From: Minotaur@cup.portal.com (Frank - Swilling)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Gay Cops and 60 Minutes
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 18:12:37 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Bob Sarver, who's really just the boy next door, sez:

>Did anyone else see the "60 Minutes" piece last night on gay cops?

>It was an interesting piece.  The San Francisco gay cops that Mike
>Wallace interviewed were very eloquent, especially the transplanted
>New Yorker who was on their S.W.A.T. team.

>During the course of the conversation with a group of SF gay cops, one
>of the officers commented that they were just as good as the straight
>folks, and lived pretty normal lives--they were just gay, and they were
>cops.  Mike Wallace said, "But we've all seen the gay pride parades with
>the prancing and mincing around, people acting out roles and such".  The
>response was "But they're only a tiny minority of our community.  They
>don't represent the mainstream.  WE ARE the mainstream."

>It is so nice to have someone else state exactly what I have been
>saying.

It would have been a far more effective statement had that officer answered
Wallace thusly:  So what if there are people out there in those parades
acting out roles?  They're surely entitled, after having to act out the
role of sexless-heterosexual-average-Joe-and-Jill 364 days a year.  You
know, Mike, I was out there marching in that parade, too.  Me and dozens
of other out-of-the-closet cops.  How come you never show *that* on the
news?  How come you in the media only focus on the most sensational aspects
of the Gay Pride Parades, and never show the *hundreds* of groups of perfectly
average looking people marching with quiet dignity and strength?

That's the answer I would have liked him to have given.  Not that I don't
have a lot of sympathy for some of the things you've said, Bob.  The only
fistfight of my adult life resulted from my inability to otherwise convince
a hulking lout of a neighbor - also gay - that I really didn't appreciate
being referred to with the pronoun "she".

I, like you, am an "invisible" gay in everyday life.  I have no behaviors,
mannerisms, or vocal eccentricities  to betray my homosexuality.  I was once
nearly turned down for a house-sharing rental because the owner was adamant
that he would only rent to gays.

So whom do I respect more, a guy like me who can slip into the mainstream
of society and not make a ripple if I so choose, or a guy who's out there
in drag, flaunting his choices for all the world to see?  I think it takes
all the courage you can muster to be outrageous in a society that values
conformity above all, and I respect and admire the men and women who get
out there in front of the world and fuck with the world's nice, cozy sense
of propriety.

Know what I wish?  I wish that next year, every single faggot and dyke in
the nation would show up at the nearest Gay Pride Parade in the most glorious
fantasy drag available to him or her.  It's a celebration, damn it, let's
make Mardi Gras pale by comparison!  Let's pull out all the stops until
they finally get the idea that Gay Pride is about US, OUR joy at overcoming
the mindless hatred that we are forced to endure every day, OUR liberation
from the shackles of derision that evil hearts have chained to us, OUR
struggle to claim our humanity in a world that claims we are less than human.

Of course, I'm a fine one to talk.  I've never done any kind of female
drag, and the only leather gear I own are a couple of fashion jackets.
I used to have the same discomfort you've expressed here about people
looking at a nelly queen and assuming that all gays are nelly queens.
I eventually came to realize that what I was really afraid of was the
possibility that somewhere way down deep inside, maybe there was a nelly
queen screaming to get out.  So I looked way down deep inside, and there
was only me.

Come to the Gay Pride Parade, then.  Bring all your friends.  And if you
all march under the banner of "Mainstream Gays", then I will cheer you
as you pass by.  But I will cheer even louder for every nelly queen and
leather prince and dyke on a bike, because they've fought the hardest for
their freedoms, and they deserve it.

Frank
Minotaur@cup.portal.com
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