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Is this one big rotten apple?
Winter - 1997
The Fall/Winter cover of the Empire State Pride Agenda Newsletter boasts a letter from Mayor Giuliani describing his commitment to anti-discrimination and domestic partnership legislation. The New York Times recently published an article about how clergy from various denominations are blessing gay and lesbian unions in traditional ‘marriage’ settings. It seems like our community is entering a new era, yet some of us may not even walk home in our own neighborhoods without being beaten or even slashed. The hateful-heteromale-violence against us is real, and domestic partnership, bias crime bills, or tough talk are not going to stop it. A gay man lost his eye after being beaten with beer bottles in Chelsea, a gay man was stabbed on Christopher Street, where is our Mayor Giuliani now? Is he still writing letters to the Empire State Pride Agenda? Don’t they realize that this police department under this administration does not think there can be bias crimes against us? A gay man lost an eye to hateful-heteromale-violence and in disputing the bias crime status, the police explained that "when guys get angry they call each other faggots sometimes". So I ask, who needs domestic partnership? If we cannot hold hands when we walk down the street, what good is domestic partnership? Is domestic partnership the Mayors way of making the rise in bias crimes and police ignorance o.k.? Is this why certain Lesbian and Gay political groups love this Mayor?
It is time for all of you who voted for Mayor Giuliani to wake up. He recently stabbed labor in the back, he fails to make it safe for us to even walk down our own streets, and the issues he sees as top priority are jaywalkers, bicycles, and baseball. Where is the outrage?
I forgive all of your for voting for him, but now its time for you to help fix the mess you helped get us in. I don’t want to hear this Mayor is great on economics. What good is our money if we walk to the store in fear in order to spend it? I think some in our community has become so caught up in pleasing this Mayor that they are failing to protect our most basic rights. We already have the right to walk down our streets, yet that right is in jeopardy right here in New York City. There is plenty of blame to go around, but it is up to all of us to really do something instead of simply crying out for legislation. Where is our community policing? We need someone out there to create community policing against hateful-heteromale-violence, not pedestrians in the crosswalks! There are many people working very hard for our community that understand that the rights we already have are at stake, but it is time for the Giuliani lovers to see that this apple doesn’t just have a few bad seeds, it’s rotten.
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