On Sunday night, I had an entrancing conversation about gay literature on Twitter. It was exciting to see, with more than 25 years of age between us, the different ways in which we viewed some of the same pieces of gay literature. But, it was a stark reminder of the passage of time, and of how much the world has changed for gay folks since I was born nearly 32 years ago.
Then, today, I read the exchange between Michael Petrelis and Frank Kameny.
Frank Kameny, front right, in the Oval Office this June.
To think of the difference between Kameny’s world, where he was fired from the federal government in 1957, to Petrelis’s world less than 30 years later when leading the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, better known as ACT UP, to the world of those equality activists of today, less than 30 years after AIDS first hit the gay community, engaged by an unexpected marriage equality loss in California is to see the truth behind King’s words that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
Below is a part of Kameny’s response to finding out — online — that Petrelis had been urging President Obama to award Kameny the Presidential Medal of Freedom:
I was deeply touched and complimented by your letter. Be assured that your respect for me, as manifested in the letter, is very much mutual and reciprocal.
. . . .
Who would ever have expected, when I was nastily fired in 1957, that in 2009, the very government itself would apologize to me for what they had done. We really have moved ahead.
How are you? I’m surviving, although very much feeling my years, and more and more conscious that I’m 84 and not 24 — or 34, 44, or even 74 — any more. While my general health is OK, I’ve become extremely inefficient, I don’t get things done as I once did, and my energy, stamina, and endurance are much reduced.
I keep hearing about you from time to time. Apparently you’re still active and effective out there. Keep up the good work.
We may have heaps of criticism to throw at our LGBT leaders as the world progresses, but exchanges like these remind me that most debates truly are about strategy and tactics — and the personal attacks are, at the end of the day, almost always unwarranted.
Thanks, from me, go out to both Kameny and Petrelis for their work — done at times far more difficult and even deadly than those in which we live today.
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Chris Geidner is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who writes at Law Dork, is the senior political writer at Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications. An extended biography can be found