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Rep. Margaret Hummel
Justice for All?
Justice for All?
Peggy Luhrs agreed to let us publish the text of her speech at the 21st Annual Pride Festival pre-parade rally, delivered under a damp, gray, threatening sky. The rain hed off, the parade stepped out on time, and the hecklers were few. The article below is a somewhat expanded version of her spoken remarks.
by Peggy Luhrs
This year I want to talk about the origins of our movement. I was lucky enough to catch a documentary on the life of Harry Hay who founded the Mattachine Society in the 1950s. This was the first organization to advocate for and support homosexuals. It was open to lesbians but they were never really drawn to the organization.
Later Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons would start the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) specifically for lesbians. There was footage in this documentary of some of the very first demonstrations for homosexual rights. One of the marchers was Barbara Gittings, an early DOB member and fierce fighter for lesbian and gay rights. I mention Gittings because in 1973 when I had just come out, Gittings agreed to come to Vermont and speak to the nascent group of lesbians who had formed themselves in to a lesbian rap group. She was my houseguest. I feel very lucky to have met one of the real pioneers of gay liberation.
When Hay started Mattachine it was a secret society. Gay bars were raided regularly. Just being there meant being arrested and jailed. The censure was too strong and the penalties too high for most people to come out. But when a Mattachine member was arrested, Harry Hay found a sympathetic lawyer who took the case and won it. Hay said they had never before heard anyone refer to homosexuals in a positive way as this lawyer did in arguing the case. It brought him to tears.
That success brought a large influx of members to Mattachine. Once the new members got their footing in the organization they decided to purge the organization of members with leftist sympathies. This was during the height of Macarthyism. So Harry Hay and his friends who had founded and nurtured Mattachine were booted out of their creation. It was a scenario that has been repeated in many groups since then. Those with the courage and radical vision to start such organizations are later tossed aside in hopes of more mainstream acceptance.
The movement we think of as starting with Stonewall is also in the context of the larger movements of that time: the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s Liberation movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. The Vietnam war was the first time large numbers of men refused the idea that the only way to be a man was to be a soldier, said make love not war. But it was gay liberation and women’s liberation that really challenged sex roles.
Since then the right has been trying to obliterate the social progress made in the 60s and 70s. For that matter, they are trying to undo the progressive era of the early part of the century and undo FDR’s New Deal and civil rights.
Justice for all is our theme this year. What does that mean to you? God bless America and nobody else as Chris Rock jokes. To me it means all... all in this movement, in this country, on this planet. We are far from that now.
Some, like [conservative gay commentator] Andrew Sullivan would have us dissolve our movement once we get a national anti discrimination bill. Sullivan gets more high-rent media space than any other gay man because he is so right wing.
I think we need this movement and a women’s movement and a peace movement and a global justice movement. Justice for all can certainly be translated as global justice. Can there be justice with war? I don’t think so. War means the rule of the most forceful – I refuse to say strongest. It means rule by the gun and the bomb and the lies and disinformation and psy-ops that are so vital to modern war. War requires rigid gender roles, the crushing of all that is deemed womanly, emotional and compassionate.
The bully who beats up sissies on the playground is acting to enforce two things. One is to prepare men to be fodder for the military. The second is to deep them from being homosexual. Man equals not-woman. The only time we hear straight men talk about loving each other is when they are in combat.
Well, those schoolyard bullies are in power now. It’s a rather strange cabal in the White House: social Darwinists who don’t believe in evolution, Christians who hate the poor. When you do the dirty work of going to war for oil and to give big contracts to your campaign donors, you need the shroud of patriotism and religion to cover your ass. Grab a flag and talk about God. Let Rick Santorum demonize homosexuals in the halls of Congress. Pretend the dangerous fundamentalists are all Muslim.
Remember before the weapons of mass distraction and the rush to war in Iraq, the papers were full of the corporate scandals created by the Bushies’ pals in Enron and other corporations. Most of this administration comes from the oil industry, and those industries now write the legislation they paid for with campaign donations. While we are distracted, the White house is attempting to dismantle Title IX, Roe v. Wade, affirmative action for people of color and women – and it uses homophobia to generate funds from its extreme right base.
And if you’re not a millionaire you’re being robbed of your pension fund, the public lands and the public airwaves. And it’s all done with the most macho possible style. It hypes hyper masculinity. Richard Goldstein, editor of the Village Voice and a long-time gay activist, says 10 years ago macho was camp; you thought of the Village People. The Right has concertedly worked to “make America a man again” to overcome the “Vietnam syndrome” – that is, people thinking war is a bad thing. And they want us to be consumers not citizens.
Mussolini said we shouldn’t call it fascism – we should call it corporatism because it is the joining of corporations and the government. And fascists are deadly to queers. We have that government now, and it is also the military industrial complex that Eisenhower, a military man and a Republican, warned us to avoid. Our president shows up in a flyboy suit contrary to the constitution that calls for a civilian president. What kinds of governments are led by macho guys in uniform? We usually call them fascist or banana republics. Well, Banana Republic is a corporation selling faux-military clothing. Perhaps they should be the tailor for the emperor with no clues.
In this crisis for democracy, I think it is vital that we remember our roots in the multiple movements that helped create our own. We need our own liberation movement because only we will stand up for our specific issues. We need to deal with racism, sexism, ageism in our group. But we also need to be part of a worldwide movement that continues to enlarge the meaning of Justice for All.
Peggy Luhrs is a long-time lesbian activist and organized the first Vermont Gay Pride rally and march; she lives in Burlington.