November 24, 2007.
Regarding a recent op-ed piece published by Paul Schindler of GayCityNews:
I may keep repeating myself, but facts are facts. It is silly to keep quoting 300 groups as working for including transexuals in the ENDA bill. Who are these people who believe their own propaganda? That may be what’s catching up with the right wingers, so let’s not get our community living in a fairyland.
I start with what we said in ’60s when we would publicize a NACHO meeting. We listed lots of “groups” and numbers — Dorr Legg was an expert at distorting the facts — when the fact was that there were perhaps 30 honest people and they represented about seven honest groups.
And, toward the last of the meetings, we suddenly found lots of unknown people showing up saying that they represented lots of people and demanding to vote and try to get us to go into other fields, including joining the Black Panthers, etc.
It amuses me to remember how Morris Kight kept telling us that we should work by consensus (a Harry Hay thought), and we knew for a fact that such things didn’t work since one person making false claims would get us on a project that had no possible way of succeeding, and what was a realistic job would thus not be done.
We didn’t care about the motive, but some had a political agenda that had nothing to do with our movement. Even if one was honestly devoted to an issue, it was nonsense to go on a tangent and waste our time, energy, and money. And Morris suddenly forgot his previous thinking when it was his group that had to deal with newcomers with wild ideas.
Now I have a video that Barney Frank put out many years ago talking about ENDA. He was not even that famous and powerful then. I think we may have shown it at an early PFLAG meeting. This didn’t start in April or whenever someone “discovered” it. Frank has proven over the years his devotion to our cause. Even when Don Slater was not always agreeing with him, we never doubted his devotion. Now he is probably the most powerful homosexual in America. His election, by the way, was not due to homosexuals voting. (This is probably a good thing as we now see how shallow some are.)
And what is all this nonsense about what HRC or some group says? They do not represent the homosexual community — only a small portion of it. If you don’t like what HRC or The Task Force is doing, do something yourself. But why would someone or some group be negative? Be positive. Stop saying what Frank or HRC has done wrong. This has been going on for 20 years. All that time you could have been doing something. Let’s see the total number of transexual groups and their supporters, and let’s see them work.
There is no doubt that some black people think the Black Panthers helped gain civil rights. The fact is that they hurt the cause and slowed it down. It was the NAACP and Dr. King that got black citizens where they are today, with the support of many young black college students and some support from white and other citizens who believed and believe in equal rights for all citizens. That is what has gotten our cause where it is. Certainly we would not be here today if we waited for Ellen, some celebrity, some famous queer writer, or some rich queer or prince on a white horse. It was probably the middle-class, garden-variety homosexual citizens who did the work and got us to where we are.
And that is what got all minorities where they are.
