by Dwight Cathcart

by Dwight Cathcart

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

What do we fight against, or for

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We have to fight to improve our situation in America, in order to become, as the character Joseph says in Adam in the Morning, “Americans,” merely coming out won’t do it. The post before last was the second of two on Tim DeChristopher and an elaboration of his thoughts on civil disobedience. According to DeChristopher, it is only through civil disobedience that we force the rule of law in our society to grow closer to what he calls the “shared higher moral code.” It is only through consciously breaking the law that we can force the law to be examined in a court of law and in the court of public opinion and therefore effect changes in the rule of law.

But if we fight, what do we fight against? Or for? At the end of the first night of fighting in the Stonewall Riots, Bo Ravich invites the gang back to his apartment for breakfast. It’s four o’clock in the morning. There’s Bo, his lover Andrew, their new friend Joseph, the handsome actor from South Central LA who plays Caliban in the current production of The Tempest and who had experience in Alabama and Mississippi in the first Freedom Rides and in Freedom Summer, and, asleep in the living room on the sofa, is Mitzi, a fifteen year old homeless girl who was a leader of the street kids in the rioting. They are sorting out what happened tonight. What did we do, when we fought New York’s finest cops all up and down Christopher Street? One of them wonders if this is the beginning of the Revolution. Joseph doubts it. “I don’t think the Revolution is going to happen.  The people who have the power are too entrenched, and I don’t think we can shame them into giving up their power. I think we can fight them, like we did tonight, like you did tonight, but the fight has to be a much, much bigger thing than our battle around Sheridan Square." Andrew, Bo’s lover, says, “So the fighting was for ourselves?” And Bo says, “Yeah, I think so. We proved we could do it, that we could fight back, and now we never have to take abuse again lying down. We had to prove to ourselves we can fight—” Andrew smiles, “—even if we don’t prove we can win.” “Yeah, right.” It’s Joseph. “We have to learn that, independent of them, we are OK.” So the fighting was for ourselves. We are different, now that we have fought, even if our opponents aren’t. We have found our courage. We have found our brothers-in-arms. We don’t ever need to take their abuse again. We are new people.

So, if we fight, we can’t lose. No matter how many men—or unjust laws—they throw against us, finding our courage to fight makes us more courageous, stronger,  more formidable opponents just because we fought back. And when a LGBTQ man or woman says, I stood up for myself, whether or not he or she is able to stop his or her opponent, the LGBTQ person has made himself better, stronger, more powerful for the next fight and brought liberation one step—one day—closer. We win just by doing it. 


Quotations to the talk among Bo Ravich's friends on the question of What do we fight for?, which takes place in Bo's kitchen after the first night of rioting in Sheridan Square, is to my novel Adam in the Morning, Boston: Adriana Books, 2010, an ebook available for purchase from http://www.dwightcathcart.net. It is one of the three novels of the Stonewall Triptych.
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Being rude and out-of-control

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Tim DeChristopher said, in his sentencing statement, “Since [the] bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice.” The “higher moral code” is not the same thing as “the rule of law,” and the distance between the two is made clear by the men and women who are willing to commit acts of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience has had a long and honored tradition in this country—the Massachusetts residents who held the original tea party in December 16, 1773, those who disobeyed the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, and, the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, burning draft cards during the anti-war movement. Men and women went into the street and did what society had made illegal. They broke the law purposefully to call attention to intolerable conditions. They demanded attention be paid and then refused to get out of the street. 

Gay liberation began on the West Coast, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, when the Committee for Homosexual Freedom brought actions against States Steamship Lines for firing Gale Whittington for being gay (April 9, 1959) and against Tower Records for firing Frank Dennaro for being gay (June 5, 1969). The Stonewall Riots were themselves the most powerful acts of civil disobedience in our history. And then AIDS introduced the nation to AIDS activism. In Boston that took the form of ACT UP pouring 55 gallon drums of blood-like fluid on the steps of the Harvard Medical School until the Dean of the School felt forced to say, “I am not a bigot,” to general derision. The ACT UP actions were so successful that the way clinical trials were organized were changed, apparently permanently. The very action that started ACT UP, stopping traffic on Wall Street, resulted in the FDA opening up the approval process for new anti-AIDS drugs.

Lt Daniel Choi, who was thrown out of the Army after he came out, chained himself to the White House fence three times since Barrack Obama became president, in March 2010, April 2010, and May 2010, demanding repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Lt Choi went to Times Square to inform the recruiting office there that he intended to rejoin the Army. The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell finally passed Congress and was signed into law by President Obama December 22, 2010. Lt Choi, who was a graduate of West Point and who had come out on Rachel Maddow’s show, was a master at embarrassing the Pentagon. He kept chaining himself to the White House fence, even when it was clear from the record that the White House just wished he would go away. They didn’t want to convict him of anything. The last time, it took the government two years to complete the trial of Lt Choi, and in the end he was found guilty and fined $100. No jail time. The earlier charges were dismissed. Apparently, the Army felt, Jesus, is this over! Is this man never going away?

Tim DeChristopher’s civil disobedience is admirable and effective, but it is not unique. All the way through the history of gay liberation—on both coasts, since the fifties—there have been men and women committing civil disobedience and capturing the imagination of the people and causing change, bringing the enacted law into line with the higher moral code to which they are committed.

Gay men and women have known better than most that there is a disjunction between ourselves—our felt reality—and the way we are experienced by our culture, by politicians, by the churches, by the legal system, the “helping” professions, and by the conventional wisdom of our culture. We have always been disobedient.  And while some might think that the GLBTQ community has reached a “tipping” point, where no more progress is necessary or even possible, that will be true only when it is as easy to be gay as it is to be straight. That time is not yet. Meet me on the picket line, guys.

Donn Teal, The Gay Militants. New York: Stein and Day, 1971.  Information on the early gay movement on the West Coast was drawn from Teal’s book.
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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Tim DeChristopher and civil disobedience

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Tim DeChristopher has just gotten out of prison, having served two years for attempting to disrupt the sale of oil leases of land in Utah. His civil disobedience, which began under the Bush administration and continued under the Obama administration, is welcome news, as is his being able to speak well about what he had done. Last night on Chris Hayes’ show on MSNBC, DeChristopher spoke about civil disobedience and its philosophical justifications. He had made a statement to the court before his sentencing two years before, and you can see a complete transcript of that statement here. 

When a corrupted government is no longer willing to uphold the rule of law, I advocate that citizens step up to that responsibility.
If the government is going to refuse to step up to that responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and other citizens. My future, and the future of everyone I care about, is being traded for short term profits [of corporate America]. I take that very personally. Until our leaders take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I will continue this fight.
Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.
I am here today because I have chosen to protect the people locked out of the system over the profits of the corporations running the system. I say this not because I want your mercy, but because I want you to join me.
This is not going away. At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this [i.e. my going to prison] is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow. The choice you are making today [in sentencing me] is what side are you on.
A documentary was recently made of these events called Bidder 70, which was the card number DeChristopher used when he was bidding in the oil lands auction. It is currently in release around the country and, while I have not seen it, reviewers say it is worth seeing. DeChristopher is a man worth watching, not only for his effect on the climate-change movement but for what we will learn—or be reminded of—of civil disobedience.

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Saturday, May 11, 2013

What do you say, when someone comes out to you?

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S. L. Price, writing in Sports Illustrated, May 6, 2013, quotes Patrick Burke on the subject of Burke’s brother’s coming out. “When your brother comes to you and tells you, ‘I’m gay,’ if you say anything other than, ‘Great, I love you, I don’t care,’ that’s where the problem is.’” (SI, p. 46) This is a common progressive response in our culture. A person comes out, and the most common decent responses people make are I don’t care, and I’ve always known you were gay. SI quotes Jason Collins’ aunt giving the second response (SI, p. 36). The trouble with someone saying either of these is that the person coming out has more or less struggled with this issue, gotten up courage, told you he or she is gay, and before he has a chance to get a real response from you, you tell him you don’t care about what has troubled him. A better response would go along these lines:  Great, I love you. I bet it’s been hard. I want to hear all about it. I want to know everything, because you know how much I love you, don’t you? Tell me everything about how it’s been for you. I love every single part of you.

Looking back on my youth and younger ages, I don’t think I often actually was subjected to homophobic abuse, but what I did get, very often, was some statement that subtly told me the other person didn’t want to know what I knew. Jason Collins’ aunt told him, “I’ve known you were gay for years” (SI, p. 36.) Collins tells us that when she said that, he no longer had to worry about his aunt. But he doesn’t tell us what happened to that conversation after his aunt told him she had known he was gay for years. Why didn’t she tell him she knew? Why didn’t she help him? Why wasn’t she proactive? This response leaves the gay person with nowhere to go with his experiences of the years he spent closeted. But I wanted to tell you. 

I suppose what the person means, who says, I don’t care, is that I don’t care about those people who disapprove of you. But whatever the three words mean to the person who speaks them, the person who hears them thinks, Jesus! What she doesn’t care about is a huge part of my life. And How can she say she loves me, if she doesn’t care about this part of my life? A person who cares about you, who ‘loves’ you, is going to care about every part of your life, is going to want to know about everything that has ever happened to you, is going to feel as full of joy as you do, now that you have come out, because now you are both released to share all of your life, not just the smaller, censored part of it that you could share before. 

She's going to care a lot.
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