Larry Kramer is furious with Ed Koch and has been for decades, believing that the former New York City mayor (1978-1989) is a closeted gay man who would have done much more during the early years of the AIDS epidemic had he been an out gay man.
The problem with Mr. Kramer's argument is that as an "out" gay man in the 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Koch would have been a political pariah and would not have been elected mayor and he most certainly would not have been able to accomplish the many things that he did accomplish, not just for the city of New York, but for New York's gay community and gay men and women everywhere.
And contrary to Larry Kramer's mythology, Ed Koch is a hero of gay rights and Kramer's historic attacks on the ex-mayor are just another example of why Larry Kramer failed as a gay leader and is today treated with affection, tolerance but also a great degree of contempt.
In fact, as much as I admire Larry Kramer's general sense of outrage over the state of gay activism, Larry Kramer is often blinded by his own emotions to facts, and his attacks on Koch are ridiculous.
But thanks to a "tradition" begun by Kramer and nurtured by other early AIDS activists like Randy Shilts (author of "And The Band Played On") , over the past couple of weeks, the 84-year-old ex-mayor has once again been under fire as an allegedly closeted gay man. (Actually, kudos to Koch--after all these decades he still has the celebrity to make it on to Page Six. Now that's staying power--and no Viagra was necessary.)
The brouhaha is all about a new documentary intended to "out" and embarrass closeted gay politicians who attack gay rights and gay dignity as they act out their own self-hatred and construct what they believe is an unassailable record of anti-gay actions that, again, they believe, will convince someone that they are not gay.
Mark Foley, Ted Haggard and Larry Craig are stellar example of this psychotic behavior.
Ed Koch is not.
The new documentary, OUTRAGE, is supposed to be about hypocrisy, about closeted politicians and celebrities who build their closet on a foundation of anti-gay attacks. The problem is how is Ed Koch even remotely guilty of hypocrisy?
Does a politician's right to privacy trump the wrong of hypocrisy? Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick thinks not. He claims to not care about the sex lives of politicians. But he cares that when a pol's sexual orientation is secret, often shame and self-hatred color his voting record.
So why is Ed Koch attacked in this documentary?
Dick is outraged when closeted gay politicians vote against gay marriage, against the right of gays to adopt, and against funding for HIV/AIDS. He's so outraged that he has made a movie exposing the disconnect between what these men practice and what they preach.
With the exception of Ed Koch, all of the "outed" politicians in OUTRAGE are Republicans, but it is the inclusion of Ed Koch that calls the credibility of the entire film and it's "outer-in-chief", Mike Rogers into question.
The "facts" on Koch are completely manufactured and derived from the rage of 1980's AIDS activists who threw blame around like Obama throws promises.
Mike Rogers who has outed many hypocritical Republicans--and I applaud him for that--is diminished by this documentary when it attacks Ed Koch. If Rogers accepts this ridiculous lie, then what else has he manufactured?
Rogers insists that he's attacking hypocrisy, not sexual orientation. So why Koch? Because Larry Kramer said so?
As many of my readers well know, I hold a somewhat "radical" view on the Closet. No way, no where, no how. Shame on celebrities who remain in the closet and send gay kids that tragic message: no matter how rich and powerful you are, fear being out, it can ruin you life and career.
And this is especially onerous when closeted men (Republican and Evangelicals in particular) act out their closet issues by attacking the gay community and waging war against gay rights.
Ed Koch, however, is not in the closet. He is, however, extremely protective of his private life--holding steadfastly to the view that he has a right to one.
Furthermore, gay or not, closeted or private, Ed Koch has done more for gay rights than any gay activist working today. Unlike the majority of closeted gay politicians who have labored relentlessly to ruin our lives, Ed Koch has labored relentlessly starting back in the 1970s when it was a very risky business to champion gay rights.
As a United States Congressman, along with Congressional New York colleague, Bella Abzug, in the early '70s, Koch put his career on the line when he introduced a bill that would outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. This was just a few short years after Stonewall and a remarkable and extraordinary precedent in the fight for equality.
Thanks to Larry Kramer this landmark in the history of gay rights is mostly forgotten.
When Ed Koch was elected mayor in 1977, one of his first acts was to ban such discrimination by city agencies. Not surprisingly, Abzug and Koch couldn't make this happen in a 1970s Congress, but as mayor he made sure that legal discrimination against gays and lesbians was immediately stopped here in New York City.
And when, as mayor, he insisted that the new law applied to all contractors doing business with the city, the Catholic Church and the Salvation Army sued him. He fought back hard, again putting his political career on the line. And he won. And we won.
In 1984, Koch was the first mayor to march in the Gay Pride Parade.
He was the first mayor to appoint openly gay judges.
The list goes on and on.
But throughout this, our "bachelor" mayor refused to answer questions about his sex life. And for this, many in the gay community condemned him and continue to do so. I am not among them. Koch did what he did because it was right, not because he was or is gay.
Regardless of the details of Koch's personal life, he has been a steadfast warrior for gay rights. Why is he being attacked now along with a bunch of Republican and Evangelical closet cases who war against us?
It is sickening.
Now, before someone who knows my private life leaves a comment, we need some necessary disclosure. Ed Koch is a personal friend. And I completely and sincerely respect his desire to keep his personal life and his sex life a private affair. He has never done anything for which he should be ashamed and he has never done anything other than his best for the gay community. And he has never allowed speculation, attacks or accusations to in any way inhibit his commitment to gay rights or his personal and life-long held belief in his right to personal privacy as a public figure.
I myself have struggled with the Koch question.
When a public figure keeps his or her personal life private, does that necessarily mean that he or she is closeted? Does the sexual orientation of one of the most influential political leaders of the 20th Century who was also a pioneer for gay rights really matter? What does it change? One could even argue that as a straight man, Koch's fight for gay rights gained much more traction in the 70s and 80s than would have been possible if Koch has been labeled a gay man.
According to the New York Post and the new documentary, OUTRAGEOUS, Koch's sexual orientation matters--but it seems to matter because of the misdeeds of the closeted politicians; and Koch is not even remotely guilty of such misdeeds.
Again, I am startled, saddened, disgusted and outraged by the inclusion of Ed Koch in OUTRAGE. And it is not just an insult to Mr. Koch, it is an insult and a corruption of the true history of the gay civil rights movement.
From the closet, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, J. Edgar Hoover, John Travolta and Tom Cruise have done great harm to the gay community and for that they should all be condemned and hounded into oblivion.
Shilts and Kramer accused Koch of turning a blind eye to the spread of AIDS for fear that it would legitimize the rumors that he himself was a homosexual. This is an accusation founded on a bunch of emotions that have no grounding in fact.
But thanks to these tired old accusations, the new documentary concocts a Perez Hilton-worthy story about a gay romance between U.S. Congressman Ed Koch and Dick Nathan, an affair that Koch supposedly called it off in preparation for his run for mayor of New York City in 1977.
Koch campaigned that year with former Miss America Bess Myerson at his side. But not even the presence of a beauty queen on his arm could stop people from hanging posters around the city that read, "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo."
Koch told the New York Post: "Dick Nathan was a fine guy. We were friends."
But Koch says their friendship soured when he passed Nathan over for a position in his administration. "He [Nathan] got mad and left town," Koch said.
Despite decades of speculation, New York never really seemed to care who Koch was sleeping with. But the ex-mayor has done nothing to quell the rumors with his refusal to even deny them. "Are you married?" he'll typically ask when questioned. If the answer is yes, he'll come back with, "When was the last time you committed oral sex on your spouse? Don't answer that. It's no one's business."
Koch recently remarked with some pride that it was a testament to his staying power that the media was obsessed with the sex life of an 84-year-old man.
I'm a blabber. I'll tell you anything you want to know about my sex life, but I do respect those of us who prefer to have the public focus on our careers, our professional accomplishments and the contribution we have made to the American way and in the case of Ed Koch, the contributions that he has made to the fight for gay rights.
Ed Koch should not be punished for his good health--even though Larry Kramer would do so. And Mike Rogers, likely blinded by the opportunity to be a movie star, seems oblivious to the damage he has done to the history of the gay civil rights movement and the lies he has nurtured.
Ed Koch is one of the most important pioneers and players in the history of the 20th Century's historic gay civil rights movement. Ed Koch was among the first mainstream leaders to give traction to Stonewall.
Shilts, Kramer and now Rogers have endeavored to bury this hero. And we must now, sadly, question the credibility of much of what Rogers and this otherwise valuable documentary has to say.
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