To the Imports into NYC YES she is one of us!

We love Ms Koch he stills lives with his partner today!

I read it three times, the first time all the chronological stuff was so tedious and I kind of skimmed over it. Then I gave it another try. THEN I saw the movie, and read every detail with great interest. It was still tedious sort of but tolerable. I think it had to be an incredible “labor of love” because that kind of book had to be just an unfathomable amount of work.

Having said that, it is hard to imagine a big city Mayor being in the limelight all the time, being asked all kinds of questions of personal and political natures, it is kind of sad he can’t come to terms with this so late in his life.

Having been as generous with him as I can, I also want to point out that per Randy Shilt’s book (and I vaguely remember reading various newspaper & magazine articles that backed up a lot of what was in the book) NYC under Mayor Koch wouldn’t even cough up a tiny bit of money for an AIDS shelter in an abandoned school. That was only one thing in a long list; so don’t let him get away with saying NYC did all it could for people with AIDS. He didn’t. It’s shameful and THAT I will hold him accountable for.

I don’t know. I don’t think there is just one good side, I think he has a point as well. You shouldn’t care. I think both ‘you shouldn’t care’ and ‘yeah, I’m gay, so?’ are good arguments to make.

In this case, say there wasn’t such a huge issue made of the question like it’s something abnormal, or sensational, of important knowledge about a person, the kind of thing that warrants a tabloid cover, then it might make people look at someone differently than ‘that’s the gay guy’, and more at their whole personalities, ‘that’s the clever guy with the nice smile’. I think that’s positive too. In actuality, sexuality is only (should only be) really important when it concerns the person you want to be with, after all. More focus on all people as human beings (and treating them as such), less on the cause of conflict and assigning labels, would be the idea, I think.

…Your thoughts?

When he was the mayor; Koch totally ignored the developing AIDS epidemic in New York City, particularly in the beginning part of his administration (’81-’83) because he was afraid of lending credibility to rumors swirling around regarding the possibility that he might be homosexually inclined.

Although Koch and his cronies always claimed that the city acted as quickly and responsibly “as it could” it actually took the Mayor seven years into the epidemic just to issue “a preliminary plan” for housing assistance for people with AIDS.

Claiming that ‘the city is sparing no effort’ against AIDS, Mayor Koch created the Office of Gay and Lesbian Health Concerns in 1983. However there was never any AIDS agency or assistance created for drug users, not just neglecting drug addicts but entirely writing them off.