As we honor the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, a new problem is on the horizon — gay rights fraud! No, not the type the Obama administration is perpetrating, but the variant the Gs, Ls, Bs, and Ts are engaged in: lying about whether you were at Stonewall on Christopher Street four decades ago.
“There are a lot of people around today who say they were at the Stonewall riot, but they weren’t.” That’s San Francisco gay activist and writer Arthur Evans, who wasn’t at Stonewall, but was living in the Village at the time. “Stonewall has become a symbol, and everybody likes to identify with a symbol,” he says.
Just like how more people say they voted for Barack Obama than is actually possible.
We get it, older gays. You want to be able to say you were part of this special moment in our civil rights struggle. Well you weren’t! Admit it: You were enjoying a highball on the Upper East Side with your hetero friends.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Michael vdB
Oh lordie… does it matter? People identify with the symbol. I would see the down side if those same people that falsely say they were there were using it as a means of personal gain. Other then that….
marius
I was still mourning Judy Garland and in no mood to go out to clubs.
Quinn
This reminds me of a great line from Buffy.
“If every vampire who says he was at the Crucifixion was really there, it’d have been like bloody Woodstock!”
Joseph
“We get it, older gays” a bit snooty and condescending aren’t we? You young tweaking twit can only hope that you will be able to be one of us older gays one day.
osocubano
I was only 15 years old, and wasn’t even sure I was gay.
No way I could have been there.
Femder
What’s with the attitude of your last paragraph? Wishing older gays would shut up generally?
Not every older gay will have been at Stonewall. But a great many of them will have suffered and sacrificed in ways difficult to imagine today for “our civil rights struggle”.
“Our” – get it? Our civil rights struggle. Less condescension please. Less bitchiness. A little more respect.
Tim in SF
We get it, older gays. You want to be able to say you were part of this special moment in our civil rights struggle. Well you weren’t! Admit it:
Who is writing this crap at QUEERTY? Who on the QUEERTY staff thinks this last paragraph of the article was worth sharing with your audience?
This blog has gone rancid and stupid since Ja phy left. Every day it’s more resembling a gay gossip blog with the writing quality on par with Perez Hilton. The writing is not even as good as TMZ.
Who is editing this piece of crap blog?
alan brickman
Great article Queerty don’t listen to the haters!! !! If everyone who claims they were there were reallly there..New York would have tipped over!! This is so true!!! My favorite is the 38 year old acquaintance of my freind claiming he was there!! This happened in 1969 right?? Too bad they also skipped going to Sharon Tate’s that night….
homofied
Excuuuuuse me? Um, Stonewall is symbolic, and symbolism is important. But far more important were the millions of every day homo’s and their supporters who stood up for themselves all over America, from the 1940’s to the present day. Yes it took courage to stand up to the NYPD vice squad. Pictures were taken, legends were written. But the scope of heroism in the gay rights movement is not served by sniping around that symbol. It is served, as it has always been, by individuals who in the places they lived and worked stood up for themselves when they had something to lose by doing so. Today’s youth would do well to find out who those heroes were closer to their own hometowns. Find them and honor them, they would very much appreciate a thank you instead of a “screw you” from the likes of Queerty.
schlukitz
Has QUEERTY now gone ageist too? How about a little misogyny so that no one feels left out? This is how to get more hits on your website? Perez Hilton is beginning to pale by contrast!
Shakes head.
TANK
Yeah, shaddup your goddamn mouths, old gays!
Tim in SF
GET OFF MY LAWN
jim
@Femder: C’mon, Femder, we all know by now how it works here. They always put in their little zinger to pit us against each other to ensure lotsa hits to every page so they can brag about their “traffic” in the advertising pitches. That’s obviously what they care about here, not substantive content. And yet we fall prey to it…
tofer david
not for nothing, but i am wondering how many queerty readers were even in nyc at this time in history? just a wonder.
schlukitz
@jim:
BINGO!
schlukitz
@tofer david:
Yeah. There couldn’t have been than a couple of hundred people living in Mahattan back then, eh?
And most of them have probably all died off by now, don’tcha think?
Btw, was Christopher Street even a paved street way back then, or was it still just a path down to the Hudson River to water the cows?
Jerk!
Tony
Gurl, who wanna lie about that?? If you was there that mean you so old!!! Okaaaay. Now where is my Michelle Obama wig?
tofer david
@schlukitz: Sensitive? Alls I was wondering was how many 50+ year olds actually read Queerty. I would think and I could be perfectly wrong that most readers of Queerty are 20-30 somethings. I don’t know. I was wondering.
TO have been 16 years old in 1968 and that’s a liberal age to have been at the Stonewall would put one at 56 years old.
schlukitz
@tofer david:
Dang. Some people will go to any length to discredit other people. What’s in it for you and Queerty, anyway?
Quite a few 50+ year olds do, in fact, read Queety. Not all of us wear coke bottle bottoms for eyeglasses, have Alzheimers or watch TV in an assisted-living facility.
TO have been 16 years old in 1968 and that’s a liberal age to have been at the Stonewall would put one at 56 years old
As if that were such an impossibility? No one said I was 16 when I was at Stonewall. I am 72 years old going on 73.
I’m certain that you can work the arithmetic out on your cell phone calculator for yourself.
Sheeeez! Such persistence to make a point.
Btw…what is the point?
tofer david
God forbid anyone wonder. I was wondering how many people that might have actually been at Stonewall or claim to have been there read Queerty. And frankly I woud think that msot readers are in fact 20-30 somethings. Don’t be so damn sensitive. Clearly there are some people who are 70 here.
Tony
@ tofer david
“Alls” WTF is alls?
Just sayin’.
schlukitz
ROTF and LMAO@Tony:
That’s funny!
I’m not at all sensitive about my age. I consider myself most fortunate to have lived this long.
I mean, let’s face it. How many queers were fortunate enough to have made it to my age between booze, drugs, HIV and suicide?
Not an awful lot, I would think.
osocubano
Proud of every gray hair on my 55 year old head.
galefan2004
@osocubano: I wasn’t born yet.
galefan2004
@tofer david: Or how many were alive for that matter.
Tim in SF
I’ll be 40 in two weeks.
The ageism in this blog is so pronounced and acute, it makes me feel “too old” all the damn time.
Fuck Queerty. I really hate towleroad (white text on a black background is murder on the eyes) but it’s been looking better and better since Ja phy was fired from here.
schlukitz
@Tim in SF:
Imagine what it will feel like when you’re 72. 😉
Happy Birthday to you. May you have many happy returns of the day.
Tim in SF
Thank you Schlukitz.
I feel like I’m old because my husband is 25 and he rarely gets my 80’s pop-culture references.
At this rate, when I am 72, I imagine I will feel like someone from a alien culture or a lost civilization. 🙂 I hope I am lucky to live that long.
schlukitz
@Tim in SF:
My husband is going on 40 and that same problem exists between us as well. He often doesn’t get my 40’s and 50’s pop-culture reference.
But the, I enjoy explaining them to him. Makes me feel like a mentor. LOL
Believe me, if you keep an open mind and allow yourself to accept and absorb new information and ideas, you won’t feel like an alien when you are 72. Your body might get old, but your mind will still be young…and that is the well-kept secret of the fountain of youth. :o)
galefan2004
@Tim in SF: The ageism isn’t from this blog. It is from the gay community. This blog just reflects that. Also, your husband is 15 years younger than you and you are bitching about ageism?
@schlukitz: Yet another older guy that is with a younger guy. Didn’t you say you are in your 70s and yet you are with a dude turning 40. At least you aren’t the one bitching about ageism.
On a side note, am I the only guy in the entire gay community that won’t go more than 5 years on either side of the bracket when looking for a mate (and I normally prefer going older not younger).
Tim in SF
@galefan2004: @Tim in SF: The ageism isn’t from this blog. It is from the gay community.This blog just reflects that.
I think that really depends on who you are including when you say “gay community.” The gay community is certainly youth-oriented, sure, probably to a degree greater than the general popular culture (American popular culture, that is), which is youth-oriented. But ageist comments on a gay blog deserve to be called out, every single time and that’s what is at issue here.
Also, your husband is 15 years younger than you and you are bitching about ageism?
Your reply is replete with assumptions and non-sequiturs. You sound like a sadly average club twinkie who’s probably posting at work on your boss’s dime, arguing in teh sphere of politics and you probably feel all smart and righteous for doing so. Good for you, girl.
Stay golden, ponyboy.
On a side note, am I the only guy in the entire gay community that won’t go more than 5 years on either side of the bracket when looking for a mate (and I normally prefer going older not younger).
Ah.. that is HARDLY a side note. That’s your own ageism right there, for all to see. Not that I have a problem with it: you are allowed to invent whatever rules you want, placing any manner of constrictions on your love life. I hope you find it. Just don’t put your stupid rules on me and then judge me for not following your rules. That’s what the fucking Christians do.
Alex
@Quinn: That’s what I thought of too.
schlukitz
@galefan2004:
In the final analysis, everything is simply a matter of preferences or choices, like preferring vanilla to chocolate, wine to beer, a warm climate as opposed to a cold one, etc. etc. None of the choices are right or wrong. They just taste and feel good and that is all that should matter.
I have found that the older we get, the more willing we are to let go our our previous limitations and restrictions that have been, for the most part, placed there by others like our parents, ou school teachers, the church and social mores. Trying to fit our round buns into square metal pants, just because someone says we should do that is a tad uncomfortable for starters, and a lot stupid if one insists on it’s being right to do so.
Yes. I am proud to say that I am another older guy who is with a younger guy. You say it like it is a bad thing? I hear lots of judgement attached to that comment. That right there, should serve as proof adequate to anyone that ageism does, indeed, exist. The plain fact remains, however,that at my age, no one, in this country at least, is breaking my doors down to ask for my hand in marriage.
I consider myself damned lucky to have found a man half my age who looks up to and respect an older person, which is the custom in his country, not just with respect to a sexual relationship, but in all of the interpersonal family relationships as well. Old people in Asia are not carted off to old age homes to wither away in seclusion like worn-out and discarded pots and pans.
And this older/younger or younger/older attraction exists in the heterosexual world as well. You show me a str8 man who would not be sexually attracted to a woman half his age, and I will show you a man who needs Viagra. ;P
Were I to choose to live my life by your “five-year window on either side of the bracket”, I suspect that I would have been living alone from the time that I turned 30. At the age of 72, I have outlived two partners who were also younger than myself and both of whom brought much happiness in my life. Telling someone that they are wrong by sharing their life and happiness with someone simply because of a 15 year or even a 30 year difference in age, is as inappropriate as telling interracial couples that they are wrong for having married, or telling us gays that we are wrong for wanting to marry a person of the same sex.
Different strokes for different folks, as the adage goes. That’s why there are so many choices on the menu at the restaurant. It matters not what others think of your relationship(s). If they work and each person is gettign what they need in that relationship and it makes both of them happy, then can you give me a validreason why that relationship would be bad or wrong? What’s the reward of turning away the possibility of a few years of happiness as one approaches the end of one’s life by choosing to remain stoically dignified and alone until the end? Since I do believe in the afterlife or the concept of heaven, I think that would just be a tragic waste of life.
If you live to be as old as I (and I certainly wish you a long and happy, prosperous life), I would hope that the day would come when you can choose to live your life in any manner you wish and without judgement, as long as it hurts no one else. Just another way of saying live and let live.
That, I think, would be the greatest gift that life can give you. Go in peace.
schlukitz
Correction: “Since I do believe in the afterlife should read since I do NOT believe in the afterlife”