is is the 23rd.Vermont Pride
N March. Some of you aren’t even -
that old and some of us were part of

starting that first pride in 1983. Looking
at where we’ve come from then I find a
mixed bag.

We have made a lot of progress.

We are visible as we were not
when this movement started: we have
won rights in many states.

In 1983 we hadn’t even heard of
Civil Unions but we knew we were going
to make Vermont understand we were
part of the citizenry.

We are now on television and
very visible. Young folks today do not
seem to feel their heterosexuality is
threatened by the existence of queers in
their midst. However for every step for-
ward the reactionary forces in this coun-
try work to push us back. For every state
going ahead with mar-
riage another is pass-
ing laws to prevent it.

Pat
Robertson has said we
are more of a threat

C than Al Qaeda or

Osama bin Laden.

And perhaps we are to the world
view of a Robertson or Falwell. We do
stand for everything they hate: a liberated
sexuality, freedom from enforced gender
roles, equality for women, relationships
based on love and pleasure not property
rights.

We also embody a spirit of
openness and free inquiry that fundamen-

The bullhorn was balky,
attendance didn't get to hear much of the now
traditional address to Pride by Peggy Luhrs,

one of the Vermont Pride ceIebration’s founders.

things including.their ignorance.
' They always oppress women.

They always hate homosexuals.

They believe there is only one
way, the way.of their religion. And all
others are infidels or going to hell, and
violence can be used against them with
the blessing of their Lord. Whether it is
Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu, the
religion of the fundamentalists seems to
be always the religion of a warlike, ego-
maniacal, misogynist patriarchy always
oppressing homosexuals and women to
shore up the authority of authoritarian
men. -
Charlotte Bunch has rightly said
the all fundamentalisms are vio1ence—pro—
ducing ideologies. And all fundamental-
ists are more alike than not, even if they
are mortal enemies.

and even those of us in

We received several requests to publish it and

talists would like to abolish for their
patriarchal certainty of father knows best
and gets to beat up anybody who dis-
agrees.

Those of us who pay attention to
history know that in times of upheaval,
scapegoats are created to take the brunt of
the population’s fear and hatred. In this
country, the religious right wing wants to
make us that scapegoat. They raise great
amounts of money by demonizing us and
blaming us for the ills of this country, ills
which are in reality the product of unfet-
tered and unethical capitalism and a patri-
archy that is always concerned with dis-
plays of dominance.

As early as 1980 during the
Lebanon hostage crisis, I photographed
graffitti in Los Angeles that said “Kill
Iranian Fags.” Obviously the writer was
ignorant of the fact that the Iranians were
in fact crucifying homosexuals. Or that he

and the fundamentalists in Iran and fun-

damentalists everywhere shared many

we’re glad to. oblige!

We refuse to be their scapegoats.
We know that we are the children, the
mothers, brothers, sisters of everybody in
this country. We will not go quietly. We’ll
be cheering with the QLA against the

I crypto-fascist regime.

We must now have courage in a
regime that means to rule and control by
fear.

A regime that thinks it can use
us to further its hideous agenda of perma-
nent war that so benefits the likes of
Halliburton and Bechtel and the political
fortunes of Bush and Co.

We have a role to play in decon-'
structing the militarism that has infected
this country with its manifestering destiny
since its inception as a Republic. We
more than any other group should recog-
nize the ways gender is used to produce
soldiers and sacrificing mothers and
wives of soldiers.

We can recognize that homopho-
bia makes you stupid. Part of the reason

 

given that our intelligence services did
not warn us about 9/ 11 was that we did
not have enough translators who spoke
Arabic and Farsi. Yet the military dis-
charged several translators, who did speak
those languages, because they were gay.

So in this dangerous time when
civil liberties are being taken away, when
the National Guard is spying on the
Raging Grannies, wait till they find out
about the raging trannies! In this time
when we are supposed to be ruled by fear
and when our community is so targeted, I
think of the folks at the Creating Change
Conference singing “queerer than ever,
queerer than ever.” ‘

Because if we are the antithesis
to the lying, murderous, war-profiteering,
tyrannical regime of hatred ruling the
U.S. at this moment then surely we are
doing something right.

And those who hate us, fight us,
work to keep us from having human
rights...well it seems they are secretly
attracted to us.

 
 
   
   
   

Here is Dr. Paul Cameron, who
in the 1980s called for quarantining gays
to prevent the spread of AIDS, and has
called for detention camps for gays and
for exterminating gays:

“Untrammeled homosexuality
can take over and destroy a social sys-
tem,” says Cameron. “If you isolate sexu-
ality as something solely for one’s own
personal amusement, and all you want is
the most satisfying orgasm you can get-
and that is what homosexuality seems to
be - then homosexuality seems too pow-
erful to resist. The evidence is that men ’
do a better job on men and women on
women, if all you are looking for is
orgasm.”

So powerful is the allure of gays,
Cameron believes, that if society
approves of gay people, more and more
heterosexuals will be inexorably drawn
into homosexuality.,“l’m convinced that
lesbians are particularly good seducers,”
says Cameron. “People in homosexuality
are incredibly evangelical,” he adds,