At the ribbon-cutting of the John C. Anderson LGBT-friendly senior apartments Monday, former Gov. Ed Rendell, in a very warm-hearted way, called me a pain in the ass.
No, Ed, what I really am is a pushy Jew faggot (well, that’s what people used to say to put me down, but in reality I took it as a statement of just who I am). I am that pushy Jew faggot. But today, as the publisher of the nation’s most awarded newspaper for the LGBT community, as a member of Comcast Joint Diversity Council, as a board member of the Pennsylvania News Media Association, the Philadelphia International Airport Board and so much more, people can’t say that. So they just say I’m a pain in the ass.
But Ed was kind enough to add, “There has to be someone pushing to get the vision completed.” He’s right, and the proof of that was right in front of us in the audience. And as I looked in the audience, I saw my fellow pioneers, each of whom was at one time or another called pushy — some simply because they marched with a sign outside of Independence Hall each Fourth of July from 1965-69 with slogans like “Equality for homosexuals.” In 1965, that was pushy and brave. We had four of those brave men and women with us Monday for the ribbon-cutting. Please remember their names: Ada Bello, John James, William Kelly and Randy Wicker.
Then there were my fellow Gay Liberation Front and Gay Youth sisters and brothers. We sort of changed the direction of the LGBT struggle for equality in 1969. We were not asking for equality; we were in-your-face out LGBT people who were all about being pushy to create what is today known as the LGBT community. With us Monday were Jim Fouratt, Mark Horn, Michael Levery and Sue Silverman.
But the following day at lunch with my cousins, they told me stories of how what their cousin was doing in the ’60s and ’70s had affected their lives. My cousin Ilene explained that her husband was introduced to me when he saw me arrested on TV, and then he would tell his friends at work about his future cousin and they would be enlightened about LGBT issues. But it went even further. Cousin Ilene’s house soon became one where her children’s friends could be out. In the 1970s, there were few places for our LGBT youth. And, to the chagrin of her children, their friends coming to her house always got safe-sex information.
Many of us in the early LGBT struggle either lost the support of their families or they had little time for their families. I was the latter, and I’ve always felt a little guilty about it. Earlier this week, my nephew, who is like a son, wrote me an email that said just that. I’ll paraphrase: “While we always don’t have enough time, yesterday at the ceremony made me proud and I now know what I want to do.”
The wealth of family is almost too emotional for me to grasp. There’s my brothers and sisters from the past, my cousins, and then there is my new family, those living in the John C. Anderson senior apartments. Could anyone be more rich?
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].