Professional fearmongerer Larry Kramer is a gay/AIDS activist who started Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACTUP and wrote the play Normal Heart. After the November election that did not go the way he wanted it to go, he gave a speech called "The Tragedy of Today's Gays" in which he predicted the demise of all gay people under the Naziesque George Bush. Bitter bitter bitter.
Now he's published his speech into a book in hopes of spreading his venomous hatred everywhere. From what people tell me, he has always been a self-obsessed mad man whom GMHC evicted not long after he started the group.
I haven't read the whole thing, but of what I've read, it's typical elitist liberal nonsense. Just take this quote from his book: "I love gay people. I think we're better than other people. I really do." Better than other people. Right.
What's the saddest part about Kramer is how negative he is. In the speech he predicts doom and gloom and talks about how today's gay people are so fucked up. Like the crazed lunacy and sexual revolution of gays in the '70s was so much better.
Some genius quotes from Kramer's speech/book:
"I hope we all realize that, as of November 2nd, gay rights are officially dead." [You have to think he's kidding, but you know he really believes this bullshit.]
"This past week almost 60 million of our so-called "fellow" Americans voted against us. Indeed 23% of self-identified gay people voted against us, too. That one I can't figure." [By the 60 million, he means the number of people who voted for Bush. My parents voted for Bush and aren't against us, Larry. Get out. See the world past Greenwich Village.]
"The new Supreme Court, due any moment now, will erase us from the slate of everything possible in no time at all. Gay marriage? Forget it. Gay anything, forget it. Civil rights for gays? Equal protection for gays. Adoption rights? The only thing we are going to get from now on is years of increasing and escalating hate." [Huh. It's six months later. The Supreme Court hasn't changed and the courts have done nothing to attack our rights and, instead, have aimed to INCREASE them.]
"All Mary Cheyney is is a lesbian! Even her mother is hateful! That Cheney must be one fucked-up kid to stick around that family." [Fucked-up kid to lover her parents and stick by them? Not everyone hates people who disagree with them, Larry.]
"The AIDS service organizations are all about to collapse. No money. And the problem is too big to handle anymore." [Hasn't happened.]
"Since the very first day of this plague we have been given, almost as if by some cosmic intentionality, American leaders most assuredly wish us dead. There can no longer be any way to deny this fact. Each day brings more and more acts of hatred. Tell me it is not so." [It is not so. And it was not cosmic - you got it because of your choice to have unsafe sex.]
"And by the way, when are you going to realize that for the rest of your lives, probably for the rest of life on earth, you are never going to be able to have sex with another person without a condom! Never! ... Canadian scientists now warn that even partners who are both un-infected should practice safe sex." [Amazing the sexual freedom that a real, committed relationship offers.]
This nonsense goes on and on . . .
I hope the Larry Kramers of the world quietly go away. Their place in our movement is gone. They are doing more harm than good now. Just like many worker's unions and Affirmative Action, Kramer's usefulness disappeared years ago and now aims to undermine the work that people are doing on the inside of read battlegrounds (New York hasn't been a battleground in 25 years) like the Bible Belt or the military or sports.
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