AIDS: The Early Years
I can barely remember a time before AIDS.

I graduated high school in May 1981 at age 17. (I’ll do your math. I’m 51. You’re welcome.) The day after graduation, I moved to Indianapolis to escape both farm life and parents unable to handle an out son.

Compared to life on the farm, Indianapolis was THE BIG CITY! And when I got there, I was shocked not only to discover so many others like me — but they were all having a hella good time!

The summer of 1981. The last few months before the spectre began to rise. It’s hard to believe, when you see Indianapolis now. Maybe it was the residual effects of the “sexual revolution” or the “disco era.” Or maybe it was because I was a naive former farm boy. But gay men were seemingly everywhere. They had their own neighborhoods. Businesses! Neighborhood societies!

Being out wasn’t an “alternative lifestyle” in those days. It was punk. You were a walking, talking political statement. We were beginning to get some acceptance, but we were still the mysterious “Other” to most. Yes, sex was omnipresent. But it was about more in those post-Stonewall years. It was the realization that, with self-acceptance, came great freedom. Yes, some of us chose to celebrate at bars and bathhouses. And others of us opened art galleries, restaurants, started magazines. Became designers. And writers. Or actors. But marriage?

Why would we want to do something stupid like that? We were thrilled to be exempt from society’s rules.

To the rest of the world, we knew how to be just quiet enough. We were still underground in most places, so we learned an unspoken code, a way of “knowing” when we found ourselves with our own kind.

To the straight urban crowd, we were chic. An asset at any party or office. Disco may be dying, but we were really beginning to thrive.

July 1981: New York Times:

Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.

I still remember my very first thought, flip though it was. “Of course, gays can’t just get some run-of-the-mill cancer! Oh, no! We have to get some ‘rare, tropical disease!'”

The gay guys I knew dismissed it, if they gave it any thought at all. If they had heard about it at all. How many conversations began those next few months with “Have you heard about this … gay thing?” Almost all of the guys in my circles felt insulated from it — it was happening in New York and San Francisco. Nobody knew anyone with this mystery disease.

I was a late bloomer. I had only been with two guys, both of which had been boyfriends, by 18. So maybe starting late saved my life.

Condoms? Hadn’t entered the discussion. Safe sex? The term hadn’t yet been coined. This disease didn’t even have a name! Hell, the President of the United States refused to even address the crisis.

AYDS was still just an over-the-counter diet supplement. Can you imagine, when someone might have actually said, “I’m gonna run down to the corner to get pick me up some AYDS”?

Fall 1982. Joan Collins appears on the cover US Magazine. But above, a banner headline:

“Mysterious Cancer That’s Killing Gay Men.”

It was absurd! You can’t “catch” cancer! I began to wonder, maybe gay people are defective, maybe something in our DNA is unbalanced… and I wasn’t the only one with a crazy theory.

“It’s guys who use poppers! That’s what causes it!”

“You only have to worry if you swallow.”

“It’s the government! They’re testing a new biological weapon!”

And those were the gay guys! Forget about the folks who claimed it was a curse from God.

Yet, most guys in Indianapolis still thought they were safe.

By 1983, AIDS had a name. I had a new boyfriend. But in Indianapolis, safe sex still hadn’t seemed necessary.

In 1984, we moved to San Francisco. There was no living in denial at Ground Zero. The camp-out protest of AIDS fighters in Civic Center. The zombies struggling to walk down Castro Street. The posters about safe sex in the subway stations. The seemingly endless obituaries in the Bay Area Reporter. For the first time in my life, AIDS seemed real. It was inescapable. And it was scary to be in a city where 75 percent of the men were believed HIV-positive.

But, it was also reassuring — almost comforting — to be someplace where AIDS was on the front-page of the newspaper and opened the local news almost every single day.

My new boyfriend? He couldn’t take it. Six months later, he moved back home.

About a year later, he learned that being back in Indiana didn’t make him safe. Two years after that, he was gone.

What would life be like now, if AIDS had never happened? I can’t imagine. You bet I practice safe sex now. In fact, I’m wearing a condom as I write this!

On a personal note: Despite being openly gay, my parents never addressed it after I came out. At most, my mom called it my “attitude” or being “that way.” But I’m from Kokomo, Indiana — Ryan White’s hometown. And when my aunt began raising money to have Ryan thrown out of school, my mom was incensed. She and I talked about AIDS for the first time. And that let to talking about being gay. And that led, eventually, to the totally cool parents I have today.

AIDS is no longer a death sentence. And it’s hard to believe the advances I have seen in gay rights in my lifetime. We’re living in a gay new world.

Those hundreds of thousands of men and women did not die in vain. They were martyrs. Would we be talking gay marriage if AIDS hadn’t forced gay issues onto the nightly news? If gay men hadn’t fought for the right to be at their lovers’ sides? It humanized us in the eyes of many, and reminded ourselves of our mortality. That the party ends for everyone, eventually, no matter what.

But you know what? I do really miss those early days, when we were more than an “alternative lifestyle.”

www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-acord/aids-the-early-years_b_6256798.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Lisa Vanderpump Grills Andy Cohen On Having Sex With A Woman: VIDEO

Sean Mandell

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/lisa-vanderpump-grills-andy-cohen-on-having-sex-with-a-woman-video.html

The Art of Maurice Heerdink

A new book by artist Maurice Heerdink weds Dutch precision with the sensual influences of classic Italian painting.

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Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/books/2014/12/03/art-maurice-heerdink

Federal Court Tells GOP Legislator The Navy Was Right To Can Him For Unprofessional Behavior

Even by the lofty standards of the religious right, Gordon Klingenschmitt is pretty far out there. After all, this is the guy who says gay people are “demonic” and who recommends parents spank their children to cure them of homosexuality. Needless to say, such nutty views got Klingenschmitt elected as a Republican (of course) to the Colorado state House of Representatives last month. On top of this, Klingenschmitt is seriously deficient in irony, having nicknamed himself “Dr. Chaps.”

But a federal court has given Klingenschmitt a lesson in the limits of lunacy. Klingenschmitt had been arguing that the military unfairly dismissed him as a chaplain because he was praying to Jesus (really). In a pointed opinion, the court made it clear that Klingenschmitt was canned for deliberately disobeying orders and for being, as the Navy put it, being  “professionally unsuited for further service as a naval officer and chaplain.”

No kidding. Klingenschmitt responded to one negative performance review by accusing his superior officer of being a Unitarian.

Besides being a lousy chaplain, he was insubordinate as well. The Navy told Klingenschmitt that he could not wear his military uniform when appearing at a right-wing political event, but Klingenschmitt showed up in uniform anyway. Fed up with Klingenschmitt’s poor performance and disobedience, the Navy eventually showed him the door.

Klingenschmitt sued, demonstrating the unwillingness to take personal responsibility that has become the hallmark of the right. He insisted that he was a victim of discrimination, a claim that the court repeatedly dismissed as meritless. He also said that his freedom of speech was violated. Not so, said the court. Klingenschmitt was free to speak, but not in uniform.

Needless to say, none of this sits well with Klingenschmitt’s supporters, who immediately attacked the judge in the case, Elaine Kaplan. “Lesbian judge takes on Jesus in court,” World Net Daily, the repository for the furthest fringes of wingnuttery cried in a headline.

Klingenschmitt promised to appeal the ruling “if necessary all the way to the Supreme Court.” Well, it’s his money and he can waste it anyway he wants.

JohnGallagher

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Batman and Robin go gay at new comic con

The secret lives of He-Man and Captain Jack revealed in Austin, Texas

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jamiet

www.gaystarnews.com/article/batman-and-robin-go-gay-new-comic-con031214

Homophobic Mall Santas Horrified Over Gay Santa Being Included In Christmas Film

You’d better not pout, you’d better not cry, and if you happen to be a mall Santa, you’d definitely better not be gay.

Following the release of a new documentary called I Am Santa Claus, the mall Santa community (don’t underestimate them, they know when you’ve been sleeping) has their respective beards is a twist over the inclusion of a — gasp — gay Santa Claus.

The film follows all sorts of seasonal Santas during their winter stints as well as the rest of the year, when they do things like BBQ a mean rack of ribs to sell real estate (have you seen the price of a one bedroom in the North Pole lately?).

But one of the Santas, Jim Stevenson, is gay. And for many of his would-be jolly brethren, that’s a line that just shouldn’t be crossed.

Some of the more prominent Santas have taken to Facebook to voice their outrage:

One YouTuber agreed, writing:

“So, Santa Fag makes his film debut? How disgraceful! We, as a society, have become TOO accepting of immoral lifestyles. Fags need to be shamed not paraded around.”

Director Tommy Avallone told Vice:

“[The Santas] couldn’t actually say what they were upset about, because they didn’t want to seem like blatant homophobic people, they would just say they don’t feel that we should “ruin the magic” of Christmas. We got called the armageddon of Santa World, we got told we were going to be on the “very naughty” list and that we would stay there for a very long time.”

What’s next, a black Santa? Think of the children!

The real irony is that one of the other Santas in the film works at a sex club when he’s not bouncing children on his lap every holiday season. Sex club Santa? Well, everyone has their quirks. Gay, committed relationship Santa? The horror!

Here’s the trailer, which features Jim Stevenson as well as sex club Santa:

Dan Tracer

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