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Getting There
[1] Clueless
It's June of 1969. I am newly graduated from Madison LaFollette High
School. There is no visible gay rights movement in my world.
Homosexuality is never mentioned beyond epithets and extreme
stereotypes. I have a male friend who's gay, but I have no clue.
I watch the Stonewall riots reported on television that summer, and
suspect they might have something to do with me. I eagerly read Hermann
Hesse's Demian, drawn to the hero's longing for his male friend,
their eventual kiss. My face feels flushed when the neighbor boy shows
up for tennis without a shirt. I'm not sure what all this means; there
is next to nothing in my world upon which to base an opinion.
My high school friend and I go to the Eastwood Theater, now the
Barrymore. It's 1970. Under the flashing lights of the marquee, I
encounter my first openly gay people. Half a dozen demonstrators protest
The Boys in the Band. One of them hands me a leaflet demanding
positive portrayals of gay people.
I hate the movie. The characters are pathetic, doomed to a separate kind
of life. I don't know why we decide to see that film, but it doesn't
help me understand myself any better.
[2] Caution
Call it fear. Call it a prudent concern for safety. I walk in the front
door of a church on University Avenue. It's 1985. I'm on my way to the
Gay Center, located in the basement. I'm glad my destination is not
visible from the street. Its one room is small and comfortable, filled
with second-hand furniture and unsteady book shelves. I sign up for a
coming out support group, and then just soak up the pleasure of sitting
with men like me.
The Center's library of paperbacks and periodicals is a treasure for the
bookish guy I am. I love The Best Little Boy in the World. An
acquaintance, knowing my chosen sport, gives me a copy of The Front
Runner, which I read so many times it falls apart. I am disgusted to
read in a magazine that researchers are quarreling over who discovered
the new virus that's killing gay men. I have no idea I will one day
stand in front of the AIDS quilt and worry that I will find the name of
my high school friend. I have no idea a member of my coming out group
will die in a few years, and I will stand before his partner unable to
speak.
One evening, a staffer takes a call, then hangs up and phones the police
to report a threat to the Center. We all walk out into the parking lot
in the dark, fearful of who might be waiting.
[3] Community
A gay friend and I are checking out the Gay Liberation sculpture
in Orton Park. It's 1986. I'm puzzled there is so much controversy about
these life-size statues. They seem thoroughly benign: two women sitting
as a couple on a bench, a male pair standing beside them. The contact
between the couples is chaste — a hand on a shoulder, a palm resting on
a leg. We're enjoying ourselves, posing as if we're part of the artwork.
We're laughing at the hat someone has left on one of the figures.
I'm nervous about my first gay pride march, Madison's first as well.
It's 1988. Though it's early May, I notice flakes of snow in the air. I
join the crowd on the Capitol steps and shiver in the wind during the
speeches. I'm afraid someone I know will see me, even though that's the
whole point of the rally. We take a noisy stroll down State Street, then
up Langdon — frat boys gawking and giving us the thumbs-down. I leave
immediately after the march. It's chilly and I've pushed my boundaries
enough for one day.
[4] Celebrants
Abundant sun greets a buoyant crowd of pride marchers gathering again on
the Capitol steps. Motorcycles and floats, people with placards and
balloons assemble in the street.
It's 1998. Wisconsin Christians United rent billboards in town
proclaiming "Homosexuality is Sin". The afternoon of the march, they
hire a plane to pull a banner above us bearing the same message. The
women and men at the rally jeer at this display. I'm angry at the
attempt to sway us away from our innate ability to love. Three words,
printed large and dark, spoil an otherwise brilliant sky that afternoon.
Three words that would deny the truth that begins in our hearts and
threads always through our blood.
I'm at ease, even defiant, among the rambunctious folks on the steps. We
find strength together despite the sometimes crushing weight of others'
disapproval.
[5] Cavafy
It's 1908. Writing in Greek in the Egyptian city of Alexandria,
Constantine Cavafy pens some lines that anticipate a time like ours.
Cavafy loves men and finds men to love, but he is secretive in public.
"An obstacle was often there / to stop me when I'd begin to speak", he
writes in his poem, Hidden Things. "An obstacle was there that
changed the pattern / of my actions and the manner of my life."
That's my world, the world in which I grow up.
Cavafy is optimistic about the future. In the last line of his poem, he
predicts: "Later, in a more perfect society, / someone else made just
like me / is certain to appear and act freely."
I imagine Cavafy looking up from his writing desk to consider people
made just like him in Madison today. He hears you talking openly in the
gym and on the bus. He sees you demanding the right to marry. He watches
you walking hand-in-hand on our streets.
Not a perfect society. Not totally free. But getting there.
Copyright 2009 by Brian Powers
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