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Sunday, December 12, 2010

this is a DAMN GOOD op-ed by frank rich

Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian
EACH Aug. 4, my wife Alex and I visit a church to light candles for two people we loved who both died tragically on that day two years apart — my mother, killed at 64 in a car crash, and Alex’s closest friend from graduate school, killed by AIDS at half that age. My mother was Jewish but loved the meditative serenity of vast cathedrals. Alex’s friend, John, was a Roman Catholic conflicted by a religion that demonized his sexuality. Our favorite pilgrimage is to an Episcopal church, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, not as some sectarian compromise but because of its AIDS chapel, a haunting reminder of the plague that ravaged that city’s population, especially its gay men, some time ago..................

6 comments:

Mistressmybae said...

I'm glad you are reporting on this when it seems that Frank Rich is the only other person doing so! Thank you!

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Thanks! I went and read it and I agree with you. It's instructive to everyone not to be complacent about homophobia/censorship despite the strides made into the mainstream by the LGBT community.

Unknown said...

an art gallery in hartford (real art ways) of ALL places is actually showing a fire in my belly

http://www.realartways.org/visualarts.htm#wojnarowicz

and WE'RE backward hicks in these parts compared to the hoity toits in dc that is. man, you don't have to like it. i hate PLENTY of 'art'. i want the right to SEE it freely though

stray said...

Well, really DC has quite a large, if somewhat seasonal, population of backward hicks. And the museums there are mostly free, so I suppose the downside of free museums is the possibility that elected ape-creatures could wander into them and then go back to the office and write press releases.

Anyway, haven't you heard? New England is a bastion of liberal elitism, and is full of queers.

stray said...

news update, Warhol Foundation Throws Down:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/warhol-foundation-threatens-to-end-financing-of-smithsonian-exhibitions/

Unknown said...

i love new england with my whole heart and i'd never leave it (for long). i don't care WHAT it's full of. i'm still blown away MY state allows any two people to get married. PERIOD. it's a good good good thing (if you're the marrying kind that is)

and i didn't know about the warhol foundation so thanks for the link stray