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How far we have come
#45
James Wrote:We must conquer the hearts of one country at a time. It is unfortunate it must be this way but overcoming the restrictions of each religion would be to much all at once,.

I've been saying that since I came to GS. East and I had a conversation about that just a couple of weeks ago. The easiest way to change things is one person at a time.
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[MENTION=2456]James[/MENTION] ---- I have a friend here I've known for over 3 years who won't tell his age but I estimate he's close to 70. He has kept newspaper and magazine clippings from the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s and has TONS of VCR tapes of things from TV and some that didn't make it on TV that relate to gays when he was younger.

He and the guy he calls his first "lover' both had been married when they met and they both had custody of sons. They became one family down in South Florida just before Anita Bryant, her husband and Jerry Falwell started their war on gays. This friend of mine and his lover were in all that and did some ugly fighting to get back at the straight people who were leading the movement and then all sorts of other people who sympathized with Bryant and Falwell. They called it the Orange Juice war because Bryant was the spokesperson in all the advertising for Florida Orange Juice.

He's told me about that and it's amazing to me how organized gays were for that and they didn't even have the internet to communicate and coordinate. All they had was 'little black books" he says most gays kept with all the phone numbers of people they knew. From them they built up a nationwide network where guys in South Florida could make just a few phone calls to people who would make a few phone calls and so on and so on to get people in ALL the states to trash/destroy orange juice displays in grocery stores at about the same time. Bryant had to have bodyguards but two of them were gay and kept the network informed where she was going so gays could organize and screw her up anywhere she went.

All it took back then was for some scum bag politician or preacher to get headlines supporting Anita and the gay network went to work on them. They outed closeted ministers -- politicians, business men anyone who was down on gays. The ones they couldn't get gay info on they got other dirt -- like who they were screwing on the down low and letting wives and others find out through the grapevine. They caused loads of divorces and even had some businessmen fired. They really did some shitty things to people, like policemen, Bryant's husband, politicians, preachers, etc. He explained that the gay movement out of south Florida had one theme in everything they did that went like this we aren't in this to win anything. We're in this to make sure they lose everything.

And that's what they did. They destroyed Anita Bryant's career, not once, not twice but three times and stopped her from making a come back about 8-10 years ago. They set up her husband with some easy whores and found out who Anita was screwing on the side, got pictures and sent them to churches, newspapers and TV news. Naturally back then almost no newspapers or TV stations would run any of that. Her husband was the biggest radio DJ and concert organizer in South Florida. When the gays got through with him he and he and Anita were divorced, he was bankrupt, lost everything including his job and ended up as an after midnight host on a puny talk radio station. Anita married the guy she was cheating with and left Florida after she was fired from her job promoting Florida Orange Juice. She tried to start her singing career up in Nashville and flopped, then in Branson and flopped and then starting a theme park that never could get off the ground. THEN she was supposed to make a movie about her life and the gays who remembered her made sure that didn't happen.

They outed students and faculty at Falwell's university. They outed married men who worked in DC and even in the White House who were sneaking around with high priced escorts who were in the network. According to my friend here they even tracked down guys who had sex with one of Prez Nixon's son in laws in college and in the military. There were lots of writers and artists (gay and straight) in Key West who were connected with the drug trade back then who were also passing on info to the network about all the goody-goody people they knew who were sneaking around to get marijuana and cocaine.

Hearing about all this I had to wonder why gays weren't that way now. I asked him about it. He blames it on gays starting to get into mainstream politics rather than work within the gay network. Once that happened and the main battle with Anita was done -- gay people turned around and went back to life as normal and let the people involved in politics start handling everything. That's called co-opting. Now most gays my age don't give a shit about getting really involved in changing things other than getting out to do Gay Pride marches when they wake up in time and there's not a sale at Target.

I have met gay people my age who have never heard of Stonewall, Anita Bryant or Leonard Matlovich. Some of them think all gay equality started with Matthew Shepard being killed.

Maybe one day I ought to do a thread on some of the things I've been told about the ways things used to be back then, the suicides like James started this thread about -- or the ways gay people were turned in by family or co-workers, haled before judges who sent them to mental institutions where lots of them were given lobotomies, electric shock treatments and even castrated trying to cure them of being gay. Lesbians were even raped under medical supervision. That was the ugly side of the story when homosexuality was declared not to be a disease anymore. The hospitals had to find ways to release hundreds or thousands of gays without people noticing too much about it.
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Messages In This Thread
How far we have come - by James - 08-11-2009, 03:07 AM
How far we have come - by CurtCB - 08-11-2009, 06:11 AM
How far we have come - by Mark - 08-11-2009, 02:00 PM
How far we have come - by marshlander - 08-11-2009, 02:08 PM
How far we have come - by James - 08-29-2009, 01:10 AM
How far we have come - by James - 07-16-2010, 01:07 AM
How far we have come - by Laiikos - 08-11-2010, 11:06 PM
How far we have come - by Vikta - 08-14-2010, 09:16 AM
How far we have come - by Rychard the Lionheart - 09-26-2010, 12:24 PM
How far we have come - by James - 01-22-2011, 05:44 AM
How far we have come - by DarkDaisuke - 01-22-2011, 06:40 AM
How far we have come - by East - 01-22-2011, 07:59 AM
How far we have come - by fredv3b - 01-22-2011, 08:56 AM
How far we have come - by posterpicture - 01-22-2011, 10:07 AM
How far we have come - by fredv3b - 01-22-2011, 10:16 AM
How far we have come - by James - 01-27-2011, 12:32 AM
How far we have come - by toomuch45 - 01-27-2011, 12:56 AM
How far we have come - by James - 01-27-2011, 01:52 AM
How far we have come - by JoeyJoJo - 01-27-2011, 02:08 AM
How far we have come - by The Virgin - 01-27-2011, 04:51 AM
How far we have come - by James - 02-05-2011, 07:56 AM
How far we have come - by James - 02-07-2011, 02:23 AM
How far we have come - by fredv3b - 02-07-2011, 07:19 AM
How far we have come - by The Virgin - 02-07-2011, 08:29 AM
How far we have come - by James - 02-15-2011, 02:32 AM
How far we have come - by simon - 02-15-2011, 02:50 AM
How far we have come - by James - 02-15-2011, 03:06 AM
How far we have come - by Pseudo Rob - 02-15-2011, 09:19 AM
How far we have come - by marshlander - 02-15-2011, 01:56 PM
How far we have come - by James - 02-24-2011, 07:02 AM
How far we have come - by James - 03-05-2011, 03:17 AM
How far we have come - by toomuch45 - 03-05-2011, 03:21 AM
How far we have come - by jbrowder24 - 03-05-2011, 04:10 AM
How far we have come - by jbrowder24 - 03-05-2011, 04:31 AM
How far we have come - by James - 03-06-2011, 03:24 AM
How far we have come - by toomuch45 - 03-06-2011, 03:43 AM
How far we have come - by James - 04-26-2011, 02:13 AM
How far we have come - by interesting - 04-26-2011, 09:54 PM
How far we have come - by marcopolo1085 - 04-28-2011, 01:41 AM
How far we have come - by James - 04-29-2011, 01:30 AM
How far we have come - by princealbertofb - 04-29-2011, 01:01 PM
How far we have come - by James - 04-30-2011, 03:34 AM
How far we have come - by James - 05-06-2011, 02:36 AM
How far we have come - by James - 12-10-2014, 03:26 AM
How far we have come - by Virge - 12-10-2014, 06:41 AM
How far we have come - by James - 12-27-2014, 11:26 PM

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