From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Subject: Re: Too straight looking to be gay??? (was re: UNGAY GAY)
Originator: elf@halcyon.com
Reply-To: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Organization: Pendor, UnLtd.
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 07:59:31 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.183725.13703@microsoft.com>
     bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:

>In article <1992Aug15.221516.22953@nwnexus.WA.COM>
>    elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg) writes:

>>What gives you the right to tell people how to behave so that they can hide
>>from the straights?  Why should I even want to hide from the straights.

>Not "hide"; just cease to stand out like a fucking snowball in a coal bin.

   If I'm not standing out, if I'm not wearing glaring huge pink
triangles with "I fuck women too!" and "Bisexual!" and "PRIDE" and
"Queer!" then I'm not doing _anything_ to make life better.  I'm
hiding.  Your Hero, Tracey Horne, can't hide because the cameras are
staring at him.  The rest of us, the ones without the limelite, need to
prove that _we're here too_.  Every last one of us.

>What do you want, elf?  Do you want more gays to come out of the closet
>and join you, help you in the fight?

   Yes!  And I want every one of them, mainstream or not, to be true to
themselves!

>>Well, I'll have you know
>>something, Bob... I am not a f*cking friend of Dorothy's, and I don't
>>plan on ever being one.

>Whatever the hell that means.

   Bob, sometimes it pains me to talk to you; you have no idea who
Harvey Feirstein is, you have no idea what a "Friend of Dorothy" is.
If I say "Stonewall," are you going to give me an equally blank look?

   For your education (and on my heavy assumption that you know what
Stonewall is) "Are you a friend of Dorothy?" was a pre-Mattachine
phrase gay men used to identify one another.

   Sometimes, when I argue with you, I feel like I'm in a Donelan
cartoon, one of those that falls flat every once in a while.  I've been
out of the closet for slightly more than a _year_ now, and I know more
about gay history and culture than you do!  Do you remember "GRID?"  Do
you know who Harry Hay was?

   There's a reason _why_ gay men and this subculture you express so
much distaste for exists; it didn't just "pop up" overnight out of some
unfocussed rage.  It evolved.  And individuals act the way they do for
personal, historical reasons.  We're not going to "go away" or change
just because you say so.  The movement hasn't stood still; look, AB2601
passed even as we sit around and you complain about how much the
movement is failing.

   So you don't like us sitting around discussing the latest Broadway
hit.  Have you ever asked us why we sit around discussing the latest
Broadway hit?  The answer is rather obvious, once you think about it:
There are NO gay and out football players.  Few people will question
the masculinity of a football player... so why don't the gay ones come
out?

   It's not _us_ they're afraid of.  It's themselves.

         Elf !!!
-- 
Elf Sternberg    __   |     I have looked into the abyss, and the abyss
elf@halcyon.com  \/   | has looked into me.  Neither liked what we saw.
elf@polari.online.com |                              - Brother Theodore
Xref: sparky soc.motss:37268 talk.politics.misc:42462 ca.politics:7138