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a PFLAG Meeting |
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By Carol Minton
The homosexual revolution is only part of a larger revolution sweeping through all segments of society. We hope that "Gay Power" will not become a call for separation, but for sexual integration, and that the young activists will read, study, and make themselves acquainted with all of the facts which will help them to carry the sexual revolt triumphantly into the councils of the U.S. government, into the anti-homosexual churches, into the offices of anti-homosexual psychiatrists, into the city government, and into the state legislatures which make our manner of lovemaking a crime. It is time to push the homosexual revolution to its logical conclusion. We must crush tyranny wherever it exists and join forces with those who would assist in the utter destruction of the puritanical, repressive, anti-sexual Establishment. Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke, July 8, 1969
Steven Cozza spoke at the Millennium March on Washington for Gay Rights in protest of the Boy Scouts of America's policy of discrimination. The Boy Scouts believe that they alone instill qualities of social value. In fact, they have culturalized generations of youth to view gays and lesbians as undesirables; and continue to plant seeds of homophobic rage. Steven Cozza calls it a human rights issue. His activism is relentless and inspirational. Raj Ayyar has a long-standing relationship with PFLAG. He founded and continues to sponsor a student organization called "Partners in Community" (PIC). He calls on members of PFLAG to enlighten the student body about hate crime legislation and to urge students to understand the gay and lesbian issues. With the efforts of PIC members, Raj has brought the awareness of AIDS, LGBT, feminist and women's issues, and Black History month to campus as well as of other diverse/oppressed groups who struggle within institutionalized systems of sexism, racism, and classism. During the evening, Raj talked about the need for a new dedication to activism. Raj Ayyar: In Randy Wicker and Jack Nichols, I am looking at gay history incarnate. They actually made gay history in this country. Jack and Randy are some of the architects of the Mattachine Society. Not satisfied, they were constantly challenging the movement to think past its comfort zone toward liberation. The success we have achieved has been from standing on the shoulders of the giants that took that first step. Many of us take equal rights for granted. After all, we do have a form of gay rights in Vermont now; there are Appellate Courts in Texas busy overthrowing the out-worn sodomy statutes; there are many cities, implausible ones like Louisville, Kentucky that are inching toward gay rights. So, some of us may say, "We are doing very well. You know, this emphasis on gay rights the coming out process is not as painful today as it was 30 years ago." In most nations, the struggle for sexual minority rights has come to the surface and cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, there is a backlash from fundamentalist religions and violence against gays and lesbians has increased. In this country, Matthew Shepard became almost iconic but we know that since Julio Rivera's tragic death in the early 90s, there have been hundreds and hundreds of cases documented and undocumented of hate crimes against gays and lesbians. Many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender teens and adults are displaced in society because of their orientation. Suicide is still the number one killer of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teens. Unless we create a new dedication to activism, our tentative gains will be swept under the rug like so much bric-a-brac in history.
It is time for people women, men, and teens of every sexual orientation, ethnicity, and nationality to accept diversity, not diversity mooshed together in some mythic melting pot, but diversity as difference. I am glad that at least on a small scale, PIC has been a symbol within academic circles, in our small town for such activism. No matter how apathetic the student body or how hostile some members of the administration I think the struggle has been worthwhile. In the darkness of our time, when many of us feel cynical about gun-toting teens, Steven Cozza is a young man who actually gives us a spark of light. He has been an activist since he was 12. He has marched in Gay Pride parades and active in AIDS awareness events since he was four. Instead of making faggot jokes, here is a young man who says, "The Boy Scouts' message hurts gay kids and teaches straight kids to discriminate." Steven Cozza is a heterosexual Eagle Scout. He is 15-years old. He is co-founder of an organization called "Scouting for All" that is taking a stand against the BSA for their homophobic policies and also for their anti-women and anti-atheist policies. Under the auspices of PFLAG, Steven has formed a Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school. He was awarded the prestigious PFLAG Flag Bearer Award, 2000. Steven Cozza shares this honor with Coretta King, Ted Kennedy, and Rev. Jimmy Creech.
After reading it I thought, Randy Wicker is a marvelous, passionate, diverse man. I noted his intense interest in human cloning. Within 10 minutes after meeting Randy, his presence filled the car, my thoughts, and imagination. By the time we had reached our destination, Randy had me knee-deep in the Raelian revolution, headless mice, and ritual cloning. The few miles we traveled resembled a quick spin in a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" cosmology machine. Luckily, I recalled the Randy Wicker "tweak-factor" from Jack's article and my cosmos was in order again almost. Raj Ayyar: Randolfe Wicker is credited with extremely funny observations. In 1962, he was the first openly gay person to talk about gay issues on the radio and invited call-ins. His current cause is cloning and its connection to the lesbian and gay community. He is called the 'Grand High Priest of Cloning.' James Sears, author of Lonely Hunters says Wicker was a member of the homophile movement who was not an accommodationist. Unlike some of the buttoned-up, Randy Wicker didn't say, "Let me just move over lest I tread on your toes."
My mother is 85; it took her a process of 30 to 35 years and she still does not accept it fully. This is the way she accepts it partially she said, "You know the woman who drives me around her daughter is 'that way'. But, what can you do?" You laugh, but this was beautiful. She sends me Christmas cards that say, "I love you just the way you are." I asked her, "When David dies, (My lover of 18 years; he died of AIDS in 1990.) will you make a quilt for him?" She said yes. At that time, my mother proved to me that she actually loved me. I invited her to Washington to the AIDS Quilt display. I planned to buy her a ticket to Baltimore. Baltimore was where she grew-up and I was born. We would spend the night in Baltimore and see the Quilt display the next day in Washington. There was a little bit of a flap because my mother was the obedient servant of her husband (not my father, he died at the age of 49 and she later married a Brigadier General). My dearest aunt, my mother's sister said, "It's not your mother's decision; it's the General's." When I told the General, I wanted to take my mother to Washington he said, "Oh, you can't do that; we have a convention of ROTC in Tucson that weekend." I said, "Listen Frank, many men have had more than one wife but no man who has ever lived has had more than one mother." My mother loved that and the General was very cool. I explained to him that it was the last showing of the Quilt. He pulled back. This is what I am leading into She said, she did not know what she was opening herself up to. When we went over to Washington from Baltimore, the mother of a boy I had taken in went with us. Her son was a run-away that I had taken care of 12 years earlier. He was like an adopted son; he went to Baltimore and settled down with this very wonderful person.
I have gotten closer to her more in the last five or six years while she was taking care of her husband, the General. He developed heart trouble. First, he was walking with a cane; then he was in a wheel chairthen with half a heart and two thirds of a kidney at 84 he was not going to get any better. She was going through the same thing I went through when I was taking care of David. An amazing bonding took place at that time. Another quick fast forward story. I don't think you know how important it is for you to be there at certain times. I had an employee that worked a number of years for me. He was dying of AIDS; he was living on Metrocal. He was very close to his mother but he could not bring himself to tell her he was gay. She was from rural Texas and a very hard shell born again Christian type. Every week he would say, "I going to tell her this weekend." Finally, his lover who had a drinking problem picked up the phone and called her, "I am not just your son's room mate; I'm h#H? ^!??! s??*$?#>, f>#& !<*." The guy was such a good employee, I decided to fly his mother to New York to see her dying son. During this same time, I had another friend's mother visiting who marches with her son in the PFLAG contingence in Queens. Especially because there was another mother there, I believe they made a peace. Carol Minton: Before the Gay liberation movement, gay men and lesbians were considered politically unimportant. The early gay and lesbian publications established the foundations for a politically visible gay community. Jack Nichols and his lover, Lige Clarke were co-editors of America's first gay weekly newspaper, GAY. Both GAY and a monthly magazine edited in the 1960s by Barbara Gittings, The Ladder: A Lesbian Review, set precedents and critical thinking agendas. Raj Ayyar: Jack Nichols and his late lover Lige Clarke had been activists starting in the early 1960s and in 1969 they covered the Stonewall period as GAY's editors. Jack has remained an activist ever since. Currently, he is editor of GayToday. Whether you are gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, parent, friend, or family it does not matter, Gay Today is one of the most reliable sources for gay news, features, and opinions from around the world. Jack wrote a thought-provoking book called The Gay Agenda: Talking Back to the Fundamentalists (1996). An earlier book that made an impact on me was his 1975 classic, Men's Liberation: Toward a New Definition of Masculinity. I read it when I first came to this country. I have been influenced by Jack Nichols and I am proud to be associated with him. He was called the "wide-eyed anarchist poet" by no less a person than James Sears, author of Lonely Hunters. Jack Nichols: My mother now is almost 85. Randy and I have had different kinds of mothers. I can't recall anything my mother ever said that was negative about my orientation. I can remember in 1958, taking her to a gay bar three blocks from the White House in Washington, D.C. on Halloween night.
My father and mother divorced when I was three. After the war, my father went to work for the FBI. He was a special agent for 25 years. It was in Washington and New York that Randy and I initiated the earliest pickets. My father was going nuts down on Pennsylvania Avenue because he had made the mistake of naming me after himself. He really caused some dramatic moments for me after the pickets. I never did see him after that. He was very much a "no dancing" Methodist. Many things bothered him. He blamed it on himself that I was gay. That is too bad because he did not need that burden. My parents had married as high school sweethearts; one was an athlete and one was a beauty. My fatherI never did see him again after he threatened my life. I do not think such a threat was characteristic of him. As an author in 1975, I passed through my hometown, Washington D.C., and I gave an interview to the Star, which was the big conservative paper in those days. They gave me a full page in the Sunday edition. By that time, my father had retired. I mentioned that my father had been a FBI agent and a baseball player for the Chicago White Socks. The newspaper wrote it up as background for machismo because that particular book of mine was on masculinity. I took the occasion to tell the reporter that 'I love my father; he is a good person.' She printed that and I meant it. I feel it is too bad my father and I didn't connect. It has a lot to do with the way men are brought up. I was fortunate to have been brought up by a poetry-quoting grandfather. My grandfather loved Robert Burns' poetry. I got poetry at the end of every meal. I did not get the Bible; I got Robert Burns. And today, I am a Walt Whitman freak. So what can I say? I like Walt Whitman's poetry. He was the great gay poet. The poet of democracy; the poet of my country. I think he is the most important cultural source imaginable. Whitman said this in 1855 "The female equally with the male I sing." He was able to incorporate the vast variety of America in his poems and able to see the equality of the sexes on the horizon. I consider Randy and a few other people to be my extended spiritual family. Randy got me my first job in journalism when I got to New York, a place where he had already worked. He called it a baptism in fire and it was. A month ago, Randy and I gave a TV interview about the earliest pioneers in the movement, people from the early 60s. A video of the interview showed up in my mail. What is weird on the video, I saw my own strange little family, an 'alter-family' from an earlier era in which I had been involved. Just like if you had been involved in some operation, Guadalcanal, or something. It is wonderful to have clips from that experience and all of my 'family's' conversations on one film. Carol Minton: A few days later, Randy Wicker returned to New York, Jack Nichols went back to being an editor, Raj Ayyar left for India, and John F. Medeiros, PFLAG's secretary went to jail. Steven Cozza is preparing to speak June 25, at the San Francisco LGBT Freedom Day. John F. Medeiros was one of twenty-eight activists arrested at the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida. The way John F. explained it in last week's GayToday, he lost his virginity among the Baptists. |
Carol Minton 
Raj Ayyar 
Steven Cozza represents Scouting for All 
Randy Wicker, 1960 
Jack Nichols, 1962 
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