From the looks of his April 5 column in Dallas Voice, “Dressing up the elephant,” poor Hardy Haberman seems frustrated that we can’t return to the days of the Stonewall Rebellion and Harvey Milk, days when activism was a gay man’s civic duty.
Unfortunately for Haberman, most younger gay men today no longer feel a personal connection with Stonewall or Milk.
Gratitude, yes. Obligation, no.
This apparently angers Haberman. Otherwise, he wouldn’t appear so bitter when faced with a positive movement inside the Republican Party toward tolerance and acceptance, a movement that gay Republicans like myself have been working on for quite sometime while rage-blinded activists like Hardy threw stones.
The sadness is that for people like Haberman, being gay has become nothing except activism, agitation, argumentation, demonstration and character defamation. And when that’s all being gay means to you, finally being accepted by your former foes can leave you feeling awfully empty, and instead of being encouraged, you find yourself cross-armed in the corner pouting by yourself.
It’s no wonder Haberman wishes for us to huddle with him in that corner. It must be terribly lonely.
Russ Hargraves
Oak Cliff
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition April 12, 2013.
