Don't Tread on Gays

“The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay. You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that’s what brings me into it.” – Barry Goldwater

 

” Mr. Conservative [Goldwater] has found himself an unlikely new career: as a gay rights activist. While that’s not his sole pursuit – he returned to Capitol Hill yesterday to testify in favor of scenic overflights of the Grand Canyon – in recent years he’s championed homosexuals serving in the military and has worked locally to stop businesses in Phoenix from hiring [and firing] on the basis of sexual orientation.”

 

You may not like this, but it wasn’t a “Left” turn – it was a Don’t Tread On Me moment – for gay people. It was a turn to Liberty & Justice for All. The Declaration of Independence says “all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…” Straight people seem to want the phrase to be slightly altered for gay people: “… among them are life, liberty OR the pursuit of happiness.” You wanted to deny us even the 1^st Amendment right to meet to discuss the issue of our repression and seek to redress our grievances. In the 1950s a handful or two of gay men and woman in Chicago formed a group called “the Friends of Dorothy” to see about achieving our Constitutional Rights. When the police and FBI got wind of it, they searched high and low for Dorothy, to stop the menace. A million bucks, endless hours, for more than a year – it was positively Obama-like – to find Dorothy. Well, if you all have to ask who she is, we’re not telling.

 

Finally Goldwater said what we asked for – full constitutional rights to be gay. Virtually no one knows he said it. (Psst, spread the word.) He spoke while Bowers v Hardwick was still the law of the land. This was a Supreme Court case handed down on July 1^st, 1986, that basically said that all laws against gay people of any kind in any jurisdiction were perfectly constitutional because gay people were … they didn’t quite say what we were. But they said what we weren’t – we were not allowed simple exercise of Constitutional rights like to have a beer in a bar of our choice, given liquor licenses and legal as such, without fear of the police coming in and raiding the place. But Goldwater spoke 25 years after the Big Gay Event. It was only in 2003 that the Supreme Court ruled, 5 – 4, in Lawrence v. Texas, that virtually no laws against gay people were Constitutional. Um, but, except, military, marriage and a few other minor things. This is the last hurdle, I suppose. That four justices would still deny gay folks our rights is bizarre to us. We don’t care if you hate us, just don’t tread on us, and we’ll go live our own lives in our own ways. Still, you already seem to be fairly oblivious to our presence unless we tell. What do you think that guy handing out peanuts on Flight 45 to Chicago is? He’s a friend of Dorothy, almost certainly. Ditto the guy who’s doing your wife’s hair and drapes. The church organists are mostly gay, too, and they play well, no? Though let me reassure you, we have no more idea as to why we’re gay than you do, but we know we are from the moment we first had the inklings of puberty, just like when you discovered the opposite sex.

 

So what is all this about gay rights? No special rights for gays, right? Isn’t that the motto of our nation? And the sweet part is, for you folks, straight people get to decide what may or may not be a right for a gay American to exercise, and where he or she might do so. Since gay people are a teensy tiny part of the nation, perhaps, what, 10,000,000, 15,000,000 to 25,000,000, we can never get the votes to pass laws for us, we rely on you (and the occasional riot.) And no one knows how many, no one counts. You couldn’t come up with a count that was real if you tried. Please don’t try, it’ll make us both nervous. Yet this tiny number, which is oddly a constant percentage in every culture on earth since time immemorial (that’s why you can selectively quote ancient Scripture against us,) is a cause of great fear to you. And we’re not even invited into the councils where such decisions are made, lest we influence by “promoting homosexuality.” What a slogan we have: “Young man, join us, be hated and scorned for the rest of your life, and live at the mercy of the breeders.” Oh yes, what a great promotion for gayness that you think we’re doing. You seem to be quite fearful of it. But really, let my people go. Don’t tread on us.

 

The Big Gay Event, the thing which led to all this ruckus over the past 40 years is the thing gay Americans celebrate in June. It’s the purpose of all those parades that are never reported on TV, radio or in the newspapers, because you know, the leftist press is all in league with the “homosexual lobby” to do something to America. We can’t figure out what you’re talking about. Especially since not a one of you could come up with the name of a gay “leader” on par with say, Jesse or Sarah, Newt or Sharpton. There is no gay spokesperson for this nefarious gay lobby seeking the destruction of the Republic by making everyone gay or something. We’re very TEA Party in that regard. No leader, no organization. We just sort of go door to door, picking up the sons (mostly) and daughters who you throw out as so much garbage while accusing us of being anti-family. Again, we really don’t, we gay people, know what on earth you’re talking about, so we muddle through.

 

Anyway, the ruckus, yes, back then, on a hot June night in 1969. The hippies were in wild abandon everywhere. We gays were hidden, as you requested we do. We went to our bars, in our neighborhood, which we owned and rented our homes in, and ran stores and businesses and professional practices and paid taxes and bought the newspapers and watched TV just like all Americans. Though we were hidden. But cops kept coming into these bars, and arresting everyone, and pulling them out into the street, and taking their picture, and later, the next day perhaps, calling their jobs, their families, their landlords, trying as best you could to destroy lives and men. The newspapers aided and abetted this jolly old time by publishing the pictures, names, addresses, work places of the arrested. You know, to discourage the others, I suppose. Well, to coin a phrase: “How’s that working out for ya?”

 

You see, that night, the day after Judy Garland died, the cops raided, as they did regularly, the Stonewall Inn. Next time you’re in New York go see that bit of Americans fighting for rights tenaciously. Anyway, the cops began to bust heads. And they dragged the “queers” and “faggots” and “nancies” out into the street. And something magical happened. Those guys said, no, Don’t Tread On Me. Leave Us Alone. Go Away. And the Riots started. Real live riots, like on TV. With burning cop cars, and cops on the run and beaten. Cops barricade in the bar set afire by the queers screaming Don’t Tread On Us! A dozen cops sent to the hospital. Reinforcements called in. The angry T-party (you think teabagger is a bad word, wait till you find out what a T-party was. Ah, history; and irony.) gay folks came out of the houses they owned and paid taxes on and said – Leave Them Alone. Yes, fags by the hundreds, thousands even, came out of the places where we went to hide but which you came into and caused grief. Something about Constitutional rights it was. Oh yes, we didn’t have any, and you weren’t going to put up with any hope and change in that.

 

For three days and nights the most scorned minority on earth said Don’t Tread On Me. Magically, the gay bar raids stopped. In 1970 the world’s first gay march took place in our neighborhood, the one we escaped to, but even there you wouldn’t leave us alone. Until we knocked a few cop’s heads together. So you came repeatedly to pick on the sissies, just as you still want to do. And we said no, don’t tread on us. You all come late to the party, my fellow Americans. We’ve been fighting government oppression of the sort you can’t imagine. And now, all over the world, even in Baghdad I’m sure, are Gay Pride Marches. Don’t Tread On Us in a thousand languages, by the same tiny minority, what, 5 or 6%, that exists over there. We can teach you about fighting oppressive regimes. You ought to try to organize a gay pride march in Teheran, we did.

 

So bad was it, this hate of us, and still is, as you’ll observe shortly in the comments section, where I urge your full blast assault on the …. fill in your favorite word, spare not the rod on me. I heard “sodimizer” just the other day, hurled with a psychopathic malice. Quite amazing. Perhaps he’ll be topped here. I of course turned the other cheek, and as even the meek and scorned of this earth are to do by the command of Jesus, and said, “well, yes, I’ve heard that before. Thank you for your opinion.” Then I went and helped the economy by buying something and paid some taxes so my government can fund the lawyers to draw the line in the sand here now, against the power of gay rights. We crazy, you tell us so, remember?

 

Yes, Don’t Tread On Us. Had you left us alone in Greenwich Village, we might still be hidden. But no, you had to come and try to bust some heads. But really now, you’ve all got to get a grip. Some tiny percentage of the population is not going to wreck the place. You’ve all done a fine job by yourselves with unwed mothers, abandoned babies, divorces, child abuse, wife abuse, abortion, and Lord knows what else. Hell, even the guys who gave us Sadism and Masochism were breeders. Oh yah, that’s what we call you. Breeders. Cute, isn’t it? We don’t breed, this bothers you, you’ll have to figure that out for yourselves. We’re just happy as can be. Why, we even got ourselves a National Gay Rodeo Association. Family fun for everyone, truly.

 

Meanwhile, over in San Francisco is this crazy hetero women named Nancy Pelosi. And from what I gather Republicans, TEA Party and Conservative people all over this land want to get rid of her. It just so happens, because you chased us into the corner over there, we make up about 1/3 of her constituents. And thus, and alas perhaps, you’ll need our help to get rid of her. Bummers, eh? Unintended consequences. Still, it’s your lucky day, sort of. Because the people you most revile in the world are the original T-party people. Folks so intent on freedom that we were willing to riot for a few days to stop the treading. Pelosi treads on you. So go ask the gays in her district for help in voting her out. Put your collective heads together and figure out a way to get a small group of people who love liberty (that’s us gay people) join the larger forces who love liberty (that’s you people) and get rid of the Pelosi, and Barney Frank, and the rest of the scoundrels. In fact, why don’t you just listen to Barry Goldwater and give us our Constitutional Rights. Like to Freedom of Religion. And mine says I have the moral right to get married. And if my marriage is somehow a threat to yours, than yours is not on the Rock of God, but on some fragile sands. If scorning 5 or 6% of the population is the foundation of civilization, then we’re all in a lot more trouble than we realized. – Jim Hlavac

 

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater072894.htm