October 17, 2007.
I want to say, again, how much I enjoy reading not only the Seattle Gay News but all the columns in it.
I can recall recent ones, for instance, Leslie Robinson’s “Raising the Bar” telling that MA law student who failed the bar exam how he could have handled it.
And Beau Burriola’s column of 9-21 on his cat that was killed while at his sister’s and how he came to like the cat and missed it, even though he is a dog man. And even more did I personally find his thoughts in the 9/28 issue of interest about how he would feel when he is old.
I thought like that when I was young, too, as I walked the LSU campus for the last time, knowing I was going into (drafted) the army right away and not knowing the future or what I would do in life or where. And now I am looking back at that 20-something person from that same person at 75 and find it all very interesting.
I now know the answers. I got kicked out of the army, went to L.A. and after two “regular” jobs, started working in the movement/cause at ONE, Inc., (after spending some time with Mattachine in San Francisco) and later co-founded the Homosexual Information Center. I obviously had no idea this is what I would do in life.
I could do this because I had the financial and emotional support of my family and friends in Louisiana and could not suffer loss of jobs or friends in Los Angeles. That made a difference in how much in those ’60s and ’70s people could be “out” supporting the civil rights of homosexuals.
How good it is now to have homosexual professional groups supporting our community: medical doctors, lawyers, educators, psychologists, politicians, etc. And we have good newspapers, like yours, magazines, and lots of books as well as courses on most major university campuses helping everyone understand as much as we know about homosexuality.
I just hope that the young homosexual men and women of today don’t lose what we have given them.
(I have mixed emotions about the Chris Crain and Lisa Keen columns. I, for instance, liked what he said about gay sex police, but I think he is guilty of trying to force us to use only such terms as “gay,” which he thinks is best. Same with Lisa. But they at least keep us readers thinking.)
