conservative men around, over 70, who
wanted to share their thoughts in the gay and lesbian press. I
certainly had that spot covered -- with no competition.
Most of the publications printed my columns, either
regularly or sporadically However, most of the publications
never used "Conservatively Speaking" as the column header,
but simply published what I had to say under my own name.
I realized that the word "conservative" repels most lesbians and
gay men, as do such words as "Christian" and "Republican "
ETERNAL VIGILANCE
About two months ago, one of the TV news magazines
aired a 15-minute segment on eight murders in Texas - all of
them homosexual men. As one embittered and bereaved
relative put it: "Gay bashing is considered a sport like I might go
bowling!"
I couldn't help thinking, 'This happens because the
culture in which they live permits it." Now Oregon is not Texas,
nor is Clatsop County But those who thinK it "can't happen
here" are wrong
Within the last year a handful of incidences of the
following types turned up in some research I and others did:
telephone harassment, break in, vandalism, persistent verbally
ballistic harassment, threats, taunts and insults in businesses,
residences and in school settings
In some instances the police were notified and were
instrumental in monitoring and preventing further violence,
which is reassuring: it seems we are not drifting toward the
Texas pattern.
But eternal vigilance still is necessary. And it is still the
case that all that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good
people to do nothing
-BU N N Y DOAR
Bunny Doar wrote the above for OUT! On The Coast,
which is published by the Clatsop County AIDS Coalition.
—
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f^ B I F îr e
HRH M o u n t a in
IT I
School
P.O. BOX 96, ARCH CAPE, OREGON 97102
Rightly or wrongly, these terms had become code words symbol
izing bigotry, fear and loathing of gay men and lesbians.
But I am conservative, Republican and Christian. God
knows, I'm gay, too. Isn't it possible to be all four, or have I
become a living oxymoron? The answer eluded me for some
time, but is now obvious: No, it is not possible, at least for me, in
today's world.
In my coming out letter to my friend Wiliam F. Buckley
Jr., which was published in his National Review in July 1990, I
aired a premonition that had been haunting me for a long time
"I feel that our cause might sink back into the ooze in which so
much of it rested in pre-National Review days," I wrote to Buck-
ley. "In that dark age, the American Right was heavily, perhaps
dominantly, made up of bigots, anti-Semites, anti-Catholics, the
KKK, rednecks, Know Nothings, a sorry lot of public hucksters
and religious medicine men. Now, times are changing. There is
no longer the anticommunist cement to hold the edifice together.
The great enterprise is in danger of sinking back into an aggre
gate of bigotries.”
Alas, my prediction has been realized. The words
."conservative," "Christian" and "Republican" are being held
hostage by the same forces that controlled the American Right
before Buckley and his band of true believers (of which I was
proud to be part) made conservative more mainstream and
respectable Of course, even now, there are still those among
the Republican ranks, like Sen. Arlen Specter, who attempt to
hold the fort against the barbarians. But they are vastly out
numbered by the descendants of those from a half-century ago
who would drag the country back into the swamps of intolerance
and division. Can the valiant defenders prevail? I don't believe
they can, not in the foreseeable future.
Where does this leave me?
I cannot associate myself vwth Rush Limbaugh and
other new "conservative" leaders, nor with Pat Robertson and
his "Christian” brigades, nor with Jesse Helms and his new
"Republican" majority. The only identity of which I am absolutely
certain is that I am a homosexual in a country which has little
patience with us gay folk.
THE MILITIA
In Grant's Pass, Oregon, young
men in uniforms gather in a parking lot
surrounded by boarded store windows,
the closed mouths nailed and silent.
The guns lift all in a row,
a tiny black face at the end
of each barrel pointing into the night,
fire now now and now across the great
width. There will be one group
and one group only. They are simply
preparing.
Boys on roller blades whizz whizz
and weave in and out and away and
back watching. One will return home
and hold the razor close
against his scalp. Another
might steal paint or Tire.
-P O L L Y B U CK IN G H AM
Polly Buckingham lives in Astoria. The Militia
is the 3rd part of a longer poem, Oregon War Zone
Millions of gay men and lesbians - perhaps a great
majority of our would-be community -- are in the closet, terrified
of coming out and standing openly with their sisters and brothers
against the forces that would see us obliterated Make no
mistake: The ultimate goal of our enemy is to make us disap
pear, back to a closet that will make today's seem wide open
by comparison, or dead. Hysterical? I don't think so.
Where does that leave me? Us? I can no longer accept
such labels as conservative, Christian or Republican, which
draw much of their coherence from hostility towards people like
me. No gay man or lesbian in the United States should no longer
accept any of these labels, which have become mere code
words for attacks on our collective dignity. We can accept no
labels any longer. We must give our allegiance and support only
to those individuals and groups who publicly stand with us
against bigotry and fear of lesbians and gay men.
Forget the hand wringing over Congress and the federal
government We must focus on our own neighborhoods, our
cities, and our states This is where we will find allies, men and
women who have seen our faces, who know who we are. Here
we develop the coalitions and power bases that make elected
officials -- local, state and national -- sit up and take notice.
Here, too, we must find and nurture new leaders to replace the
figureheads of our national lesbian and gay groups who have
accomplished little and at great cost.
No longer can we give our votes, our contributions, and
our efforts for the pursuit of vague promises. We mustn't sell the
soul of our community for "tolerance." Although we desperately
need allies from the U S. mainstream, we must be satisfied with
only their full and open support for our cause against our
enemies. Indeed, as we have done so often in the past, we will
give them our unbridled aid for their steadfast support.
In the past -- and sometimes to the consternation of
my African American friends - I have compared the gay rights
movement to the black civil rights movement of the 60s. I still
believe that they are comparable, and we have much to learn
from the history of this great quest, both its setbacks and its
victories. Now, however, I believe it even more urgent to draw a
comparison between our community and the Jews and homo
sexuals of Europe in the 30s and 40s. Then, as now, the
majority cried out that those who predicted death and misery
were crazy, that such things as mass extermination could not
happen, that hysteria was dangerous. Until the very last, until
they choked on the lethal gas in the extermination "showers,"
they did not accept the fact that the Nazi state despised them to
the point of eradicating them from the face of the earth.
The Jews and homosexuals of Europe were victims. We
are not. We must never be grateful for mere crumbs off the table
at which we have no place. Neither must we let ourselves be
shamed from claiming our identity as gay or lesbian, content
instead to seek shelter under tents whose stakes are planted in
the backs of our brothers and sisters
I can no longer call myself a conservative, nor a Christ
ian, nor a Republican. I am a gay American, and I will retain my
independence from any other label. You may, from time to time,
still come upon my thoughts in the gay press. Henceforth, how
ever, my column will be called "Independently Speaking."
Marvin Liebman is a contributor to Just Out, a gay and
lesbian newspaper published in Portland from which his article is
reprinted.
FAMOUS LESBIAN
)l
Cathie Hardee, a student at Olympia High School
in Olympia, Washington, responding to a complaint that
Col. Maragarethe Cammermeyer* was invited to speak at
a student assembly only because she is a famous lesbian:
"Susan B. Anthony was famous because she was
a woman, Anne Frank was famous because she was a
Jew, and Martin Luther King Jr. was famous because he
was black. It's not why they were discriminated against
that makes them famous. It's what they did about it that
makes them famous."
-MPMc
‘ Cammermeyer, a decorated Vietnam W a r veteran, won rein
statement to the Washington National Guard when she sued over her
discharge for acknowledging she is a lesbian. A TV movie was made
of her case.