say ‘illusion’ loud and clear, that the closet
means safety, that the closet stands for
privacy. In my opinion, the closet is noth-
ing but a prison. It forces you to hide from
who you are, and you can never be free as
long as you are hidden.

"Let me just talk a little bit about what
I see as the issue of the ‘90s. And I actually
speak in a broader sense here as an activist.
I mean, I don’t live in a lavender bubble.
I’m not only interested in lesbian and gay
politics.

"In my opinion, the issues that are
going to mobilize people in general in the
'90's are also at the core of the gay and
lesbian agenda, which is why we are going
to be at the forefront of what is happening
in the next twenty years in this country.

"Health care is going to be one of the
major issues of the next ten years. Clearly,
the infrastructure of militance, of organiz-
ing, and quite frankly, of knowledge of the
health care system that AIDS activists have
will put them at the forefront of that
struggle.

"I think the whole issue of family, of
reclaiming family in alternative ways, is a
very big agenda, whether it’s for seniors,
for disabled people, or for gay and lesbian

 I1 (from preceding page)

physical assault in the last year. One out of
every seven. And that doesn’t include hate
speech. I’m justtalking about gay-bashing.
It’s the fastest-growing hate crime in the
country.

"The struggles and the challenges and
the lessons that the gay and lesbian move-
ment has undergone over the last twenty
years place us in a particularly advanta-
geous position to help to identify and to
answer what activism is about. I'm an ac-
tivist—I happen to believe that we need a
lot of change in this country. But how you
go and do that has always been the issue.
How do you create some unity, some coher-
ence, some vision?

"Although we are different — queers
are different in some ways — we are also a
microcosm. We are men and women, we
are of all different ethnicities, we are rich
and we are poor. And within our movement
we’ve had to deal with that. We’ve had to
deal with how to build a cross-class, co-
gender, multi-cultural movement for social
change. The gay and lesbian movement has
been spending a lot of energy on that —- the
very issue of how you build a successful
movement for social change in this coun-

 

April 1991

 
   

developed, we’ve had to develop, such
courage, such fearlessness. We’re going to
have hundreds of phenomenal candidates
in the next ten years. The vision and indi-
vidual leadership that they will exhibit will
rally other people around.

"Public opinion is going our way too.
Homophobia is pretty intense, but the polls
show a yearly, chartable decrease in homo-
phobia, theright wing notwithstanding. We
are winning on the public opinion front.
This is important to realize because it feels
like we're still so oppressed. And we are.

" But in general things are moving at an
extraordinary rate. We’re talking about ten
percentage points a year. Fifty percent of
the people in this country still think that
homosexual sex between consenting adults
is immoral, but that is down. Is was about
eighty percent three years ago. So even on
the basic levels we’re moving. Seventy
percent of the American people believe we
should not be discriminated against. That is
phenomenal. It was only forty percent three
years ago.

"So, we’re making strides. It is that at-
mosphere, plus our own leadership, that
will propel us into the public arena."

people. Onthelegalfrontthere’salotabout . "I think we will
domestic partnership, there's a lot about be entering into elec-
extending legal benefits, the whole gay total politics in larger wa]te,1_ Zeichnen MA" N_c_¢_

marriage debate. So the whole issue of
exploding the myth of the nuclear family,
that’s our issue. There we are again in the
forefront.

"The third issue is really the issue in
it’s broadest sense — violence, whether it’s
domestic violence, whether it’s rape or
criminal assault on the streets, drug-related
violence, or whether it’s militarism. This is
an area that people are really concerned
about. One out of every seven gay men and
lesbians in this country has experienced

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numbers very soon. It
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pen. I think we're
going to seeawave of
it. I think that what
AIDS activism and
feminist lesbian or-
ganizing have done is
to generate an incred-
ible level of leader-
ship. Our time is com-
ing because we have

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17