Subject: Gay Activist Resume From: Tom Keske Date: 1998/01/23 Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality GAY ACTIVIST RESUME It is a bit strange to talk so much on newsgroups, without ever giving each other proper introductions. When you assess the credibility of an author, its nice to know something about the author's background and credentials, and where the author gets his or her perspective. A couple more motives: everyone likes to think that they are helping the gay cause. Probably we ask ourselves sometimes whether we are really doing enough. Martin Luther King once observed that what you get out of a movement is in proportion to what you put into it. Its nice to go to Pride parades, but how do we stack up against the efforts ever put in by other civil rights activists: how long have you ever been in jail as a prisoner of conscience? Risked your career? Braved bullets and angry mobs? Therefore, I think it would be interesting for newsgroup regulars to tell us more about their background, and share their visions as to what they think improves our world. I'll start, but it would be interesting to compare notes and experiences with everyone. * Coming out: came out in college, in Cleveland, in the early 70s, just after discovering that a gay community even existed for me to come out into. There wasn't a word for being "out" that I recall, but it seemed like the thing to do, so I wore a "lambda" button for the Gay Activist Alliance around campus. GAA was a group that formed just after Stonewall- the birth of the movement. I co-wrote a Letter-to-the-Editor with my lover, to the Plain Dealer, criticizing an anti-gay show, which caused the Cleveland Public Library to ask my lover to resign his job as a page boy. We used our home phone as a hot line for the GAA. We once sheltered a gay youth who was kicked out by parents. We did speaking engagements for GAA at college, high school, and nursing classes. * Civil Disobedience got arrested at the Supreme Court civil disobedience at the first March on Washington (slept on bare springs). got arrested at a nonviolent sit-in outside Jesse Helms' office in Raleigh, North Carolina. Two other North Carolina activists joined (there were supposed to be more, but they backed out). Got a large picture in the Triangle News-Observer Following the advice of Martin Luther King, I left a $50 fine unpaid after another nonviolent sit-in at a Federal building in Boston. I was handcuffed by federal marshals at my place of employment and led away, as all my co-workers lined up at the window watching, some women crying. I was afraid that this would destroy my career, but I managed to hang on. * Hunger Strike Used a two-week vacation to go on a hunger strike in front of the Massachusetts State House, trying to force a graveyard committee to free the gay civil rights bill. My career again suffered seriously, because this was not an opportune time to take a vacation. However, the bill had been killed for over 15 years straight, and the committee was doing what it had done before- failing to release the bill, making us start from ground zero again in the next legislative year. I tried to get other groups to participate, but none did. I was pelted with eggs and threatened with shooting, a number of times. I had people yelling at me that "Gays have no rights", "I hope you starve", "I hope you die", "I wouldn't stay there with that sign if I were you." A couple small papers, Brockton Enterprise, Patriot Ledger, Randolph Mariner ran articles on the protest. The Boston Globe took a picture, but never printed anything. A state legislator eventually stopped by and told me that the protest was lending moral weight to the cause. At the end of two weeks, I left but vowed to return if the bill stayed bottled up. At the start of the next week, it finally made it out of the committee, and Massachusetts became the second state in the nation to pass a gay rights bill. * Sodomy Protests After Bowers-vs-Hardwick, I tried to persuade gay groups to engage in mass civil disobedience protests, with little success. I tried to launch my own protest, with some initial help from a lesbian lawyer who worked for NGLTF, and some activists from North Carolina, which was one of the locations on my list, the others being Georgia, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia. The Carolina activists eventually ran into flak with some members who thought it was too provocative, especially with a "Yankee" involved. I proceeded with a couple activists helping, but being the only one to attempt getting arrested. We sent photos of token sex law violations in all locations (nothing unsafe), to police with notarized confessions, urging arrest. I also wrote to Senator Helms, urging him to use his influence to secure an arrest, since he had stated that he thought the laws should be enforced. He wrote back, making the dubious claim that he cared about AIDS. I intended to hunger-strike if arrested. In some of these areas, sodomy was a felony punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison. Sometimes, the laws had been enforced in the past. However, none of locations took action, probably sensing that the protest would make them look bad. My lover was so upset over the uncertainty put into our lives by my continual protests, that he nearly left me. This was probably the most difficult thing of all. Being unable to get arrested, I spent thousands of dollars placing a paid political message the Washington Post, to protest the Supreme Court decision. * Corporate policies came out to a new supervisor, with a number of other gays where I work (a conservative Fortune 500 company), trying to get them to add sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policy. We did eventually win this goal. I also worked with HR to get a gay-positive educational article placed in a company newsletter. * St. Patrick's March I got involved in the St. Patrick's day issue, once holding one end of the GLIB banner during a Cambridge march. After the city of Boston failed to sponsor its own, alternative, inclusive march, I tried to get GLIB interested in protesting, as in New York, but did not make progress. Against the advice of a friend in GLIB who told me that there would be trouble if I tried to go to South Boston, I went anyway, the first year after the decision, to hold a protest sign (no trouble). I do believe that we still should make our presence felt as a group activity, forever, until Boston comes up with an alternate march and sponsor, as in Cambridge. I have of course marched in many marches, and donated thousands of dollars to a wide variety of gay, AIDS, and other causes, but the above is my vision for the kinds of things that the gay community should most be doing to make the world a better place for our kind. Tom Keske Boston, Mass. -----finis (end of document)