QUEER AS (OLD) FOLK
Life as we live it: Bravo, and thank you to the RFT for showing us the face of gay history in this city ["Gay Old Times," Melissa Meinzer]. But more than that, thank you to the people mentioned in this story and the thousands of other ordinary people living extraordinary lives as LGBT citizens and activists.
This story reminds me that history is important, but also that history is people — just folks living their lives, eating, drinking, reading, loving and standing up for themselves when they need to.
Michael Tramble, via the Internet
Mad props: This was a fabulous — incredible — article. Thank you so much for posting it, RFT — and thank you for writing it, Melissa.
Liz Hughes Wiley, via the Internet
End of the world as he knows it: I have a personal problem with the subtitle of the online article, "It's LGBT history to us. To them, it was life." The article clearly announces that the RFT is affiliated with the majority of the public, separate from the minorities talked about in the article itself. The segregation of "us" and "them," as well as the denouncement of LGBT history within the straight community, tells the community as a whole that we still have a long struggle to simply talk about our community as one complete entity. We have to share this world with other people, so why not treat each others as equal, or at least with respect?
While I commend the magazine for giving us the cover as well, the symbolism of the hourglass (to me) represents the near end of the LGBT community that is attributed to this segregation between the LGBT community and opposing groups. It makes me sad to see American journalism so fueled on the biases and opinions that reflect what the target audiences want to hear.
John Dyson, via the Internet
Get back in the closet: I've always known they were here; I just never gave it much thought as it didn't concern me in any way. Now that they have become so in-your-face about this crap with festivals and such, I just wish they'd all crawl back into their damned closets and stay there. And this crap with gay marriage is obscene to the max!
Alzari, via the Internet
Children need bigotry, too: Well said, Alzari. In their growing bombardment of our society with their message, what the gays refuse to acknowledge is that their choice of an alternative lifestyle is truly and fundamentally rooted in an atypical sexual preference. These photos in the RFT, gay pride parades, other public demonstrations and, in some communities, their frequent lack of propriety illustrates that. Their sexuality-laced message is not appropriate for many pubic forums — especially when children are present. They ignore this impropriety and attempt to indoctrinate our children though the media, entertainment and public-school systems.
I don't personally care what consenting adults do in their own private domiciles. But I am tired of the LGBT community's insistence that we must all accept their atypical sexual choices as a publicly acceptable topic — particularly when children are present. Do we eventually have to teach our children to cater to every possible sexual preference and fetish out there?
Nostreetbs, via the Internet
Get old and die: I guess you wish that the blacks would hide from you as well, you ignorant fucking rube. The world is moving on beyond 1955. Don't like it? The only solution I can suggest is that you somehow age faster and die already. Better yet, why don't you hide your bigoted ass in the closet, since you are the one with the problem?
Your bullshit Leave it to Beaver values never existed in the first place — at least not in any situation that wasn't a crappy black-and-white sitcom.
Ihatesuburbs, via the Internet
Fight for the right: God forbid that people celebrate who they are — or fight for rights that so many other people just take for granted.
GuardBrian, via the Internet
