Fitz-a-Rootzy!

Richard Whitefield! – a dear friend of mine who died of AIDS in 1988…

Christy,

That was moving. And important. And I am so sorry for your loss.

Very moving essay, Christie.

For all of us with gay friends, what the American GOP Taliban are doing is truly shameful and immensely harmful.

We just spent 10 days in a bed and breakfast on a Caribbean island that is run by a gay couple from England. Nowhere could you find more gracious and human hosts. Unlike the Bush fanatics.

EPU’d from last thread.

Just a head’s up. The right is starting to go after Fitzgerald, see the WSJ editorial this morning. Of course, Fitz can handle the media whores and their editorials (see WP and NY Times) but just passing it along in case it indicates Plame might be heating up %u2026.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/…..=110008476

Of course, you didn’t hear the WSJ editorial saying lying was no big deal when Clinton lied about having sex. Would be interesting to compare and contrast those editorials with this one. Rampant, unapologetic, hypocrits.

159830 Blog Verification (3): What the hell is that?

Nice post… I also came of age in Appalachia in the 1980s and had similarly brave, solitary gay classmates.

That’s B.D., btw, not D.B. Wong.

Thanks, Fuzzbinder — fixed it. Clearly need more coffee…lol

You’re absolutely right. There is no cure for AIDS or HIV infection, but look at the difference between now and when your dear friend was infected. In the 80’s, HIV infection meant you would die a horrible death and fairly rapidly, too. Now, HIV is becoming (at least for people with access to the health care, but that’s another issue)a “managed condition” with which people can live long and productive years. Think Magic Johnson. We haven’t won the battle, but there’s been a lot of progress. We need to extend that progress to developing countries now.

You are also completely right about prioritization of problems by the Bushies. Their first interest is maintaining power. They don’t give a fig about gay marriage or any of these other “splinter issues”. They use them to make the fundies think the Bushies are carrying out their wishes to establish a fundamentalist Christian nation. I hope and I pray that the majority of people can see through this crud by now. How many times are you played for a fool before you realize it and stop allow it to happen?

Yesterday I was thinking about Reagan and his true, deadly legacy…

I’m doing some work for the ONE campaign to implement the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to revers the spread of AIDS.

Check it out, it’s a movement to persuade our legis-critters to fund the MDGs (like the US already pledged).

Thanks Christie. This administration is so busy lining their pockets and those of their friends, and pandering to their base so they can stay in power – it’s useless to talk about ‘wake-up calls’, there’s no one to answer the fucking phone!

Christy

Thanks for this post. My brother died of AIDS 9 years ago. He was a very special man. Very happily married to his partner for 10 years.
He moved to Ca soon after high school and had 2 MBAs in Hosp Admin.
He was a better role model than most of his siblings.

Christy-Very moving, thanks.

Not to equate AIDS with homosexuality, but the DC Gay Pride Festival culminates with a parade and street fair this weekend at the foot of the Capitol (6/10-11). I would imagine, and hope for, a massive turnout to both celebrate the strides made against this horrible disease, and the much-needed work still ahead to combat it.

If anyone lives in or near the District, please show up.

I lost one of my favorite co-workers in 1995.

Sat on his bedside and held his hand a few days before he died, pretending to agree that he was going to get better.

RIP, Wes…

I think the thing that makes me the sickest about this whole gay marriage amendment business is, since I don’t believe for one second that 99% of these Republican congressmen actually care whether or not gay people marry, that they are using the most personal and sacred part of a population of people, who already suffer so much discrimination, for political purposes is too much.

This is the most immoral and depraved group of legislators and executives I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I’m guessing in this nation’s history.

Beating up on 10% of the population! Bullies do that!

and the same crowd hollering about gay marriage nowadays is the same damn crowd hollering about how dangerous homosexuals were with their God-inflicted disease back in the 80s …

Thanks Christy, this is a really important issue for me.

I mean Jesus H. Christ, a percentage of the population is gay. It’s just an f-ing fact. GET OVER IT. It breaks my heart to think that anyone – anyone, should be made to feel guilty or shame because they love someone. It’s too sad.

When my kids were about 3 years old we rented an apartment to a gay couple. They lived upstairs from us, we all became close friends. They adored my girls and my girls adored them. One day, I was sitting with my daughter, looking out the window when our friends were leaving. They were walking side by side, not touching – in fact, I’m sure that they had never displayed any physical affection in front of my kids. But my daughter looked at me with a big smile and said, “Mumma, when are M & A going to have a baby”. She recognized their love and thirty year commitment intuitively. It was such a pure innocent question. It was one of my proudest Mummy moments.

What’s going on in the Senate is divisive and hateful. It sickens me.

Thanks again for this post.

Christy, your friend’s compassion reminds me just who we can count on in this society. If they haven’t become bitter, those who have been marginalized or persecuted are often more caring than those who’ve forgotten what it was like to need people (or have never known). Just like the old adage – if you need a buck, go to someone who’s just making ends meet. The guy who’s well off won’t be as willing to help.

Thank again Christy. Very sobering.
TRex, you still around?
One of my vivid memories of Athens was going to see the AIDS quilt and hearing KRS-One speak at the UGA student center (’91).
The quilt was huge, it took up the entire gym. Every square represented a life taken too early. I wasn’t close to the epidemic, anyone affected by it or into politics, but it sure felt that the leadership of this country did or cared absolutely nothing about it.

T-

Though no solace now, a special hell awaits the vermin who stoke hate, fear and the politics of exclusion.

Thanks Christy. I lost 3 hemophiliac brother-in-laws to AIDS beginning in the early ’80s, the last in the mid 1990s. Could at least the last one have been saved if the homophobic Reagan administration had given due attention to this health emergency? If I needed any more excuse to loathe the Republican Party and its pandering to the “Christian” Right, there is is.

Christie- I grieve with you and everyone who lived throught the horrible period in the 80’s when there was no treatment for AIDS and no political will to find one. It is no surprise that we have not come that far in twenty five years. Homophobia still rules politics.

Certainly we have the ‘coctail’ that has kept many of my friends alive to this day… but at great expense. If you can’t afford the drugs in America or in Africa… the result is the same…” tough luck”… “should have been careful”…” God’s judgement” and all that. Christian compassion? has become an oxymoron and the ‘Decider’ moron rolls along, trampling America and it’s dreams and tradition if justice. WOW! and on the day of the 25th annniversary of the identification if AIDS. It is to weep.

Anon at 5

Re: WSJ attempt at slime. Read it. It was so transparent. PJF said he wanted to introduce that column to show that Scooter had not “fogotten” about Plame/Wilson.

The rest of the allegations in that article are borderline fantasy.

HOWEVER, do we LOVE the sketch protrait of PJF.. He looks so honest and sincere. It looks like one of these charcoal sketches they do at county fairs that your grandman likes to hang in her house.

More people will see the picture as they turn the page than will stop to read the column. So, I actually count it as a net plus.

I liked the book And the Band Played On better than the movie,which I also liked.I almost always like a book better than any movie made from it.(OT:Under the Tuscan Sun the movie pissed me off,it was only loosely,very loosely based on the book)

Anyhoo,yesterday I was thinking about this too Christy.A dear friend from my 20’s(I’m 46 now)was a gay man who tried so hard to deny that part of himself.He finally broke free of that towards the end of his life,complications from AIDS took his life about 10 yrs ago.He was the first man who I could really relate to and talk to about anything.He was there when my first marriage fell apart and I was left nearly penniless.With his help,I decorated and furnished my crappy little apartment in “the projects”on a shoestring.We used to get up early to hit wealthy neighborhoods on trash day,looking for throwaway pieces of furniture we could refurbish.We used to do road trips to places to meet people I may never have gone on to meet my own.My life was enriched just from knowing him.

I just keep imagining a world where all that hatred and fear,that energy,was spent on a cure for AIDS.We probably would have had that cure by now,or be much closer than we are today.

This spring I planted a little white mini rosebush for my friend Rodney,who left this world too soon.He wanted more than anything else to get married and be a dad,and died with that dream still locked in his heart.He would have been the best daddy to some lucky kid,always patient,loving,hysterically hilarious and steady as a rock.I don’t think I would have made it through my divorce without him by my side.My nickname for him was Sunshine,he was a light in my life and I miss him terribly.

Wow, Christy – you never fail to move me…

I read “And the Band Played On” when it was first published, years ago. It was a huge book, that took me quite a while to read, but it was an education that apparently many more people need to receive.

I was thinking this morning, as I heard Bush utter his favorite rallying cry, “activist judges,” that he really does not understand how this whole Constitution thing works. He – and many of his conservative pals – seems to think that judges serve the popular will of the majority party, and his anger seems to be directed at those judges who haven’t gotten with his program. I wish there were a way to make him – and so many others – understand that judges have to interpret the laws in light of what the Constitution says. Judges are not attacking traditional marriage. They are not re-defining marriage. Judges are looking at the underlying constitutional issues and ruling accordingly.

Bush and the rest of the GOP Tiny Mind Club do not understand that the Constitution is designed to protect against the ebb and flow of popular opinion, and the rise and fall of majorities. The Founders recognized that a majority could legislatively disenfranchise and discriminate and persecute any minority, and built the Constitution in a way that ensured, as much as possible, that the rights of the minority (and thereby the rights of all) would be protected from the populist whims of the majority.

These people are terminally short-sighted. They never understand that the rights they feel they have the votes to deny to others today, could be their rights that someone else wishes to deny them tomorrow.

I wish I knew how to get that across, but I’m afraid that all that matters to these people is having things their way. What really bothers me is that for all their talk of “saving” traditional marriage, their policies do nothing to support families or marriages of any kind.

My dear compassionate, funny, bright, scholarly friend Stephen Gardiner, lost to AIDS 1991, and who was still able to be growing and changing up to the moment of his death.

on schedule, Bush has delivered an infusion to the fringe right and Buchanan brownshirts

http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker.php

Wow, I can already tell I’m gonna need some kleenex for this thread. When you step out of the nasty political abstract hatred and finger pointing on this issue, and look at it through the lens of people you love and people who have loved you, the actions in the Senate just look so very small and mean-spirited…and they are.

Thanks everyone for sharing. It’s cathartic for me — and I’m sure for many of you, as well. There’s been altogether too much mean lately. This sort of love is a much better way to talk about the issues involved.

My brother Todd was livin’ large in NYC in the late 70’s. He died right as AZT came out for trial testing, but wouldn’t have qualified because he was too far along.

Last night on MSNBC, a Scar Country guest said that gay marriage was an issue of much greater importance than the war in Iraq and Osama. I don’t know what to think anymore. These guys are so afraid and so lost and so angry. They seem to need to demonize the “other” in order to make themselves feel better. I pity them and wonder how they have made their voices so loud; what put them in power? Perhaps the resonance of their fear found its place in our country after 9-11. We have our work cut out.

Nice post, Christy.

mc invited folks to the DC Pride celebration above, and I would strongly encourage folks to check out the local Pride activities in your area.

Ghostman, that invitation goes double for you.

Y’all might be amazed at what you’ll see. I’m not talking about drag queens, near-nakedness, and wild costumes – you can see that on the news, ’cause that’s what will get shown in most places. I’m talking about the 20-something gay couple, cooing over the little 2 year old in the stroller they’re pushing. I’m talking about the lesbian lawyer couple, striding along in their power suits and carrying briefcases. I’m talking about the AIDS-widows, the parents and straight allies, and the queer kids who’ve never known a world without AIDS.

Don’t just go watch the parade, either. Find out where the picnic/concert/outdoor party will be, and then wander around and talk to folks.

Take off the blinders, and have some fun, everyone. If you haven’t done it before, you might even stretch yourself a bit.

Even in Texas.

Wonderful memories about a great friend, Thanks Christy.

In the early 90’s I was a Case Manager for a health insurance company back when they were one of the good guys (before HMO’s and mergers)trying to arrange services for AIDS patients when there were NO FDA approved treatments and no one paid for experimental drugs.

One of my most fustrating case was a 23 yr old young man in Louisiana who would have episodes where his mother would drive by 3-4 hospital ER’s before she could find one that would treat him. The two closest hospitals refused to even go out to the car to evalute him.

It was such an amazingly hard time to find care givers, employers and the health plan to pay for non-FDA approved treatment. It was a time when I hated the FDA because they would sit on treatments for years.

But like you, I found a great friend and supporter during my “Year from Hell” Divorce with the partner of one of my cases. It was his humor and “Darling how are you doing today” that always cheered me up. He was continually scripting personal ads to get out and dating. We still check in at times to see how we are doing in life.

What was the threat to my marriage?
SEX, DRUGS AND ALCOHOL….. the ex’s interoffice romance…….

Larry #28
Today is 6/6/06, hopefully many a heads have exploded in wingnuttia on “The day of the beast”!

Christy you rock, very moving…

If it rains here, in Africa it pours and pours and pours, see how Brazil tackled AIDS and the Pharma Industry…national security…and condoms.

calvin was in tears before getting to “read more”.

Motivating ourselves and motivating others to work hard on the ‘06 elections will go a long way towards wiping away those tears.

I had always thought that AIDS was first discovered in SF, but I could have sworn the story on NPR said that it was in NY that the first cases cropped up.

That’s why the Dems shouldn’t even be part of this debate. If Reid could get them to stand up and say ‘this is a sideshow, it’s an affront to the principles of the Constitution, and to take part in a “debate” on it is beneath us’, then sit down, then the press would have to report on a day in which the gay-haters tried, one after another, to one-up each other.

Don’t give these bastards the chance to create a ‘he said, she said’. Show Allard followed by Coburn followed by Sessions etc, all with (R) next to their names. These people are not holding a conversation in which America wants to participate.

I lived in San Francisco and worked at the VA hospital there in the last half of the seventies. Most of the men who worked with me were gay. They were almost all dead by the mid-eighties.

I never believed the official story of AIDS or found the epidemiology logical, that it initially struck urban dwellers in central Africa and gay men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. When I found out that Robert Gallo had gotten his funding for his research work in animal retroviruses in the early 1970s from defense contractor Litton I got really suspicious.

Who would want to kill gay men and poor, black Africans? Happy Defense of Marriage, folks.

for a good time in Dallas:

Pride – Not Prejudice
23rd Annual Parade
Sunday, September 17, 2006, 2 p.m.
Cedar Springs Road to Wycliff Avenue to Lee Park

My sympathies to everyone here who has lost someone to AIDS! That our govt is spending important time on The Discrimination Amendment when we have so many real problem disgusts me to no end. I will be calling my rep and senators today.

Zakaria: How Long Will America Lead the World?

Very appropriate article as our govt squelches our science programs to pander (yet again) to the religious right.

Christy,

there’s a very proud Queen beaming somewhere in Back Comb Heaven. and wtf, can’t even get through 10 comments without bawling my eyes out ?!?!

Let’s not forget the ol Wurlitzer cranks it up good and loud on Clinton and his failure to stop genocide in Rwanda – as they consign millions in Africa to a horrible and unnecessary death with all their friggin’ Abstinence, Not Condoms bs

Very thoughtful and moving, Christy. As are many of the replies…I grieve for the many losses, individually and collectively, cited here this morning. Quite a contrast isn’t it? The spirit of this discourse and the spirit “they” express……

Why is it Brazil always pops up as having a solution…..?

Oh yeah, thats right, intellectuals running a progressive government. How unique!

Dadhusker,

I have often joked that the beast, with many faces, moves amongst us.

I am no longer sure its snark.

Dear Comgressperson,

I learned just a few weeks ago that we spend thirty-five million
dollars before breakfast every day on the war in Iraq and by
the time we snuggle up with our favorite pillow that
night we’ve spent seventy-five million dollars.

I live on $10,200 a year. By my calculations, $75,000,000
would feed and house 7,352 homeless americans for a whole
year. At $50 a day for groceries, $75,000,000 would feed
1,200,00 of the millions of kids who go hungry every day
in this country of ours.

If we spent the amount we do before breakfast every day
on the residents of New Orleans whose lives have been
totally wrecked by hurricane Katrina, we might be doing
our duty to help them rebuild their lives.

I know it would be pointless to ask you to give me one
good reason why we are at war in Iraq.
More to the point though, I ask you why are we not
caring for those 1,200,000 hungry kids of ours every
day?
Why are we not helping those victims of Katrina, whose
lives have been destroyed?
Whatever happened to “And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!”???

I respectfully and anxiously await your answer.

Yours truly,

I was invited to a kids’ concert. They are mostly Ugandan orphans. ABC isn’t working and the AIDS rate has practically doubled in that African nation that USED to be a model for winning the AIDS war. I hate Bu$hCo.

Susan #17, what a sweet child.

Christy and all who’ve lost a friend or family member, my heart goes out to you.

Thank you, Peterr (32). Yes, numbers matter wherever you are.

I’ve been attending Pride events since my SF days in the late ’80s. I’m always moved by the compassion, political strength, joy, and love that permeates such gatherings. Furthermore, they are always inclusive, as a straight man I never felt out of place at a gay pride festival/parade. And there are always plenty of other heteros around as well.

Who was it that said, “99% of life is just showing up”?

Please, just show up.

G’morning everyone.

Great post, Christie, and emotionally wrenching. We, and our grown “kids” have numerous gay friends and acquaintances. We ache for the ones who, even tho closer than many hetero- married couples, nevertheless must fight against such ignorance and idiocy from the hate-mongers & busybodies. Times like these, political pandering on such an issue is especially troubling.

Thanks, Christy .. what a beautiful and touching story.

It’s so hard some days to wake up and realize that today is the same as yesterday, and that these yokels continue to be allowed to work at wreaking their fantasies upon the rest of you … and that so much of the opening up of society that occurred in the ’60’s through ’80’s or ’90’s is under sustained and structural attack .. and that there are so many examples of other c ountries who deal with these issues so very differently than is the governing leaders of your ssociety these days (disclaimer: I don’t live in the US, but in Canada). It’s just hard to believe that so many people are still stuck in the pre-technicolour version of Pleasantville where gays are still hidden, negroes are still down South picking cotton or up North sweeping out the washrooms, women are not allowed to think about or have sex unless they are married and it’s for the purpose of creating one or two new Republicans, Hispanics are foreigners and God will punish you if you are not white, middle-class and Republican.

It’s like there’s a cross between a bad scif-fi B movie with a Groundhog Day plot and a Samuel Beckett play gone awry on the tv news every morning showing us that this is how the people who run things are gonna make us all live.

And unfortunately, what happens in the USA is infecting the rest of the planet.

OT, please, rel. to PJF’s irving & rover projects:
Just wondering . . .

I heard a short bit yesterday about a settlement of sorts in the Wen Ho Lee suit %u2014 with news orgs settling with Lee out of court rather than divulge sources (?).
It was mentioned also that the Supremes earlier wouldn’t take up a related Lee-case issue.
(I doubt that I’m describing all this totally correctly, but . . . please help me connect the dots, thanks!)

Would any aspect of the Lee court situation outcome hold possible hints for what is apt to happen in Plamegate, e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y?

Christie? Anyone?

most major metropolitan areas now have annual Gay Pride events in the summer. here’s a partial list. Have fun!

http://gaylife.about.com/od/ga…..de2006.htm

P.S. in 1970 I marched in the very first gay pride parades: I was up in Chicago. There were also parades in NYC & SF back then…

Great post Christy,
I am sure that your friend loved every minute he spent with you.
This web site represents the real heart of America.Our country’s founding fathers or any one who has fought for real FREEDOM would be proud of the work that you and Jane do.
Thank you.

What we need is a media that understands that there is a visual story to show, the shocking sight of these cynical leaders, like Bush, showing them in the back rooms (that occur between their ‘Glory moments’ in front of the TV cameras) when back stage they have their addiction fits where they’re “jonesing” for their next fix of meanness and greed.

That’s what we need to convince the media to show. The true tawdry underbelly of this destructive movement.

The post about 10% of the population being gay caused me to wonder. How much of the population of the US is fundie? The rePukes play the margins to get the haters to vote, playing for that crucial 1/2 to 1 1/2 percent that wins elections nowadays b/c of ‘polarization’ of the electorate. But I don’t think the fundies exceed 10% do they? If all gays voted, and voted progressively wouldn’t it defeat the haters?
I don’t think the population is as polarized as the MSM claims in its spoon-fed reporting. I think the agitation and the hating gets more haters to the polls than the rest of the populace.

I’m going to be away for a few hours. Stepford Wife Laura is speaking at noon in Indianapolis. I’m going to wander over to the venue and hookup with other rabble-rousers and malcontents to hoot and holler…

Very nice post, Christy.

I date the epidemic from 1979, as I encountered my first AIDS sufferer from then.

Here’s a piece I wrote about the epidemic in its early years.

Randy Shilts and I “had issues,” as the saying goes.

As for films about AIDS I reccomend Zero Patience, John Greyson’s AIDS musical, above all.

The real attack on the institution of marriage is the gay getting wed to please society. This leads to casual pick up sex and shitty marriages–family breakups–unhappy, confused children–increased AIDS. Why do these “conservatives” hate America? No congressman that helps this bill along should get our support–including Democrats that vote for cloture.

Christy!

re: my 51

Least I could do is spell yer name right, dang!

Here’s Randy Shilts

Here are some others who aren’t here anymore:

Richard Rouilard

Michael Callen

bbuster #55

When voters feel that they have no hope of making changes and that their vote is worthless, they just do not try. The Fundies are told they have power and are shown what their votes do by some of the radical legislation out there. It is my understanding that they are around 12% of the population.

We need to engage progressive voters to vote. Yes I know things are F**Ked with voting machines, and yes there might be widespread voter fraud BUT should that be the reason you stay home?

If you are not participating in the solution, then you are part of the problem.
BTW the “You” is a general anyone you.

My favorite website on women voting stats is this one Women Votes Women Voices which gives an amazing stat that 20 million single women DO NOT Vote. They are eligible to vote, if they voted overwhelmingly they would be progressive votes but they DO NOT vote.

Here’s Richard Rouilard

Here’s Michael Callen

A beautiful tribute to your friend.

I’m 46 and people of my generation felt the devastation and the prejudice that came with the discovery of AIDS. ACT-UP was a pivot force to be dealt with. When you’re dying and no one cares, there’s always civil disobedience. Silence=Death was their slogan, and how very true it is.

A down side to these medicines is they instill a false sense of security in the younger generation just coming of age. Unsafe sex and meth is a very dangerous combination. It scares the hell out of me to think about what another generation is failing to learn.

With the present administration I fell that they have spun the Silence=Death to their twisted advantage with their resistance to talking about AIDS and cutting the funds for education programs beyond abstinence. They obviously have little regard for gay people in our country, they are willing to amend the Constitution to discriminate against us. And they disregard the poor people in Africa who are in a precarious situation with their restrictions on funding.

Yes Indeed, Silence=Death to gay and poor people, who happen not to be white. I’m wonder how Jesus would fell about that?

It’s

Here are Luther and Doug.

It would be a different world if people could learn to get along. Let’s do what we can to make that world more possible. Thanks to you, Christy, and all the commenters here.

Here’s Craig

Here’s Warren Sonbert

David at 57 — from you, that is high praise indeed. Thanks for the link to your work — excellent stuff. As always.

Here’s Larry

Call your Congressperson – or one that needs calling. But don’t get tied up in these hot-button issues – I’ll barely mention this idiot Marriage Amendment. Continue to demand that they focus on issues that matter.

I’m fortunate to have an open lesbian, Tammy Baldwin, as my representative and Feingold as one of my Senators. I’ve already called and emailed my other Senator regarding this blatent, hate-filled attempt to distract the American public. Maybe I’ll contact the Republican congressman from my Mom’s district. Probably fall on deaf ears, but what the heck.

If things continue to look bad for the Repubs then be prepared for even more of this crap. We know they’re going to try the flag burning amendment. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel (I would add that religion/morality is the last refuge for a hypocrite, as well). Perhaps prayer in school or “acknowledging” that the USA is a Christian nation. More talk of Patriotism.

Things are going to get even more bloody and emotional as we approach November. Be ready.

Many, many of us have lost someone dear to us to AIDS; it’s that kind of scourge. We will never forget them, and we will never allow the ignorant savagery that masquerades today as the “defense of marriage” to sully their memory.

As Christy’s tribute, and the comments here show, this is a fight the right wing doesn’t want to pick. They cannot win it, not now, not ever. We are not going away, and being driven by love, not by hate, we will be reckoned with.

For my friend Ken E, RIP.

Merci, Christy!

And here’s Randy Shilts

Christy, thank you for your moving post. This might be our own memorial day, remembering friends and loved ones taken by this scourge. I, too, was moved to tears before Reading the Rest of This Entry, both by your pain and my own memories.

I lived in West Hollywood for several years. Annually, we would gather our lawn chairs and coctails and sit out in front of our apartment building to watch the Gay Pride Parade pass by, filled with friends and neighbors in wild costumes – nuns on Vespas, the obligitory assless chaps (our personal favorite), Macho Dog (a leftover from DooDah Day, an upright canine with a BIG dick)and more. Many of my neighbors and co-workers were gay. Loved them all for their generous hearts and clever minds.

THe hardest part was the silence that fell when one asked about an absent acquantiance. Faces fell, eyes watered when no answer followed. I miss my boss most of all.

OT, but here’s what happens when you choose the wrong path:
“Ted Nugent denied both poking his erect penis through a map of West Virginia and urinating on a nun.”

Wonderful, moving post. This morning I watched Ann Coulter on the Today show, with my girls who were getting ready for school. At 10 and 12 they are tomorrow’s leaders, and they know first hand the impact of gay parenthood. They listened to the hate on every news program, about what a threat we are to American, as I make PB and J’s for their lunch. They are not fooled and think our leaders are idiots.
The future will be much brighter–and my partner and I raising these kids right is our own small part.

Christy, I used the word that rhymes with clenis in my last comment and it’s vanished. Am I bad?

Thank you, Christy, for starting this conversation and sharing your story.

Remembering Jim, who ran the greenhouse every summer near Nevis MN. In six short weeks from diagnosis, he was gone.

But every time I use the composted sheep manure he insisted on for the geraniums and flowers he recommended to keep the blooming lush and the deer away, we remember Jim’s quiet contribution to the beauty of the lake country.

Oh Christy, we have so much in common! Every time I read one of your posts I am transported back “home” to Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia! I had just graduated from a small town high school in southwestern WV when AIDS reared its ugly head. What a frightening, confusing, and completely unpredictable time!

After burying over 30 of my friends and taking care of them as a Hospice volunterr, right up until the hour of their deaths, I fled WV and sought healing for my broken soul. It has taken almost 25 years for me to stand back up with strength, but I’m here.

I was not supposed to be alive to see all this horrible waste caused by the very same people I was fighting politically in the 80’s! I still don’t know why most of my friends wasted away painfully to much-too-early deaths and I was spared. I don’t know why I didn’t contract HIV and AIDS when they did and we were all living the same gay-disco lifestyle. It has been a challenge rethinking my life after accepting that I, too, would probably die and therefore didn’t need to plan ahead or think about ageing.

Enough rambling. I can (and often do) tell a beautiful, heart-wrenching story about each and every one of my precious friends who died far too young and those stories will live in my heart forever. These were beautiful, necessary folks that added light to a dark, Appalachian world, much like your friend.

What I choose to do now is spend the rest of my life fighting like hell for the rights of those of us who survived and those who come after us.

I laugh at the neocons, the “Christianists”, and the other boogeymen of the right now. After facing down the horrors of AIDS for 25 years, changing the diapers of 25 year-olds as they neared a painful, wasteing death, most-often hidden away from those who loved them and and their families, and attending far more funerals than weddings or parties, the haters have NOTHING that they can say or do to make me afraid.

I have lived terror, both in NYC on 9/11/01 and for the last 25 years and I choose not to let it dominate my life anymore. I will follow the advice of Mother Jones and “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!” There is no other response for me. Thank you and be blessed for your tender reminiscence and thought-provoking essay. Peace!

Christie, fantastic post. Thank you.

David, thank you for the link to your work, and the links to the photos. I’ve lost too many friends to AIDS.

Mommybrain #74

Roflmao.

Refuse to sully the recollection message of Jim with the poticial note that our hometown paper in Fargo has had big full color ads by the Marriage Amendment and flag amendment fanatics. One would think by now you could grab the home town followers by the shirt collars and say, hey, aren’t you sick and tired of being dupes for the gutter-slime Rovians?

Everything changed…on Bush’s inauguration day

OT — Senate Committee
Publication of Classified Information
Judiciary

Specter, Arlen U.S. Senator, R-PA
Friedrich, Matthew Chief of Staff, Department of Justice, Criminal Division

A hearing is held on the Department of Justice investigation of journalists who publish classifies information.

cspan1
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Christy, I am all choked up and will respond properly to your post in a bit…

NustedBuckles: This I think is what did it

Ted Nugent denied both poking his erect *enis through a map of West Virginia and urinating on a nun.

Though the rest of my post was not funny.

Typo oooops — poticial should be political

its sad to think that its been 25 years. And yet i went out to breakfast sunday just as the local megachurch let loose…and listened to people hectoring the wait staff because the restaurant served minutemaid lemonade. Apparently minutemaid is perceived to be running cartoon commercials where the characters are implied to be gay (e.g. popeye and bluto). i’m not surprised its 25 years and still no cure. i guess i’m surprised that there’s any progress at all.

god bless the people who love and care for their friends, regardless of sexual orientation or health.

It’s corny as hell but there is actually an epic Manichean mother-of-all-battles going on between the dark ages and the humanistic enlightenment – the dream of reason.
On the wicked, sick, evil and depraved side we have Sharia and Gilead ‘ law’, harking endlessly back to the interminable dark ages while on the side of light and life we have all those who want to learn from experience, to practise the scientific method and evolve, improve and transcend. The race to save the planet has begun. Who will win? Good Vs Evil? Night Vs Dawn? Us Vs them? It aint complicated but we have to fight with all our might. This time, ‘ NO PARASAN WE MEAN IT MAN!’and then,’never again’, again. They did it before – we can do it again …for them.

Great post Christy. Sounds like you had a true friend.

This situation is disgraceful. How have we become such an ignorant, such a hateful people?

Mommybrain — you just got snagged in the SPAM filter. I’ve freed it up now.

Gang, our SPAM filter is set on high at the moment because we’ve been dealing with a LOT of it of late. Your posts aren’t getting deleted, nor are they gone forever for the most part — they are just stuck in the filter. We have to go in manually and free them up one by one, so please, have patience — we’re going as fast as we can.

Now back to this wonderful thread…

Mommybrain,It was just the innocence of asking if you were bad.No offense meant, just struck me as funny in a sweet way.

Nadine 84. Huh? Popeye and Bluto were gay? What about Olive? Are they serious? Wow, that’s some loooong-term gay agenda.

Thanks to everyone posting hear, you are all kind dear folks. Together let’s change the world.

*ilson46201 @ 56 – wish I could be there too.

I lost an ex-boyfriend to AIDS. I had just married a few months earlier, returned from a trip out of town to have my mom call and tell me he had died. I knew he had AIDS, heard it from a woman who knew we had dated, but there had never been any need for him to contact me. The sad thing was, in the little conservative hole in the wall in Texas we lived in, prevented him from telling me he had AIDS. He wasn’t gay or bi, that I know of, but I had heard in later years he had dabbled in drugs, and he also had a blood transfusion. When I watch And The Band Played on…Then picked up the book, I was furious. He had gotten a transfusion just months before the blood banks were finally forced to start testing. I am not sure if that is how he got AIDS, but that fact alone was enough to break my heart.

It’s there mommybrain, #73.

Wow, Priscilla!

mommybrain, not only is it NUTS, but its based on an OLD commercial. i can’t imagine why a megachurch in north phoenix would be promoting this.

i only wish we’d bought rounds of lemonade for everyone in the restaurant.

I have a friend, now retired, who served as a pastor in the Castro in SF during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I happened to be visiting at his church on New Year’s Eve at the end of 1995.

The time came in the service for the announcements, and he mentioned all the usual things (so and so needs some volunteers for next week’s lunch at the Senior Center, etc.). Then he got choked up, and everyone wondered what was up.

“I was looking at the church’s book of ‘parochial records’ – all the baptisms, weddings, funerals, and such – and I realized that in 1995, we had no AIDS-related funerals. None. I can remember YEARS when there wasn’t a single DAY that I wasn’t conducting a funeral or scheduling a funeral, and in this past year, we have had none. Not one.

“It’s been a good year.”

The parish sat stunned, until one Old Queen stood up and started to applaud. Soon we were all standing, tears running down our faces.

It was a good year, indeed.

I cry again, when I think of Africa. Their year? Not so good. It’s not going to be good there any time soon, and we (as a nation) are not doing much to help speed things up.

But I have hope. You’ve got to have hope. More than that, you’ve got to spread it around.

Thanks Christy.

susan at 17

Your post brought immediate tears to my eyes. Out of the mouths of babes. She saw the real love, and the greatest of these is Love. Isn’t it? I want to bash my head on a wall sometimes.

I could say a lot of negative words right now but what’s the point. That was a moving story and the part about the sherriffs son was painful, and a lesson for parents like me and countless others that love and acceptance should come first, I would not think about it any other way. Thanks for being one of the sane people in the world. Anyone who knows a person who is gay knows that this is not a choosen lifestyle, due to factors they have no control over this is the way it is, and the courage to stand as such is a lesson in courage in our warped society. Good on you.

Christy: Thanks for the heartfelt tribute to your friend. There were so many who left us, all too soon. (Christ, here come the tears. Better close the office door.) As The Band Played On comes about as close to capturing that time as anything I’ve seen. It’s a painful, painful watch. God bless you. Scott

you touched many hearts and spirits today.

David E:

Thanks for those.

Christie, you brought back childhood memories of sitting in church beside a gay man who was kin to me by marriage. He was a flamboyant man, could sing hymns beautifully, was beloved by his family, was a part of his community, and was mourned and missed when he died. As far as I know, he never hurt anyone.

Barry Siebelt.

new thread – and thanks for noticing, Christy!

Bless you, Christie. And may the memory of Gregory Frucht endure as a blessing as well.

I also read “And The Band Played On” shortly after it was printed. I think of how many we’ve lost and are losing still and wonder if some of the legislators and government officials have actually either met or known anyone with the AIDS virus. How can they turn their backs on such suffering?

My friend, Dyer Downing, was a RN who worked for the same home health care company I did. There were lots of AIDS patients on service. Those were the days of Compound Q. The drug cocktails were barely in existence, and the only ones who were able to take advantage of them were those with either solid-gold insurance or deep pockets.

Dyer was HIV+. I had no idea until he started exhibiting symptoms and had to leave. To this day, I remember how many nights Dyer would get called to the bedside of yet another dying AIDS patient; I can’t imagine how he could have done it. He did, though, and he brought immeasurable comfort to the loved ones and friends involved.

Dyer is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. He’s been gone for 13 years now, but I miss him so much still. He was completely irrepressible, had no tolerance for those who didn’t have the courage to be who they were, and unbelievably compassionate to those who were suffering so terribly. He went out of his way to befriend a former fundie girl (me,) and take me under his wing.

He wasn’t able to come to my wedding (the disease was so advanced by that point, he didn’t want to be seen,) so I pinned a red ribbon into the waist of my wedding gown for him.

Three months later, he called late one Sunday night. It took me several days to realize that he was saying goodbye. By that time, he was gone. To this day, something will happen, and I’ll say to my husband, “God, Dyer would have LOVED that.”

My husband was raised by his uncle, Steven Phipps, and his uncle’s partner, Stephen Pearl. They have also been gone for more than ten years. Steven is most likely instructing God on the correct method of making raspberry tarts. He was imperious, sometimes annoying, but truly loved both of us. Stephen was the gentlest, kindest person I have ever known. Their neighbors were awful to them — after all, how dare gay men settle in a residential area? I am grateful every day for their willingness to parent an unwanted kid.

I realize that my stories are as nothing to those who’ve lost hundreds of loved ones and friends to this disease. I would like to state for the record, though, that there must be a special place in Hell reserved for those who have gone out of their way to legislate out of existence any help or comfort those that suffer and die from AIDS might have received over the years.

-S

I kinda hate to post this, it seems off thread, but can’t the marriage amendment portrayed as a states rights issue?

If the marriage amendment were to pass, would that enable the feds to dictate what were grounds for divorce, that community property states rules were illegal, that since studies have presumably shown that children need a father in their lives, child custody rules should be weighted to accomplish this, etc.?

Could this be portrayed as the first step in taking over the states rights to regulate marriage and divorce? Would this dilute the focus of the debate? If so, pointing out that your republican representative voted for it might influence some women, by introducing a little cognitive dissonance.

gryphon — it is a state’s rights issue, you are absolutely correct. And pointing out that the “don’t watch what we do, only what we are saying at the moment” dissonance is always a good thing.

I have lost many friends to AIDS.

I used to volunteer to care for AIDS patients back in the 80’s because, truly, other nurses did not want to and were scared of them. The care they gave was adequate physically but not emotionally. They would get out of the isolation room as quickly as humanly possible and that was exactly the reason I volunteered for the assignment. These poor patients were ISOLATED entirely. They so needed caring interaction and emotional attention as they made their journey (usually ending in death in those days), often bereft of friends and family– it was taboo at that time to acknowledge so much. These patients needed human contact thru touch and words in order to confront their fears and deal with their plight.

One of the main reasons I went into nursing was because I firmly believe nobody should die alone. I was working as a unit secretary in a hospital while in college and saw a nurse quickly enter and exit the room of a very young man that I had known back home. He was gravely ill, I asked her: is Danny dead? She said no, but he’ll be gone in a few minutes, I am going to lunch. I asked to take my lunch break and went into Danny’s room; sat by his bed and held his hand as he died. The nurse came back and saw me sitting there and asked me if I was crazy– he did not even know you were there, he was unconscious. I said, he knew and I knew and that’s all that matters to me. I decided I wanted to be a nurse at that moment.

Everyone celebrates with great joy the arrival of a blessed child; it is a wondrous event indeed. But the end of life is an event, too. Sure, not a happy moment to celebrate; but a very significant part of life that is often feared by the dying as well as the survivors. It is momentous and deserves enormous respect. Holding a hand, stroking a forehead, and just being there as the soul is released is giving honor to that unique person.

Thanks, Christy.

This year conservatives are already angry with the Bush administration over years of rising government spending, the president’s immigration proposal, and the problems in Iraq that have led to the very nation building George W. Bush once adamantly opposed.

On the issue of gay marriage the latest polling shows the nation has become more progressive and continues to move away from the position of Christian conservatives. Voters under 40 now overwhelmingly approve of allowing gays and lesbians to marry and among all voters, while 53 percent oppose gay marriage, 42 percent of those voters who are opposed also believe that amending the Constitution for it is a bad idea.

(David Schuster- Hardball)

Goopers are mortgaging their own future with their strategy to hold onto congress this year.

The gay marriage amendment advocates are largely over sixty five. As they pass on to their rewards- the country will adopt a different attitude to this issue- and the goopers will retain their well deserved reputation for using prejudice and ignorance for political advantage.

Their use of immigration phobia has the same half life. The hispanic voting block is the most rapidly growing group in america. As they take a more significant place of political power- they will not forget what goopers are doing this year.

Goopers are doomed.

Wow. All I can say. My friend and best man at my wedding has been living with HIV/AIDS for close to 15 years now. He is doing a good job of taking care of himself, with modern AIDS knowledge to assist.

My God I want to see these right wing assholes hit the concrete hard.

I remember my my mother’s second husband, who was more of a father to me than my biological father ever was. He was always there, doing the day-to-day parenting that the old sperm-donating bastard never could be bothered to do. The biological unit was livid when I called my stepfather Dad. Well, Dad had earned it. The sperm donor hadn’t.

He died of AIDS in 1990. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him, and thank my lucky stars for having him as a Dad.

D Day…end of facism…really

I’ve lost many, many friends to AIDS. About five or six from my class of 300 in high school alone. I saw the quilt once and was amazed at how many people on it I knew, personally.

Well, I woke up this morning thinking, “Got through Hate Gays Day and Happy Birthday AIDS on the same day, so today will have to be better!” Sat down to read Christy’s post and haven’t stopped crying yet. So many friends, strangers, loves lost to this plague. Oh, yes, 1988: twenty-six funerals that swell year alone….

Thank you, each and every one of you, for keeping alive the spirit of your lost ones here with us today. Their passing continues to have meaning, as it fuels your anger at this cabal’s twisted messages of hate. Please stay strong. Your lost loves are counting on you. Counter these forces of evil, oppression, and hate with the memory of your love and the righteousness of your anger.

We shall overcome.

I just got off the phone with Gordon Smith’s (R-OR) office in DC. I expressed my outrage that time was being spent on this issue with so many real issues that need to be dealt with. Then I asked how he was going to vote on it: the man answered: “in favor.”
I said, “you’re kidding, right? He wouldn’t put his name on an amendment that will write discimination into the Constitution.”
The man (who at least was willing to discuss the issue) answered ” Gordon doesn’t see it that way. He believes this is a state issue.“
I may have been rude at this point, cutting him off, saying “if you make it a federal amendment then the states have no choice in the matter. That is ridiculous reasoning.”
The man said: “well 17 states have written such laws and the courts have been overturning them.”
I said, “maybe they should write better laws that could withstand judicial scrutiny – the courts have to call out discrimination when they see it, that’s their role.”
I continued, “I’m hearing things that make me ill. How are two people who love each other and willing to commit their lives to each other
“ANTI-FAMILY? They are having no ill effects on my marriage. The rhetoric is hateful and shameful.”
The man responded: Gordon is not using that language even though I admit that language is coming from people in his party. He is for a civil union or something like that.”
I said: “well I’m not hearing Gordon’s message, if it’s different from Bush’s. And how will signing this document move forward the idea of civil unions? Why isn’t he stepping up to present something less divisive and push meaningful ideas forward instead of signing this discriminatory backwards-looking legislation? It is political pandering and taking away from the issues that are important like Res. 36.”
The man finally said: “I will pass on your thoughts to Sen. Smith.”
I thanked him, then moved on to ask about Res. 36, and he said “the Senator thinks 18 months is about the time it will take for the Iraqis to be able to provide their own security.”
I said, “they have had their elections, they have their own govt even if it is dysfunctional, and now they’re in a civil war – we have no business being there.”
He again offered to pass along my thoughts, and I thanked him. At least he was willing to engage.

Now, onto my Rep., Walden.

Teddy, sweetheart, big hugs to you. I thought I’d conteract the shitty “hate the gays” crap in the Senate with some honest love. The commenters on this blog never cease to amaze me with their depth of compassion and hope…it is a good day, indeed, and I’m so glad to share it with everyone here.

OK, Teddy, you made me cry, too. Here’s a tissue, honey…

I would like to add a name to the many. In 1976 I quit taking drugs and alcohol and became a member of AA and NA, because of that gift I met a great number of people who, lIke me, were trying to straighten themselves out, this is hard to write…One of those people was a woman named Inez, a woman you might describe as Zoftig, rafaelesque, and beautiful, and full of life. She couldn’t keep it togther, started useing again, got Aids and died. Just so you know she was here, and she is remembered.
Thanks Christy again.

gryphon, Christy — the challenge with the states’ rights angle is that it brings us a secondary line of attack, like that of South Dakota on abortion. The same states that are hacking away at women’s rights to self-determination of healthcare are the same ones that would also hack at the right of self-determination of any other minority group, including gays.

There’s probably a stronger case for push-back by way of “full faith and credit” in the Constitution. We should put this on our action item list for the day we regain a majority, a Constitutional Amendment that clearly specifieds the rights of individuals cannot be abridged from state to state.

We are so backwards as a country; I cannot believe how we allowed this, by inaction on the part of the hetero majority during the Clinton years, to continue to fester and regain steam. Granted, culturally we’ve made substantive progress with the youngest ones in our society, as susan’s little one and my own school-age kids prove. But we have so much more to do, and to undo, in spite of the fact nearly all of us now know someone who’s been HIV or died of AIDS/-related disease.

I thought we were never going to suffer another Vietnam, either…

Gryphon,

There are some poll indications that framing the debate as a states’ rights issue might get traction. We still have a plurality of folks who think homosexuals should not be allowed to marry when prompted. But half of those oppose a constitutional amendment banning homosexual marriage. (Numbers from my memory of an ABC News report last night, I assume it’s from the ABC/WaPo poll.)

The problem with framing it as a states’ rights issue is that we then have to deal with 30 or 40 state legislatures. On top of that, we have states like California that have citizen initiative. California has proven that nothing is too inane to be able to drag before its voters.

To some degree, we already have Federalization of divorce laws, at least with respect to child support enforcement.

BC

I heard the NPR piece, it was wonderful. When I was working there was this great male ICU nurse, everyone loved. I remember that when the census was down in ICU he would happily transfer to the rehab floor that had lots of elderly females recovering from hip fractures. He would style their hair and they loved him. He also had a voice like an angle and sang at our Christmas party. At that time he was not “out” but I think everyone sort of knew. He moved to an urban area and hospital to work, and came out. Three years later he died of AIDS.

Even though our hospital was in a rural town that was pretty conservative, hospital employees themselves tend to be pretty accepting. We loved this guy and greived for the loss. We planted a beautiful memorial tree on the grounds and dedicated it to him. His funeral service was huge.

I remember thinking at the time, what a loss. There were two other gay people working (as mamagers) at the hospital, both of them in loving, long term committed relationships. They just blended in and I expect most employees didn’t even know they were gay.

It makes me angry that those “couples” can not have any legal protection for their relationships. I don’t particularly know that I’m so strong about them “marrying” in the traditional sense, that is an issue for them and whatever church they belong to. But I absolutely believe they should have the right to a legal recognition of their status, with the accompanying protections.

I actually believe there could be an easy compromise on the “gay marriage” issue, with development of civil unions. People like my husband are uncomfortable with the idea of gay marriage, but very accepting of civil unions.
BUT then it would not be a political issue that drives the nuts to the polls to vote GOP. So don’t hold your breath.

I think of it, at this point, more as framing and push back. If you want to say you believe in republican values, then how do you reconcile this attempt by the republican party to over turn states rights with this amendment, with their supposed belief in less federal government? How much would it cost, if the feds took over? (and at this point, bring up the deficit).

I have a friend who votes straight republican, and although she is logical in many ways, she is a blind believer that the republican party represents her values. Any way to make her take a critical look at the difference between what republicans claim to stand for, and what they really try to accomplish, could only be for the good.

Besides, if there is another hot button out there, push it.

Christy, I recommend seeing “Silverlake Life” by Tom Joslin. It’s a video diary of him and his lover Mark as they go through the process of living and dying with AIDS. While “And The Band Played On” is a good movie (based on Randy Shilts fantastic book) “Silverlake Life” has none of the melodrama and is as real as it gets in it’s depiction of the personal impact if AIDS.

Christy…

Thanks for a great post. Being gay, HIV positive and in recovery from alcohol and drugs, let me just say I am livid that the “decider” has ceded any backbone and caved to the power hungry theocratic right. Jeebus! What a coward.

I have a list about a page and half long of friends that I lost to HIV/AIDS and another half page that I lost due to addiction. I am the lucky one. I found recovery and am living w/ my HIV and my addiction. Alot of gay men don’t and won’t get the chance I’ve been given…mainly because of the current insurance/health care system….but thats another post.
Having read all the support & love from the posts here, I realize I am not the lonely gay boy from the rural south who found an out w/ drugs and alcohol, but part of a loving community of people who aren’t afraid of finally saying what we feel….PROGRESSIVE AND FIGHTING FOR WHAT I BELIEVE!

Thus the reason for my online name…NeoJoe. I’m no longer the old Joe but a new one.

Love to all and thanks so much Christie.

thanks for sharing this story with us christy. how lucky you were to know Rick at that time in your life… when role models have such impact.

i was so moved by his courage and generousity. maybe when you have the courage to be yourself, and enjoy being yourself, it’s easier to enjoy and be generous to others.

it’s a very inspiring story. and painful to realize how many wonderful, big-hearted people have been lost to AIDS.

Oh yes, Silverlake Life is amazing. I can’t reccomend it highly enough.

Horrendous that they push this Ammendment fraud on the anniversary of the discovery of AIDS. Thanks for pointing that out.

Thank you so much for this. I lived in NYC when all hell broke loose. My partner and I moved to the western part of NJ in 1980 and over the next 8 years lost ALL of our friends, and my partner’s younger brother, as well. I was his care-giver for the last 4 months of his life.

Our relationship began in 1976 and we were monogamous – until this past week, when he decided that he wanted to see other men. Over half my life spent with this one wonderful person, and now (like many other gay men) is not practicing safer sex. Aside from my heart being broken, I fear for his life.

So many people over the years. My sister’s first boss in NYC, my mom’s hairdresser, my friend Jeff, who hanged himself, when the AIDS led to uncontrollable shingles, Stu, who was a co-founder of the gay AA clubhouse in Philly…
And now, my brother found out on Tuesday that he is HIV positive. He was applying for life insurance, to potentially fund a special needs trust for my autistic son, and he found out when the life insurance company turned him down.

I know times are different than they were in the early to mid ’80s. Still, I wonder if we wouldn’t already be talking about a cure, if Reagan handn’t dragged his feet for years. Hate kills.

Thank you for that moving post Christy. I came of age in the early eighties just when the epidemic was discovered. I lived as a straight man for the nearly 10 years partly because of fear of AIDS. It also prevented me from personally knowing anyone who died from AIDS. I guess I’m lucky to not have experienced that kind of loss, but I also know that there are a lot of amazing people I never got to meet.

So very many sad stories.

God rot Ronald Reagan.

Christy:
All I could think of after reading your post were these lyrics from Bohemian Rhapsody:
Sorry, it just hit me square between the eyes.
-sofistic

Too late,my time has come,
Sends shivers down my spine-
Body’s aching all the time,
Goodbye everybody-I’ve got to go-
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth-
Mama ooo- (any way the wind blows)
I don’t want to die,
I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all-

Please visit http://www.AIDS/Lifecycle5
Pledge $ support or send a message at http://www.http://experience.aidslife…..6/support/
Thank you.
Wife of #2525

I’m an idiot
It’s
http://www.aidslifecycle.org

My first time at Firedoglake. Thank you. Pass the tissues.

Rick reminds me of a crossdressing coal miner I knew growing up in Wyoming. He always said it took a man with real balls to wear a dress.

I lost 12 male friends in New York city in the 1980’s. I lived in a building where there were doctor’s offices on the lower floors and I rode the elevator many times with very ill men. They were “walking death.” Every day, I wept for their suffering and the repulsion people felt as they passed them in the street. People had forgotten how to give compassion for their fellow human beings.

When I went to the hospital to see David, who had worked at the art supply store until the owner fired him [he was a “drag”on the insurance
rates], he embraced me so desperately, giving me the full measure of his loneliness in suffering.
His partner had stolen everything he owned and left him with nothing, no companionship, absolutely nothing. I gave him all I could: my love, my help, and my respect. In those days, anyone in my position would have been afraid to be in the same room with someone as sick as he.
But, I thought, if I catch this disease from being kind, then it’s worth dying for.

Lynn, welcome to FDL and here’s a tissue…

Get sad, then get angry. Check out what’s going on at John A’s site. Folks are going after their homophobic representatives.

Call your Senator and/or rep if they’re engaging in Constitutional gay-bashing. If they’re for that piece of crap, ask them about their own marriage. ASK THEM if they are married, they are following their vows. If they are not married ask them if they are celibate. Ask the most probing personal quesitons and then ask them how much they like their personal life under the microscope.

Fight back. The rethugs are expecting queers and our allies to roll over on this. DON’T. Fight for all of our friends that were buried because of their a**hole policies.

http://www.AmericaBlog.com

Christy –

Your story was much the same as mine, only it was my friends Greg and Bruce who got me through those awful, dateless high school years in the South, and our Humanities teacher Bill Wood who brought art and some understanding of why we were learning about Rubens and Titian and Dali to our parochial, football obsessed school.

It was no secret to any of us that Mr. Wood was gay, but it was equally obvious the pain it caused him feeling that he had to hide it. After he was diagnosed with AIDS, his beloved Humanities classes were taken away from him, and he was reduced to being a study hall monitor. (This was, after all, the South, and AIDS was proof of homosexuality, which was proof of deviance and evil.) That he died quickly was a blessing, but also a testament to his broken heart.

I am so grateful that my friends Greg and Bruce have been spared, but it is heartbreaking to think of all the people we’ve lost.

Wow Christy -

Thanks for your moving post. I am awestruck by your capacity to write two (or more!) powerful moving pieces in one morning.

Thanks also for helping to remind people of those bleak years. I started med school “clinical years” in 1985, and started internship in 1987. AIDS was a bleak scary death sentence then, and the fear and ignorance surrounding AIDS had a terrible effect upon patients and their loved ones.

And thanks for helping me remember that sometimes crying n clinic is OK.

Have to stop – can’t see the keys too well.

Priscilla @ 78:

You GO, girl!

After facing down the horrors of AIDS for 25 years, changing the diapers of 25 year-olds as they neared a painful, wasteing death, most-often hidden away from those who loved them and and their families, and attending far more funerals than weddings or parties, the haters have NOTHING that they can say or do to make me afraid.

Bears repeating. Turn your anger into action, y’all!

I am from the New Haven area. We lost people here too, including some vibrant and brilliant people. I didn’t understand much back in the late 80s. Now I think it didn’t have to and shouldn’t have been that way.
The history channel watcher in me can’t help but notice how victims of plague–bubonic, small pox,etc. –are treated shabbily throughout the ages because of fear and ignorance. Instead of becoming more informed and enlightened it still seems we blame the victims.People forget the King or the emperor can get taken away just as easily as the common folk.

I recall seeing the quilt at UGA in 1990–I was going to “just stop by” on my way to work. HA! It was like being kicked in the chest–so heartbreaking, and then I had to go sell pink notepads to sorority girls for the rest of the day, which seemed even more trivial than usual.

I don’t know a lot about the history of AIDS; I was born in 1971 so was only 10 or 11 when the disease started to be mentioned on the evening news. The 4 hour Frontline documentary last week was enlightening to me, and so horrifying as well (attitudes of government officials, even now; the way blood banks dragged their feet; footage of people yelling at poor little elementary school kids with AIDS; etc.). But then I’ve never understood the mindset that allows people to think “they’re different, so it’s okay if they die.” Guess that’s why I’m not a republican. :-)

Many of you might not believe this, but it is true. When I was in college (early 70s), in a very small Oklahoma town, out-of-the-closet gays were everywhere. In fact, when I transferred to Okla. Univ. and went home to the very small town for the weekend, we often took a gay man as outrageously dressed as anyone in San Francisco. And I know, I live 50 miles away from SF now.

Out of the closet gays were everywhere, in hicksville — no biggie. What changed? Was it AIDS? Did this disease scare the stupid straights? Who knows. I am sure that small town in Okla. isn’t as liberal now as it used to be ….

Fear not, Christy-
Rick has been reborn again as Matt, my hairdresser at Headliners. Matt first came out on Jerry Springer while in high school (something about using the girl’s bathroom), and resettled in Connecticut. His theatre debut was in La Cage Aux Folles – he looked stunning in his 7 costume changes.
His emotional power, theatrical and people skills have made him a senior stylist and a 7 week wait for an appointment. He remembers all my family members and their latest travails, and our conversation connects where we left off. Should I even THINK about doing something without his consent – I am so not going there. But he hasn’t had a problem if I want to do my own roots – but his word is law.
I go to Matt for the camraderie as much as his skills with the sissors. And his prices have just jumped 33%.
Worth every penny. And a true friend.

Please everyone do remember that not only gays are affected by this disease. My uncle died in the early nineties, he passed it on to my aunt before he found out he had it. I don’t know how he got it, but my aunt is now a heterosexual widow, mother of two and is living with HIV. She doesn’t hold down a normal job but she is almost a full time care giver for my grandmother aged 93. That is more than a full time job to me.

There is so much stigma, I rarely talk about it. A good friend that is lesbian made a comment about losing someone to the disease once and I said to her “I know how you feel, my uncle…” we had known each other for years and she was very surprised I had not mentioned it. Our whole family assumed that she would die soon and we never talked about it. He died in 1994, twelve years ago. Yes there have been advances, but those medicines are not fun. They are debilitating. You never know if you are going to have a good day or a bad day. I guess it is better than dying though. I am just glad she is here for her mother, my grandmother. No doubt she would probably have to live in a home otherwise. Being at home in your old age is much better.

The imperitive I take away from this is prevention. That is why the pope and anti-condom gang make me so mad. It is immoral to advise people not to use condoms. Condoms prevent death by AIDS. Period.

Please everyone do remember that not only gays are affected by this disease. My uncle died in the early nineties, he passed it on to my aunt before he found out he had it. I don’t know how he got it, but my aunt is now a heterosexual widow, mother of two and is living with HIV. She doesn’t hold down a normal job but she is almost a full time care giver for my grandmother aged 93. That is more than a full time job to me.

There is so much stigma, I rarely talk about it. A good friend that is lesbian made a comment about losing someone to the disease once and I said to her “I know how you feel, my uncle…” we had known each other for years and she was very surprised I had not mentioned it. Our whole family assumed that she would die soon and we never talked about it. He died in 1994, twelve years ago. Yes there have been advances, but those medicines are not fun. They are debilitating. You never know if you are going to have a good day or a bad day. I guess it is better than dying though. I am just glad she is here for her mother, my grandmother. No doubt she would probably have to live in a home otherwise. Being at home in your old age is much better.

The imperitive I take away from this is prevention. That is why the pope and anti-condom gang make me so mad. It is immoral to advise people not to use condoms. Condoms prevent death by AIDS. Period.

Sorry for the double post…it said there was an error. Apologies.

R.I.P. to my friends………

Christopher Deane
Steven Andrew Merino
Jack Anton
Joe Drabelle
and too many more.

Bush’s speech is an affront to all the dear friends and family we have lost to this disease. Thanks, Christy, for reminding us what’s important.

Three or four years before the AIDS epidemic began, I attempted to change the non-discrimination clause in my institution’s catalogue to include “sexual orientation”. The change was blocked by the director of admissions who argued that such language would have a negative effect upon applications. Within ten years of that date, I was learning of the deaths of students of mine to this horrible scourge, and of fellow members of a gay-accepting Anglican congregation as well.

The disease may not be cured. But now my institution pledges not to discriminate against faculty or students on the basis of sexual orientation, my parish is still gay accepting, and I believe with all my heart that history will condemn those who speak such hatred, whether arising from fear or from cynical pandering to the fears of others. My students, my friends, were very ordinary and very lovable people. They were the noble ones, not these hollow politicians posturing as if they mean signify anything of importance.

I’ve lost track of two of my closest friends from highschool since I moved. I tried to find them and couldn’t, and I used to hope they’d call, and then I was afraid they’d call – to say good-bye.

Christy:

I see you typing your memories, holding back the tears, laughing sometimes at an idle remembrance. And then not until you finish, and read what you’ve written, letting go.

Thank you.

#154 again
is everyone at this site on the aids bandwagon?
not a plug for the repugs, nor from an EPU, but for .b.a.l.a.n.c.e. see:
http://www.harpers.org/OutOfControl.html

Christie,
Please accept my condolences for your loss. I too have been on the receiving end of tender loving care from gay men – men who saw in me what others didn’t or wouldn’t. I too have lost men near and dear to my heart. My special man – Tom Healy of Oil City Penn., came into my life and made me a better person. He died in 1996 and I mourn his loss to this day. I worked in the 80’s at the Safeway in Guerneville CA, which is or was the west coast Mecca for gays and lesbians. You could see the effects of the epidemic daily, as well as the response to it both the Fred Phelps type and the angels of our better nature – the compassion, the pitching in, doing what we can like Open Hand, Face to Face, PAWS and other, less official kinds of assistance.
I too, cried on the 25th anniversary, for Tom, for others, and for our community – denied the talents and fun, and bravery of those who choose to be who they are and without dependence on the approval of others.

I’m Australian and played Rugby League (football) all my School years.
Rugby League is a hard game, forget Grid Iron… Grid Iron is for pansy’s with all their padding and helmets. Rugby League is many, MANY times harder than grid Iron.
Anyway this one guy who played 5/8 for an opposing team was as hard as they come, you could never hurt him enough, he just kept coming, and that in itself used to put the wind up me!! He was a great player and couldn’t be stopped.

After we left school he got a job in my town as a Hairdresser and was gay…Not just gay but outragously, flaming gay… haha … All the guy’s who played footy against him couldn’t believe it. But we knew where he had come from and respected him all the same ….. Aaahhh … the 80’s…