It was this queer event that started the gay rights movement. A quarter of a century later, Stonewall 25 took place, celebrating two and a half decades of what many homosexuals regard as liberation. Unfortunately, as a direct consequence of experiencing liberation gay style, many of those who basked in the libertinism of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s never made it to Stonewall 25.
What happened during Stonewall’s silver jubilee in 1994 was more than unfortunate—it was one of the most obscene demonstrations of anti-Catholicism ever to take place in any American city. I personally observed much of what happened, and the pictures taken by a photographer I hired provide stunning evidence. 57
On the last Friday of June, Dignity held a vigil across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Dignity is comprised of renegade gay Catholics, but one would never know this by listening to “Father” Mallon and national president Marianne Duddy: they actually think of themselves as more Catholic than the pope.
James Mallon is a former member of the Institute of Charity, and he once worked in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He spoke at the evening vigil and, along with Ms. Duddy, placed a wreath on the steps of St. Patrick’s; it was done to symbolize all those who had died from AIDS. Both speakers had the same message: there are two churches in the Catholic religion, the hierarchical or institutional church and the “real” church. It was their goal, they said, to “take back the church.”
On Saturday they packed them in for a “High Mass” at St. Bartholomew’s. This is when the ironies really began. St. Bart’s is not a Catholic church—it’s Episcopalian. The priest who presided over this “Catholic” service was an Episcopalian, Reverend Ronald E. F. Hoskins. Given the massive exodus of Episcopalians from their church (precisely for reasons like this), it was no doubt the biggest crowd that Reverend Hoskins had seen in some time. Fit for the occasion, a man wearing earrings, a necklace, and short, tight leather pants greeted the crowd with a program of the liturgy.
The Prayer of the Faithful had much to comment on, including this gem: “For the institutional Church and especially its hierarchy, grant them at least a little more wisdom and a great deal of mirth.” Everyone was then asked to respond, “O God of laughter, our God, tickle them.” And then there was this plea: “For all women called to ordained ministry, that the keys of the kingdom may be theirs.” To which the crowd boomed, “Mother God, our God, send your Holy Spirit down upon them, that She may dwell with them.” Most inventive was the gay version of the Lord’s Prayer. It began, “Our Mother/Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
The biggest event of the week was supposed to be the Sunday parade up First Avenue, but it was trumped by another march up Fifth Avenue. The former was legal and well-behaved while the latter was illegal and vulgar. Both were lily-white, especially the illegal march, and both were clearly dominated by men.
Originally, there was only supposed to be one parade. But a rift between the organizers of the parade, most of whom were from out of town, and radical New York gays grew into a major divide. The initial organizers wanted the gay parade to be an international event, sending an appeal to every nation on earth that homosexuals deserve more rights. They chose to march up First Avenue because they wanted to process in front of the United Nations. But the New York militants weren’t interested in challenging the U.N.—they wanted to attack the Catholic Church. That is why they demanded a parade up Fifth Avenue, home of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Though they lost in court, represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union, they marched anyway.
Before the parade began, there was a huge police presence, most of them in front of the cathedral. St. Pat’s was under siege. So was the residence of Cardinal O’Connor. There were cops all over, waiting and watching. I nestled up close to the barrier, along with a sea of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender persons. The protesters were on their way.
Ironically, the cops kept telling us to stand away from the barriers. Here were police officers, all of whom were told not to arrest anyone except in cases of violence, telling me not to lean on the barrier while they patiently waited to watch an illegal march. The police commissioner showed up, casually dressed, securing a better spot than I did to watch the parade.
Finally, the illegal parade made its way to the cathedral, escorted—incredibly—by cops on scooters. The marchers were the strangest-looking people I had ever seen. There were men in white chiffon skirts doing pirouettes in the street. There were men (I think they were men) wearing red plaid skirts; others wore black platforms, blond wigs, and red lipstick. There were half-naked men wearing feathers and some who wore purple chiffon butterfly wings. Some simply wore their jockey shorts while others sported a preference for jockstraps. And dozens wore nothing but shoes. In a grand display of equality, there were dozens of bare-breasted lesbians (many of whom belonged to Dykes on Bikes) and some women who wore nothing at all.
My personal favorite was the guy who wore nothing but a jockstrap, with his entire body (face and head included) covered with what looked like paint. He was light green and was adorned with gold sparkles. My choice for the silver medal was the person whose hair and face (that is all I could see initially as my view was temporarily obstructed) looked exactly like a woman’s. But when I looked down at her body I noticed that she wasn’t wearing any clothes and then realized that that was no woman. The bronze went to the lesbians who had key rings, carnations, and the like hanging from their pierced nipples.
To get a sense of how the protesters behaved in front of St. Pat’s, consider first that a contingent from the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) marched. NAMBLA had been banned by the international parade on First Avenue but was welcomed by the ACT-UP terrorists on Fifth. The child molesters (their motto is “Eight is too late”) fit right in with the Radical Faeries, drag queens, and Leather Fetishists. What pulled them together more than anything was their hatred of the Catholic Church.
In front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the crowd stuck their middle fingers at the church and screamed—on command—a two-word obscenity. They said it over and over again. They laid down in the street. They chanted, “Confess, Confess, the Cardinal Wears a Dress.” The group Pagans and Witches did a witch dance. They dressed in scarlet robes as cardinals. They dressed as priests and nuns. They went nude. They masturbated in the street. And the cops, under orders, did nothing. I witnessed this live and have pictures to prove it. This was cultural nihilism gone off the deep end.
When a police captain was asked by a reporter why there were no arrests for parading in the nude, he said: “As long as they are peaceful and moving along, it’s okay. We don’t want another Stonewall.” Better still was the response of Lieutenant Raymond O’Donnell, a police spokesman. He said that he would “have to check the penal law” to see if public nudity was a crime. But no one beat Deputy Mayor Fran Reiter, who hailed the illegal march as “great.”
When Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked about this collapse of authority, he replied that it would be too difficult to arrest 6,000 people. He never explained why he bothered to get a court order barring the march. In short, what happened on June 26, 1994, was not just a gay victory. It was a big win for Catholic bashing.
When it came time for the Gay Pride Parade in 1995, I put pressure on Mayor Giuliani to speak out about the events of 1994 and take measures to see to it that Catholics were spared a repeat performance. 58
A couple of weeks before the Gay Pride Parade, I received a tip that the march was to begin at noon at 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue, just one block north of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. On June 8, I wrote to Mayor Giuliani expressing my concerns. I wanted the starting point of the parade to begin at a point below St. Patrick’s; I suggested 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue as a point of departure (the parade was going to head south to Greenwich Village). At first, he didn’t reply, but when I wouldn’t give up, he had to do something.
Giuliani did not meet with me but he did change his tune. One week before the parade, the best he could do was
label some of the behavior in the 1994 march as “inappropriate,” but by week’s end he had raised his objections to “reprehensible.” Indeed, Giuliani was now boasting that “Had I been there [on the street during the 1994 march], had I made the decision on the spot, I think these people should have been arrested.” As for the 1995 parade, he knew he had to do something, so he decided not to march with gays past St. Patrick’s but would join the march at 47th Street. This was similar to what the previous mayor, Ed Koch, had done. He said that he could not move the starting point of the parade because a police permit had already been granted.
I added to this pressure by contacting the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York State Attorney General’s office requesting that federal marshals and state officials be dispatched to the steps of St. Patrick’s, working the parade as observers. My point was that if lawlessness reigned and the police did nothing, then the role of the observers would be indispensable to the pursuit of justice in the courts. The mere fact that we made public our contact with these authorities was enough to stir the pot a bit more.
Four days before the parade, Mayor Giuliani held a press conference at City Hall explaining his position. When an NBC reporter called me requesting an interview at City Hall following Giuliani’s statement, I agreed to come. But he warned me to meet him on the steps of City Hall as he did not want to be responsible for the “press riot” that might take place if I stepped foot into the same room with Giuliani.
On the eve of the parade, Giuliani offered a remarkable plea to the gay community: “It probably is better to keep your clothes on. Then you are not going to get in an area of ambiguity.” 59 This was the best Catholics could get from a Catholic mayor who never stopped touting his law-and-order record. (By the way, nothing has changed since: in 2008, the registration packets that were sent to the Heritage of Pride organizers warned that “New York State has a law against public nudity below the waist and police enforce it.” 60 There is no other parade in New York where the organizers tell the participants that they have to keep their pants on when they march. Moreover, the police do not enforce the laws on nudity. As reported by the New York Times, after the 2008 parade “about eight nude dancers—men and women alike—gyrated in the front window” 61 of a diner with impunity.)
Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, warned that any arrests of topless women might encourage other women to bare their breasts. Similarly, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger said that the mere threat of arrest for going topless would tempt many women to take off their clothes. And all this was happening, so I was told by the press, because of me.
My favorite question came from Jane Furse of the New York Daily News. Furse told me that she had just spoken to a woman who was so irate at me that she was going to take off all of her clothes during the march. When asked to respond, I was dumbfounded: lots of people get angry at me, and many say some pretty mean things, but no woman has ever decided to walk around New York in the nude because she didn’t like what I had to say. I was too embarrassed to ask what she might do if I really got her angry. Another reporter asked me, “What would you say to those lesbians who are threatening to go topless?” “Keep your blouses buttoned and your bras on,” I replied. It was all so surreal.
On the day of the parade, 3,000 people jammed St. Patrick’s for Cardinal O’Connor’s Mass. As the faithful walked into the cathedral, they were given a pamphlet by Dignity; predictably, it blasted the Catholic League. Dignity was upset when I said, “To allow Catholic-bashing gays to begin a parade by St. Patrick’s Cathedral is tantamount to allowing the Klan to assemble near a Harlem Baptist church or the Nazis to start near a Jewish synagogue.” The gay group also carried anti-Catholic League signs during the parade.
At precisely noon on June 25, 1995, in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a police officer yelled into a bullhorn, “Anyone who takes off his clothes will be arrested.” It was time for the Gay Pride Parade to begin.
When the parade began, St. Patrick’s was sealed like a war zone. No one could get near it as the police barricaded the cathedral and the sidewalk across the street. All the usual suspects were there: drag queens, cross-dressers on Rollerblades, the Butch/Femme Society, the sadomacho brigade in black leather, Men of Discipline, and other lovely types. Commercialism was evident as about a third of the floats were sponsored by various gay bars and clubs. Though there were no signs indicating that the North American Man/Boy Love Association was there, they were listed in the program.
There were men dressed as women and bizarre-looking men on stilts. Hundreds of men wore nothing but jockstraps, shaking their bodies to the beat of the blaring rock music. Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis was one of the grand marshals, and pop singer Cyndi Lauper danced and sang her hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Strange-looking people were everywhere and often it was difficult to tell whether it was a man or a woman, and in some cases it appeared that it was both. And yes, some of the girls did bare their breasts (a few of them apparently spray painted their chests), but in all fairness it must be said that most of the girls managed to keep their clothes on. The police carried yellow blankets to cover the girls up but decided against using them. Following tradition, no one was arrested.
Most memorable was the same fat guy who showed up the year before dressed as the pope. He made it back, carrying a sign, MY CHURCH ORGAN IS BIGGER THAN YOURS. Then there was the car that passed by with a string of unrelated four-letter words and sexual terms on it. Some marchers wore shirts with various vulgarities inscribed on them. There were large pictures of men performing oral sex and there were several examples of men simulating oral sex live atop the floats.
The most flagrant anti-Catholicism came from Catholic Ladies for Choice. In this group, there were gay men and lesbians dressed as nuns carrying coat hangers and lesbians dressed as nuns carrying tambourines. Most incredible was the gay man who wore a black bra and a black jock strap with a habit on his head and a huge set of rosary beads around his otherwise naked body. There was also someone dressed as the pope with a banner that read, “The Catholic Church, a history of murder, lies, censorship, oppression and hypocrisy.”
And what did Mayor Giuliani have to say about all this? He called it a “very dignified parade.” Police Commissioner William Bratton agreed, saying that the march was “a very respectable parade, one that I think gays and lesbians could feel quite proud of.” 62
Following the 1995 parade, Bernadette Brady, vice president of the Catholic League, and I sat down with senior officials of the Giuliani administration to discuss what was going to be done about the 1996 parade. We made it plain that if nothing was done to curb the anti-Catholic bigotry, we would organize Catholics to rally against the event. What persuaded them to act was the set of photographs we showed them from the 1994 and 1995 parades. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Thanks to Fran Reiter, Paul Crotty, and Peter Powers—three of Giuliani’s most trusted aides—they intervened and successfully lobbied gay leaders to tame things down. While subsequent parades have not exactly been without incident, the worst excesses were eliminated.
Folsom Street Fair
What happened at San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair in 2007 easily matched what happened in New York City in the mid-1990s. To make matters worse, the Miller Brewing Company—the only national sponsor of the event—defiantly refused to pull its sponsorship or issue an adequate apology for the multifaceted outrages that took place. Until, that is, it was hit with a national boycott and a major public relations campaign advertising its delinquency (the Catholic League blanketed Milwaukee, Miller’s home). In the end, justice was done, but only after six weeks of relentless pressure.
In late September 2007, the Catholic League contacted the Miller Brewing Company asking it to withdraw sponsorship of the Folsom Street Fair. What concerned us was an ad for the September 30 gay/leather event depicting half-naked homosexuals at a table mimicking the Last Supper. The sadomasochistic theme fea
tured sex toys displayed on the table. Very quickly, Miller issued a statement ordering its logo removed from the ad. This might have been the end of the dispute except that I then learned that some of the monies being raised by the event were being funneled to the notoriously anti-Catholic group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Not only that, but the group was scheduled to hold a “Last Supper With the Sisters” days before the street fair; it was billed as a way “to prepare your mortal flesh for the kinkiest weekend on Earth” (its emphasis). Miller, to my surprise, was nonplussed.
On September 27, on behalf of the Catholic League, I called for a national boycott, announcing its commencement on Fox and Friends. The Catholic League then contacted more than 200 Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu organizations to join with us. The next day we mailed photos of previous Folsom Street Fair events to the 11 members of Miller’s Executive Committee; it showed the sickest behavior imaginable. On October 1, the San Francisco Chronicle, which adores events like these, reported that at the street fair “couples led each other up and down the street with dog collars and leashes, men in thong underwear played Twister.” There was also a man who was flogged to such an extent that “red lash marks covered his back.” Other gay men decided to “walk around naked” in front of women and children. In addition to the Sisters, a stripper was hoisted in a cage above a Catholic church on a Sunday (there was also a man dressed as Jesus in a cage). And still, Miller stood by the event.
We then sent pictures of the S&M event to Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan (now the Archbishop of New York) and to the 211 Catholic parishes in the archdiocese. The next week we hit all 166 Protestant churches in Milwaukee. Then we hit the Jewish synagogues and the Muslim mosques. By this time, the boycott had caught up to the anti-Miller PR campaign: Mike Setto, a Chaldean Catholic who owns a beer and wine store in Lake Orion, Michigan, got the ball rolling by organizing his fellow Chaldean Catholics to join him in refusing to stock Miller beer.
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