A Philosophical Introduction to My Character and Gay Liberation
Unlike the exhibit where every effort is made to differentiate between sourced material, recollected history, uncertainty and fiction, this essay is intended to help the reader understand my motivations in taking the actions I did.
For me, being civil and the fight for civil rights did not go hand-in-hand. You probably won’t like me very much when you read the dramatizations. Although the novel’s Dave Rosen isn’t Jeff Graubart per se, the differences are minor. Dave Rosen is possessed by rage, addicted to pills, obsessed, mentally unstable, impulsive, arrogant, naïve and immature.
Nor is Dave Rosen loved by the gays whose liberation he is obsessed with obtaining. He is at various times censured, expelled, ostracized, criticized in the press and called an embarrassment by other gay and lesbian organizations and individuals.
What you will find in this exhibit is real history and a real hero, not the gay and lesbian versions of Harrison Ford and Angelina Jolie whom our movement is so fond of conjuring up to explain away the past, or whose foibles are mere footnotes to rather than the defining force of their personalities.
It is almost a cliché that Stonewall was a riot led by young, drug-addicted, homeless, gender benders. But the movement’s liberal leaders, who repeat this aphorism, don’t believe a word of it. To them, it is just a string of meaningless words uttered to show how hip they are.
Movement organizations are born out of dramatic events. The new leadership puts a disingenuous, pretty face, on those events, and then the organizations die-off. Those organizations with staying power remain because of a few dedicated individuals who are neither of Heather’s two mommies or the gay football hero but rather those whose lives more closely resemble the misfits who started our Stonewall riot. But the truth is attacked by the gay establishment because ours is a history of The Fear.
What is The Fear? It is the fear of being discovered, the fear of going to prison, the fear of lobotomy and chemical castration, the fear of going to hell, the fear of being mentally unfit, the fear of being fired from your job, the fear of public disgrace, the fear of violence, the fear of losing your friends, the fear of losing your family, the fear of dying alone. What has always been the case, and today more than ever, is the fear of being different.
The gay establishment surrenders to The Fear. “We have families just like you, with kids who go to school and get sick just like yours. We go to church just like you. We are active in our civic organizations. We are good neighbors; Jane and June Cleaver, Fathers Know Best.”
Writing the novel and building the exhibit has forced me to relive some of the emotions from thirty-plus years ago. When we recently lost in Maine, the right to marry, I was so angry, I pulled a Dave Rosen. I burned a Bible at a rally called by Join the Impact, Chicago. The rally was called expressly to show our anger over the vote, yet I was informed, by an email that if I ever so much as showed up at another JTI rally the police would be called and I would be arrested. Just like old times. The Fear is alive and well.
