Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian

Link to: Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian.

David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz

God how I loved this Frank Rich column on Saturday.

Everything from his acknowledgment of the gaybashing at the Smithsonian, to his remembrance of the AIDS chapel at Grace Cathedral in San Fran – where I set a key scene in my novel Benedictionwhich reminds me of a terrible time that keeps scratching at that door of forgetting.

Just talking about Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz is practically a subversive act in the corporate America we find ourselves in these days. These are men who raged (and that might not even be strong enough a word) against the dying of the light.

I remember holding them in awe when they were alive – and so many more, the men and women of Act Up, those who fought against the indifference of another time. If they were alive today they’d be leading the marches down places like Wall Street, where the criminals in the towers would not dare to leave their offices.

Quick, lock the doors. We’re not safe.

If you’re reading this you’re a survivor of the age of AIDS. I’ve always felt compelled to honor those who didn’t, sometimes by doing something compelling and which never seems to measure up, or in the end, just by living every day.

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