"Our political enemies are of two kinds: those who want us not to exist and those who want us not to appear."
"Those who want us not to exist are the well-known, old-fashioned bigots, who would stamp us out, apply shock therapy or terroristic behavior modification, cordon us off and separate us from society, and ultimately try to kill us as the Nazis did. Fortunately these bigots are also a threat to many other segments of society and a number of tactical allies can be mobilized in the fight against them. Bigots are essentially bullies, and this bullying impulse seems to be exacerbated to the point of massacre by the lack of resistance. This suggests that the best response to them is probably a violent one: unchecked aggression seems to feed on itself and simply pick up velocity, like one of Lear’s rages. I suspect that when epithets are hurled at one in the street, it is best to shout epithets back: trying to ignore them with dignity or responding with overt fear seems only to intensify the hostility. Although I am open to correction on this, I have the feeling that the safest response to physical assault is fighting back; the bruises one may incur seem to me preferable to the corrosive rage that follows from helplessness, and I suspect they might avoid a truly dangerous stomping. In short, bullies become worse bullies when they are unchecked and the cost of resistance is probably worth it in the long run."
Well, a statement of a man, not of a boy. In times of handy fire arms it is probably more adviseable to carry a tear gas spray in a pocket.
"Those who want us not to appear are more subtle and probably more dangerous, since it is harder to mobilize tactical allies against them. This seemed to me the most significant aspect of the Anita Bryant phenomenon. By carefully explaining that she was only against overt gay behavior—the “flaunting” of our life-style and the consequent “recruitment”—she managed to seem reasonable to a large segment of the public; by disavowing any McCarthy-type witch hunt, she managed to avoid tripping the wire that would have sent large parts of the Jewish community of Miami onto red alert. The difficulty of countering these people successfully is rooted in the fact that we can pass, a characteristic that distinguishes us from other minority groups, and is further compounded by the fact that when you come right down to it everyone would be more comfortable if we remained in the closet except ourselves."
Nowadays even the catholic church has joined this camp of our sympathetic enemies, instead of bullying us directly. They take former homosexuals into their seminaries, but only homosexuals who have abandoned any identification with "homosexual lifestyle" - including watching "wrong" movies, listening "wrong" music and the like. The "Don't ask, don't tell" policy in the US-army is of the same category - it's ok to take shower with a gay soldier, but very disturbing to know that he is gay!
