October 3, 2007.
Perhaps things have changed since the ’60s, when we told people that nowhere else was any better than the U.S. for homosexuals. I doubt it.
As they pointed out to us when they visited from Holland, etc.: If you live some place you are not any more free. It is only if you are a tourist who is willing to take risk you would not take at home that you think it is better. As I recall, housing was a major problem. I think the same was and is true (until Katrina of New Orleans) of any major tourist place. People who would never risk sex in public in their home town do so there and then seem upset that they are arrested.
“But the gay guide said this was a great place for sex!”
At 75, I will not be going much anywhere, but I believe that, considering what has happened in and to our community since the ’60s (it started in the ’50s), there is a major change for the better. If things seem better, in even Germany, for example, Harry Hay and others would ask us to think. Going from one extreme to the other is not progress. And if it is not a result of general public education, it could go in the other direction tomorrow — and to blame Democrats is nonsense. They sure are not handling the Muslims very well.
And what’s more important: Why would anyone want to leave their homes to run to a “safer” place? That is what the nation’s founders had to do since their governments didn’t allow them a voice. That has not been true here as is proven by how much we have changed things since the ’50s.
Work to change things. Don’t run away. And stop killing ourselves — suicide is nonsense. Do something against those who harm us, not ourselves.
